LONELINESS OF HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS: THE RELATION OF SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS AND SELF-ESTEEM WITH LONELINESS

The research problem relates to the examination of the relationof socio-demographic characteristics (gender, level of education and the place where most of childhood was spent) and the self-esteem of the respondents with loneliness.In investigating this problem, the focus was primarily on the perception of the distribution of loneliness, and the examination of the relation of independent variables (socio-demographic characteristics and self-esteem) with the dependent variable (loneliness).The sample of respondents consists of 677 high school students (49.34%) and college students (50.66%) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The range of years of subjects ranges from 15 to 23 (AS = 18.696).The results of the study show that there is a statistically significant difference in loneliness with regard to gender (U = 38672.000, Z = -6.122, p = .000), to the level of education (U = 42292.500, Z = -5.905, p = .000) and the place in which the respondents spent most of their childhood (χ2 = 9.383, df = 2, sig = .009). The results show that there is a statistically significant relation between self-esteem and loneliness (ro = -.401, sig = .000, N = 676).