The Effects of Parental and Peer Association on Adolescents’ College Graduation Outcomes: An HLM Approach

• In Event: 435 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Parental Involvement and Higher Education

Abstract

Using the first and fourth waves of the National Longitudinal Adolescent Health Survey (Add Health), this paper examines the association on later college outcomes from the attitudes and behavior of early peer-networks and family relations. Using hierarchical linear modeling, this paper accounts for school variation while regressing college graduation outcome on parental concern, adolescent peer college graduation expectations, peer GPA, respondent expectation, and respondent GPA. All five independent variables are statistically significant at the student level, as are school-level variables of mean parental education and mean college expectation. Interaction effects also show varying positive association with increasing probability of college graduation. The association was much stronger for peer college expectations than for respondent expectations, and the expectation of the peers matters less than behavior (GPA). Insight is also provided on the relative effects of school membership, in terms of mean parental education and the mean student expectation to graduate college in the school. This study provides support for the primacy of peer effects on student behavior and later educational outcomes, in addition to providing clarification on key interactions.
Keywords: college achievement, college expectations, peer influence, parental college expectation

Author

• Thomas Milton Maestas, University of New Mexico