NCJ Number
204277
Journal
Youth & Society Volume: 35 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2004 Pages: 323-340
Date Published
March 2004
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This study examined the effects of psychological and parental factors on middle-class African-American adolescents’ academic performance.
Abstract
There is a scarcity of knowledge about middle-class African-American adolescents; most studies that focus on Black youth focus on low-income youth. Studies based on low-income African-American youth are not generalizable to the entire population of African-American youth, especially in terms of academic performance. In order to add to the research literature on middle-class African-American youth, individual-level variables and parental-level variables were analyzed for their effects on school achievement among a sample of 336 middle-class African-American students aged 12 to 19 years and their biological mothers. Individual-level variables included in the analysis were school engagement, educational expectations, and self-esteem. Parental-level factors included parent-adolescent relationship and parental educational values. Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD Health) database, which contains a sample of 80 high schools and 52 middle schools. Results of statistical analyses revealed that academic performance among middle-class African-American adolescents was significantly related to the individual-level variables of educational expectations and school engagement. Adolescents who had well-defined educational expectations and who were engaged in their learning, appeared to do well academically. At the parental-level, better academic performance was related to positive parent-adolescent relationships. Both self-esteem and parental educational values were unrelated to academic performance. The findings suggest that in order to improve educational outcomes among middle-class African-American adolescents, they need to receive guidance about their educational and occupational futures. This study is limited by its use of correlational analysis using cross-sectional data, which renders all results correlational in nature, rather than causal. Tables, references