Parental Differential Treatment With Math: Links to Adolescent Girls' Math Achievement Beliefs

110 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007.This cross-sectional study examined how parental differential treatment (PDT) in the academic context, particularly for gender-stereotyped domains of math and English relates to adolescent girls' achievement beliefs in these subjects. Participants included 124 female adolescents (mean age = 12 years), their siblings (mean age difference = 2.35 years) and parents, with individual surveys completed by each participant. Findings indicated that fathers' ability stereotypes are positively linked to their differential intrusive support with math. However, girls' achievement beliefs, particularly in math, are linked to mothers' differential intrusive support. Specifically, more intrusive support towards adolescent girls is linked to girls reporting lower ability perceptions, task-value and intrinsic value in math. Additionally, adolescent girls with younger siblings report lower intrinsic value for math when mothers engage in differential intrusive support towards target females. This occurred even after controlling for mothers' perceptions of adolescent girls' math ability. With respect to English, mothers' differential intrusive support relates only to girls' task-value beliefs. Findings reinforce the importance of parents' behaviors in stereotypic male domains, and how adolescent girls may be particularly sensitive to those behaviors within the family context.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD