Perception of prejudice and self-esteem among adolescents in a familiar context and in out-of-home care context

Abstract

This paper studies the relation between perception of prejudice and self-esteem in a group of 556 adolescent students, living with their families, compared to a group of 96 adolescents living in out-of-home care. The Brazilian Youth Questionnaire was employed, in which questions about perception of prejudice and self-esteem were asked to both groups. Univariate Analyses of Variance indicated significant differences between the two groups with respect to prejudice, as well as between genders with regards to self-esteem. The out-of-home care group showed a greater prejudice perception and the female participants in both groups showed lower self-esteem. It can be concluded that, although institutionalization may contribute to a greater perception of prejudice, this did not reflect in a significantly lower mean for self-esteem. This result indicates that these institutions may represent a place capable of, even temporarily, providing protection and conditions for a healthy development.