Poster #76 - Examining the Relative Importance of Academic Encouragement from Significant Others on Latino Adolescents’ Academic Indicators

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States, and California has the largest Latino population (Flores, 2017). Their dropout rate have decreased dramatically, and their graduation rates and college entrance rates have steadily increased; however, they still lag behind other ethnic and racial groups on various academic indicators (Gramlich, 2017). Educational resiliency perspective suggests protective processes for Latino students can come from various sources (Hess, 2000), such as academic support from parents, teachers, and friends (Alfaro et al., 2006; Plunkett et al., 2008). The purpose of this study was to use dominance analysis to examine the relative importance of academic encouragement from significant others (i.e., mothers, fathers, teachers, and friends) in relation to three academic indicators (academic engagement, educational expectations, and grades). Self-report survey data were collected from 1077 Latino students in 9 public schools in Los Angeles (54.1% girls, 13-18 years, mean age = 14.7 years, 74.4% ninth grade, 25.6% tenth grade, 15.5% first generation, 76.0% second generation, 8.4% third generation, 61.7% Mexican-origin, 19.9% Central American origin). The scales have been used in other studies with Latino adolescents. Grades came from school records at the end-of-the-year after data collection. For both boys and girls, bivariate correlations showed academic encouragement from significant others were significantly and positively related to academic engagement, educational expectations, and grades. Next, dominance analyses were conducted to examine the relative importance (i.e., the proportional contribution) of each predictor variable to R2 (Azen & Budescu, 2006). Specifically, dominance analysis determines the unique and partial joint variance contributed by mother, father, teachers, and friends across all possible subsets of the regression models (Tonidandel & LeBreton, 2011). The dominance analyses were conducted for Latino boys’ and girls’ reports of academic encouragement from significant others on each academic indicator. As shown in Table 1 and Figure 1, academic encouragement from teachers was most important for girls’ academic engagement, educational expectations, and grades. Latina 9th and 10th grade girls may have competing obligations at home that result in mixed messages from parents regarding the importance of academics (Plunkett et al., 2008; Smith, 2002; Stanton-Salazar, 2001), and thus, teachers may be especially important to Latinas’ academics. For boys, the results were not as consistent: (a) academic encouragement from mothers and friends was most important for their academic engagement, (b) encouragement from friends was most important for their educational expectations, and (c) encouragement from mothers and teachers were most important for grades. According to Stanton-Salazar (2001), emotional connections with key teachers are important in promoting educational resilience. For boys, it appears friends and mothers are especially important. It should be noted that for both boys and girls, each source of academic encouragement (including fathers) contributed to each of the academic indicators. Educators can support efforts by Latino mothers and fathers to encourage their children’s academics. They can also create opportunities for peers to encourage each other’s academics. And finally, teacher training programs and continuing education workshops can teach strategies of how to effectively provide academic encouragement to their students.

Authors

• Javari Akele Fairclough, California State University, Northridge
  Presenting Author

• Hector Nolasco, Oklahoma State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Scott Plunkett, CSU, Northridge
  Non-Presenting Author