Blacks,self-esteem,and delinquency: It's time for a new approach

For decades, sociology and social psychology has debated the nature of self-esteem and its role in determining behavior. More recently, race has been added to the mixture, as social scientists have sought to explain black self-esteem and the involvement of black youth in delinquency. The article reviews a number of studies to explore the relative importance of race as an explanatory factory. Questions of the validity of prior measures of self-esteem are raised, especially where racial comparisons of self-esteem and delinquency were made. This article identifies various conceptual and methodological problems inherent to studies of race, self-esteem, and delinquency. In doing so, distinctions are made among personal and group identity measures of self-esteem in an effort to further the cause of research in this area.