Perspective Matters: Concordance in Parental Academic Socialization in Black Parent-Adolescent Dyads

Abstract

Parental academic socialization (PAS) is the collection of academic messages, school-related parent-child interactions, and parenting behaviors (N. E. Hill & Tyson, 2009) parents use to convey their academic values, beliefs, expectations, and assessment of their child's academic performance. When parents speak with their child frequently about school and learning experiences, that child has greater motivation, engagement, and achievement outcomes (Finn, 1993). However, research has just begun to capture the content of these conversations (i.e., PAS) and their effects on achievement and motivation. The dissertation investigated the impact of four PAS messages (i.e., effort, balance, pressure, and shame) on Black adolescents’ outcomes of psychological well-being, persistence in classroom tasks, preparation for academic tasks, grade point average, and student competence. The research examines parent-adolescent PAS concordance, and relations between PAS and adolescent academic motivation, performance, and engagement.

The data utilized were a subset of survey data collected annually between 2010 and 2014 from 308 Black adolescents in grades six to twelve, one of their parents, and a major subject teacher from three suburban Midwestern school districts. Parents and adolescents reported on the occurrence of four PAS messages (i.e., effort, balance, pressure, and shame) using a modified version of the Education Socialization Scale (ESS, Bempechat et al., 1999). Parents (P), adolescents (A), and teachers (T) reported adolescent outcomes of psychological well-being (A), academic persistence (A, T), grade point average (A), preparation for academic tasks (A, P), and student academic competence (T).

In an examination of PAS concordance between parents and adolescents, the current study found more agreement between parent-adolescent dyads than reported in previous research by employing a latent profile analysis (LPA) to assess relative, rather than absolute, agreement between socialization informants. In contrast to previous research, the current study demonstrated that parent-adolescent PAS concordance was not always associated with optimal adolescent outcomes. Outcomes were worse for adolescents whose parents reported much more pressure or shame messages than they did and better when parents reported many fewer pressure or shame messages than they did.

Both parent and adolescent PAS messages were directly linked to adolescent outcomes of interest. PAS messages of pressure and shame were negatively related to adolescent outcomes. PAS effort message findings were complex. Parent reports of effort messages were negatively related to outcomes. However, adolescent reports of effort messages were positively linked to well-being and persistence-A. Parents’ balance messages were unrelated to adolescent outcomes. However, adolescent reports of balance messages were positively related to well-being, persistence-A, and preparation and negatively related to persistence-T and student competence-T. Adolescent PAS reports mediated the relationship between parent reports and adolescent outcomes in most cases.

My findings suggest that is it important to examine the content of the PAS messages and their impact on achievement. My study unearthed complex findings that suggest that pressure and shame messages may compromise achievement while effort and balance messages have both positive and negative implications for adolescents’ psychological well-being and academic functioning. Thus, not all PAS has a positive impact on achievement.

These results suggest that both parent and adolescent PAS perspectives matter in unique ways to adolescent outcomes. Additionally, my work offers support for Eccles’ model of parental influences (Eccles, 2007) and expectancy value theory (Eccles & Harold, 1983) suggesting that parenting practices have both a direct and indirect influence on achievement outcomes via child socialization perspectives.