Instrumental Competence, Self‐Efficacy, Linguistic Minorities, and Cultural Therapy: A Preliminary Attempt at Integration

Concepts centering on the self and its adaptations to academic success and failure are related to each other and to “cultural therapy.” Self‐efficacy, as drawn from recent work in academic psychology, and instrumental competence, as drawn from the Spindlers' model of instrumental relations are identified as similar, but with the latter stressing more the culturally required performance aspect and less the inner‐oriented self aspect. The adaptations of the Menominee Indians to the confrontation with mainstream culture are hypothesized as similar to those performed by linguistic minorities, as they strive for self‐esteem in unfavorable academic contexts.