GLOBAL JOURNAL OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 1 www.gjmedph.org Vol. 2, No. 5 2013 ISSN#- 2277-9604 A comparative study on self-esteem among tribal and non-tribal students in Udupi Taluk, Karnataka, India Uday Narayan Yadav * , Shradha Parsekar, Vidya Prabhu, Divya Sussan Patil, Sumit Kumar, Mannat Mohan Singh, Ravikant Singh, Poshan Thapa ABSTRACT Self esteem is defined as the positive or negative attitude about self, the degree of liking or satisfaction within self, and owns feeling of perceived worth as compared with others. Healthy self-esteem is important to be successful and happy throughout one’s life. The aim of this study was to compare the self esteem among tribal and non-tribal student in Udupi Taluk. A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in November 2012 in government school of Brahmavar, Udupi Taluk. Study participants were students of class eight, nine and ten. One school was randomly selected from the list of government schools in Brahmavar. The size of the sample was 76 which includes 38 from tribal category and 38 from general category and the sampling design was purposive sampling. Rosenberg’s scale was used to assess the self esteem of students. Questionnaires were self administered. Permission was taken from the principle of school. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 15. Results are reported as frequency and proportion. Independent t test was used to compare the self esteem of tribal and non tribal student. Study found that more than two third of the tribal student had low self esteem. There was statistically significant difference (p<0.001) in self esteem between tribal and non tribal students. Keywords: Self-esteem, Tribal and non-tribal, Rosenberg’s scale INTRODUCTION Tribal constitute 8.6% of total population of India whereas in Karnataka 6.6% of state population is tribal. 1 According to census 2001 Udupi district has 0.42 lakh scheduled tribe population. The largest scheduled tribe groups in Udupi are Koraga, Marati and Naikda. 2 Self esteem is defined as the positive or negative attitude about self, the degree of liking or satisfaction within self, and owns feeling of perceived worth as compared with others. Generally self esteem is referred as positive evaluation of one’s self in all respects. 3 Self-esteem is viewed as "a feeling of self- appreciation.” in field of psychology. 4 Maslow states that psychological health is not possible unless essential core of individual is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others or his/herself. 5 Research conducted in Indian context suggests that the main causes of low self esteem is discriminate on the basis of race and caste, comparison with others, physical appearance, financial and social position, negative experiences, poverty and punishments. 6,7,8,9 Self-esteem is strongly related to happiness but the research has not clearly established causation that high self-esteem does lead to greater happiness. Low GJMEDPH 2013; Vol. 2, issue 5 Department of Public Health Manipal University *Corresponding Author joriens_sm485@yahoo.com V.P.Nagar, First Main, Second Cross, Yasholaxmi House Manipal-576104, Karnataka, India Tel: 8792196928 Conflict of Interest—none Funding—none