Learning disabilities, strategies for protection of the self and parental participation amongst adolescents
The aim of this research is to analyse the relations between academic factors (academic average of young people and grade retention), self-esteem (global and academic), strategies of protection of the self and adolescents’ perception of parental participation. Considering the multidimensional nature of self-esteem, we suppose that school factors will influence the academic self-esteem of young people. Then, referring to the self-enhancement theory (Leary, 2007), we suppose that adolescents will act in order to preserve or enhance self-esteem. We examine, in this sense, two strategies of self-protection: academic disengagement and auto-handicapping. We suppose that young people’s perception of parental participation will moderate the use of those strategies. We focus on parent-adolescent communication as well as parental involvement in the pastimes of their children, based on a French validation of the tool of Deslandes (1995). Our results are organised on an investigation amongst 870 young people aged 14 to17. It underlines the importance that parents can have mainly through the parent-adolescent communication concerning the adoption by the child of strategies suited to school expectations. Therefore, this research shows the interest of a partnership between school and family.