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One important goal of education is to develop students' self-esteem which, in turn, hinges on their self-concept in the academic, physical, and social domains. Prior studies have shown that physical self-concept accounts for most of the variation in self-esteem, with academic and social self-concepts playing a much lesser role. As pressure toward perfection seems to be increasing in education, appearance, and social relationships (three aspects that relate to crucial developmental tasks of adolescence), the goal of the present field study was to examine whether former findings still hold true in the light of the changing societal context. A sample of 2,950 students from a broad range of German secondary schools (47% girls, age 10-19 years) responded to a recently validated German-language questionnaire assessing multiple self-concept facets (Weber and Freund, 2016). We examined which self-concept aspects predict selfesteem best and whether the pattern is comparable across genders and achievement levels using latent regression analyses. Results show that self-concept of appearance is still by far the strongest predictor (total sample: B = 0.77, SE = 0.02, p < 0.01) and that this is especially the case for girls and students from special educational schools. Other aspects play a much lesser role. The discussion explores why appearance is so neglected, compared to the more academic subjects, and what school can do to account for its vast importance for students' self-esteem.

We examined the development of pre‐service teachers' self‐efficacy beliefs and attitudes towards inclusive education through first teaching experiences during a 4‐week practicum. Additionally, we assessed the burnout‐related variables (job‐related satisfaction and exhaustion and perceived competence support during the practicum). Whereas t‐tests for paired samples showed that self‐efficacy increased significantly, attitudes remained the same except for a decrease regarding attitudes towards the effects of inclusive education. However, 97% of the pre‐service teachers in our study reported positive to neutral experiences with inclusive teaching during the teaching practicum and correlational analysis revealed a low, but significant positive relationship between positive experiences and self‐efficacy and attitudes. Moreover, multiple regression analyses showed that positive experiences in inclusive classrooms predicted self‐efficacy regarding the arrangements of inclusive education, while perceived competence support from university supervisors was a significant predictor of attitudes towards the effects of inclusive education. High self‐efficacy correlated significantly with satisfaction of career choice, whereas attitudes were significantly negatively correlated with exhaustion. The implications of these findings and the importance of a sufficiently scaffolded teaching practicum in order to increase attitudes and self‐efficacy beliefs towards inclusive education are discussed.

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