Parental Involvement and Low-Income African American Adolescents' Achievement

• In Event: The Role of Parents in Child and Adolescent Development

Abstract

This study uses two waves of data to evaluate whether parental involvement—parental responses to academic underachievement and cognitive stimulation in the home—are related to future academic achievement for low-income African-American adolescents. African-American mothers and adolescents (N = 226 dyads; 48% girls) were interviewed when adolescents were age 14 and again when adolescents were age 16. Path analysis showed that cognitive stimulation in the home, but not parental responses to grades, was related to changes in academic achievement from 14-16 years of age, when age 14 academic achievement was controlled. Mothers of girls reported higher mean levels of punitive responses to grades than mothers of boys but child sex did not moderate associations between parental involvement and academic achievement.

Authors

• Cecily R. Hardaway, University of Maryland - College Park

• Emma Sterrett-Hong, University of Louisville

• Natacha De Genna, University of Pittsburgh

• Marie Cornelius, University of Pittsburgh