Poster #31 - Perceived Behavior Problems, Academic Engagement, and Black Students: The Role of School Racial Composition

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Within the school, Black students are overrepresented in disciplinary programs and have poorer academic engagement (Ladson-Billings, 2006). This is largely due to the over-monitoring and racial discrimination perpetrated by faculty and administrators (Wright et al., 2014). Black students are also overreported for having behavior problems in these contexts, for the same reasons. However, less is known about how the racial composition of the school longitudinally influences the relationship between these perceived behavioral (internalizing and externalizing) problems and academic engagement (behavioral engagement and approaches to learning).
Data from 2840 Black sixth grade students from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study were analyzed for this study. Teachers reported on perceptions of student internalizing and externalizing symptoms and student approaches to learning. Students reported on their behavioral engagement. School racial composition (% non-White) was assessed in each school. Parent-reported socioeconomic status and target child gender (Nfemale= 1375; Nmale= 1465) were covariates. Path analyses in Mplus 8.2 were conducted to determine the direct associations between sixth grade teacher-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms and eighth grade teacher-reported student approaches to learning and student-reported behavioral engagement were tested. Next, the direct associations between sixth grade school racial composition and eighth grade student approaches to learning and student behavioral engagement were assessed. Finally, the association of the interaction between sixth grade internalizing and externalizing symptoms and sixth grade school racial composition on eighth grade student approaches to learning and student behavioral engagement were tested.
There were multiple significant direct effects between the study variables. Sixth grade externalizing symptoms were associated with lower behavioral engagement (β = -.120 , p < .001) and approaches to learning (β = -.361 , p < .001) in eighth grade. Sixth grade internalizing symptoms were associated with fewer approaches to learning (β = -.117 , p < .001) in eighth grade. School racial composition did not significantly moderate the relationships between sixth grade internalizing and externalizing symptoms and eighth grade approaches to learning and behavioral engagement.
While there was no significant moderation by racial composition. Prior research has demonstrated that school racial composition does influence various school related outcomes of Black youth (Horsford, 2019). It also is associated with the visibility of Black students and their subsequent hyper-monitoring by staff. Further, as racial composition is not static, but often changes over time, more sophisticated methods of assessment are required to test how this relates to internalizing/externalizing symptoms and approaches to learning and behavioral engagement. Therefore, for the final project a series of latent growth curve models will be used to asses how changes in school racial composition over time (5th-8th grade) are related to these variables. It is hypothesized given that, given prior research and current study correlations (Table 1) changes in racial composition over time will predict 8th grade teachers’ perceptions of internalizing/externalizing behaviors among Black students. These behaviors will be directly associated with eighth grade approaches to learning and behavioral engagement.

Authors

• Lorraine Scott, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Kathleen Holloway