Theoretical  

Framework

        To support this study, the researchers have used the

following: Theory of self-esteem, Theory of Attitude, and Theory

of Child Development and their Impact on Early Childhood Education

and Care.

According to Rosenberg (1965a),theory of self-esteem is one’s

positive or negative attitude toward oneself and one’s evaluation of

one’s own thoughts and feelings overall in relation to oneself. Self-

esteem is regarded as a personal psychological characteristic relating to

self-judgment based on one’s values about humans (Alesi et al., 2012).

Self-esteem implies an awareness of one’s value system and one’s

emotional evaluation of one’s self-worth (Schunk, 1985). High self-

esteem indicates a high level of social adjustment (Martin et al., 2014).

An individual with high self-esteem and an individual with low self-

esteem may respond similarly to positive input, but they could exhibit

different responses to negative input. Specifically, people with low self-

esteem tend to exhibit negative responses, while those with high self-

esteem tend to be less affected, as they are inclined to reject or restrict

the scope of negative feedback (Brown and Mankowski, 1993). Because

self-esteem affects an individual’s success in social adaptation, reduced

self-esteem can eventually lead to social maladjustment.

The relationship between low self-esteem and social adjustment could

create a vicious cycle that negatively affects the overall quality of life

(Konrad et al., 2012). In addition, self-esteem is a critical factor in

personal well-being because an individual’s self-esteem has a positive

relationship with their psychological health, social adjustment, and

quality of life (Boyd et al., 2014). Self-esteem has also been reported to

have a significant association with body image and has been used as a

criterion to confirm the validity of other measures (Alesi and Pepi,

2016). As such, self-esteem is important on both personal and social

axes in a social environment in which people live alongside others.

According to T.D. Olufemi (2012), theory of Attitude refers to

feelings, beliefs, and reactions of an individual towards an event,

phenomenon, objects or person. Attitudes are not innate attributes of

mankind. They are learnt, relatively stable but can be modified.

Attitudes could be implicit or explicit, conscious or unconscious,

rational or irrational; extraversion or introversion. Attitudes are

evaluations people make about objects, ideas, events or other people.

Attitudes can be positive or negative. Adewuyi, (2006), remarked that,

attitude is considered to be individualistic, an abstract entity and a kind

of intervening variable imposed in order to explain regularities

in behavioural responses. Yale University Communication Research

Program emphasized on three importance variables of attention,

comprehension and acceptance in learning new attitude. Wood and

Wood (1980), agreed that attitude has three components of cognitive,

affective or emotion and behavioral. The need to understand how

attitudes are formed and changed has recently been a major

preoccupation of the social psychologists. Wrightsman(1985) identified

five different theories of attitude change to include; stimulus-response

and reinforcement theories, social-judgement theory, consistency theory,

self-perception theory and functional theory. An adequate theory of

attitude change must be able to predict and explain cases in which

attitudes do not change as well as when it should be modified and it

does changed.
 According to Olivia N. Saracho (2021) theory of Child

Development and their Impact on Early Childhood Education and

Care use their research to generate philosophies on children’s

development. They organize and interpret data based on a scheme to

develop their theory. A theory refers to a systematic statement of

principles related to observed phenomena and their relationship to each

other. A theory of child development looks at the children’s growth and

behavior and interprets it. It suggests elements in the child’s genetic

makeup and the environmental conditions that influence development

and behavior and how these elements are related. Many developmental

theories offer insights about how the performance of individuals is

stimulated, sustained, directed, and encouraged. Psychologists have

established several developmental theories. Many different competing

theories exist, some dealing with only limited domains of development,

and are continuously revised. This article describes the developmental

theories and their founders who have had the greatest influence on the

fields of child development, early childhood education, and care. The

following sections discuss some influences on the individuals’

development, such as theories, theorists, theoretical conceptions, and

specific principles. It focuses on five theories that have had the most

impact: maturationist, constructivist, behavioral, psychoanalytic, and

ecological. Each theory offers interpretations on the meaning of

children’s development and behavior. Although the theories are

clustered collectively into schools of thought, they differ within each

school.