József Nagy : Self, self-concept and education

Reviewing the foreign and Hungarian literature of the different trends in research on the „self”, the author integrates the knowledge of pedagogic importance into an unified perspective. First, a theoretical construct is outlined describing an outer network of the self and the concept of self, in¬cluding their relationship to the person, to personality and other inter related concepts. The author then describes the basic function of the self as the secondary regulation of the behaviour, which is carried out by the self-reflexive abilities (self-evaluation, self-assertion, self-protection, self-knowl¬edge, self-appraisal). He introduces the results of the research into the structure of the self-concept and brings them to a synthesis in a multi-dimensional hierarchic model. The paper gives a descrip¬tion of the major components which make up the global, the personal and the social self, and treats the basic self-motifs (self-attitudes, self-appraisals, self-dissonances, life-programmes) and their role in the functioning of the self. The author analyzes self-development and its main sources (direct, social and comparative self-reflexion), the processes of intellectual enrichment and hierarchization, the improvement of self-knowledge and self-motifs in terms of reality, and the devel¬opmental levels of the empirical, the ideational and the expository self-reflexion. Finally, he writes about the possibilities and tasks that supports self-development in pedagogy.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 94. Number 1-2. 3-26. (1994)

Address for correspondence: József Nagy, Department of Education, Attila József University, H–6722 Szeged, Petőfi sgt. 30–34.

 
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