Gender-Differentiated Parenting and Gender Differences in Educational Attainment among African American Youth

• In Event: 2-132 - The Content, Context, and Consequences of Parental Socialization of Ethnic Minority Youth

Integrative Statement

Gender differences exist among African American adolescents in academic achievement with girls outperforming boys throughout the educational pipeline. These gender differences persist beyond secondary education with gender disparities in college enrollment and completion, as well as in graduate degrees (Conger & Long, 2013; Snyder & Dillow, 2007). One factor that could contribute to gender disparities is gender-differentiated parenting (i.e., differences in parenting based on child gender) which has been studied more extensively among European American families. Studies have documented parents treating African American early adolescents differently in terms of their monitoring, rule enforcement, and expectations in ways that are related to gender differences in test scores and grades (Mandara, Varner, & Richman, 2010; Varner & Mandara, 2014). Parental differential treatment has also been linked to risky behaviors among African American adolescents (Solmeyer & McHale, 2017). The current study explores if gender-differentiated parenting in early adolescence, a developmental period during which gender-differentiated parenting is theorized to increase according to the gender intensification hypothesis (Crouter, Manke, & McHale, 1995), is related to differences in later educational attainment.
Data from 681 African American adolescents (47% female, mean Wave 1 age = 12.29 years old) from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study were analyzed using Process Macro v. 3 (Hayes, 2018) in SPSS. Parenting behaviors, including monitoring, cognitive stimulation, warmth, conflict, and parental academic expectations, were tested as mediators of the relation between gender and educational attainment. The parenting behaviors were assessed in Wave 1 of the longitudinal study while adolescents were in 7th grade. Educational attainment was assessed 6 years later and was on a scale from 1 (did not complete high school) to 5 (completed 2 or more years of college). Covariates were family income, parental education, 7th grade math achievement test scores, and adolescents’ birth order. Before accounting for parenting behaviors, there was a significant gender difference in educational attainment (t = -4.02, p < .001). The model accounted for 47.99% of the variance in educational attainment. Girls reported higher levels of monitoring (b = .32, SE = .05, p < .001) than boys and primary caregivers reported less conflict (b = -.18, SE = .06, p < .001) and higher academic expectations (b = .16, SE = .05, p = .002) with girls relative to boys. Adolescent-parent conflict (b = -.11, SE = .04, p = .003) and parental academic expectations (b = .12, SE = .04, p = .006) both were significantly related to later educational attainment. After accounting for parenting behaviors, the direct effect of gender on educational attainment was not significant (b = .11, SE = .06, p = .055). There was a significant total indirect effect of gender on educational attainment (b = .05, SE = .02, 95% CI [.02, .10]). The results indicated that adolescent-parent conflict and parental academic expectations mediated the association between gender and educational attainment during the transition to adulthood. The study result suggest that gender-differentiated parenting in early adolescence has implications for educational attainment during the transition to adulthood.

Author

• Fatima varner, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author