The Relation among Parental Factors and Achievement of African American Urban Youth

Research has repeatedly suggested that SES is a major factor in diminishing academic achievement of African American urban youth; however, there are other factors also influencing children’s achievement. In an effort to examine how other factors contribute to academic achievement, this study, investigated a subsample of 60 low-resource middle school parents and students (41 boys and 19 girls). Several questions addressed the relation of SES to achievement, support, social support and mother’s well-being, respectively. Additionally, the relations between mother’s well-being, and students’ perceived monitoring by their parents, and negative learning attitudes were examined as were the perception of parental monitoring and academic achievement, negative learning attitudes and achievement. The results revealed a significant relation between perceived social support and mother’s well-being but in a negative direction. Parents reporting lower levels of well-being reported higher levels of social support. The results also revealed that youth who perceived their parents to monitor their activities more had higher levels of achievement. These findings illustrate the importance of the perceptions of adolescents as well as the potential role of parental monitoring on adolescents’ academic achievement. Although several factors were examined, only those factors with significant relationships will be discussed