Poster #72 - Childhood Economic Pressure and Education During the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood: Sources of Resilience

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Previous research has demonstrated that economic disadvantage experienced in youth can have deleterious effects on the development of children and adolescents, including negative impacts on educational attainment even many years later during the transition from adolescence to adulthood (Sirin, 2005). Adolescents who experienced childhood poverty are less likely to persist through high school graduation, and few go on graduate from 2-year or 4-year postsecondary education institutions as they transition into adulthood (McFarland, et al., 2017; Cosner Berzin & De Marco, 2010; APA, n.d.). Further, people of Mexican-origin are three times more likely to live in poverty (Do & Mancillas, 2006), and twice as likely to drop out of high school compared to their white counterparts (Krogstad, 2016). Thus, Mexican-origin children may be particularly vulnerable to the detrimental effect of economic disadvantage on later educational attainment. At the same time, the Mexican-American population is the second largest ethnic group in the United States, accounting for 11.2% of the population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). Thus, identifying factors that may act as sources of resilience and mediate or moderate the relationship between childhood economic disadvantage and educational attainment is crucial for this population.
Previous research and theory suggest that intrinsic and achievement motivation, are important predictors of educational outcomes (Meens, Bakx, Kilmstra, & Denissen, 2018; Wormington, Corpus, & Anderson, 2012; Carranza, You, Chhuon, & Hudley, 2009; Booth & Gerard, 2011). These intrapersonal characteristics are also influenced by family economic resources (Schultz, 1993). Thus, these characteristics may act as sources of resilience to the deleterious effects of economic pressure on educational attainment, which may be path out of poverty. The aim of this study is to examine whether these characteristics during the transition from adolescence to adulthood mediate and moderate the effect of childhood economic pressure on the youth’s educational attainment, as illustrated in Figure 1. Because previous research suggests that male and female youth may experience these processes differently, we also control for the effect of gender in our analyses. We test these ideas using data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families in Northern California. The current investigation uses data from 567 Mexican-origin youth (286 female, 281 male). Economic pressure was assessed when the youth averaged 16.79 years of age and includes measures of material needs being met, making ends meet, and economic cutbacks (Conger & Donellan, 2007). The youth’s intrinsic motivation, academic motivation, and educational attainment were assessed when the youth averaged 18.74 years of age. Correlational analysis confirms that all variables are significantly associated in the directions hypothesized. Regression, mediation, and moderation analyses were conducted using Hayes’ PROCESS macro in SPSS in order to elucidate the relationship between economic pressure and academic achievement, with intrinsic motivation and academic motivation examined as both mediators and moderators. The results of the analyses are largely consistent with the study’s hypotheses and suggest that intrinsic motivation and academic motivation are important sources of resilience to the impacts of childhood economic pressure on later education attainment during the transition to adulthood.

Authors

• Ali Joy Luempert, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Monica J. Martin, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Richard W. Robins, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author