Parenting Style and Black Adolescents’ Academic Achievement

Abstract

The relationships between maternal beliefs in control and responsiveness and adolescent academic achievement were examined by interviewing 59 Black mothers and female guardians of adolescents, ages 11 to 19, living in a northeastern small city or adjacent suburb and correlating their answers to year-end report cards of their adolescents. Demographic variables such as maternal education level and adolescent sex were also examined to determine whether they helped explain variation in adolescent grade point averages. The analyses revealed that higher maternal beliefs in control were significantly associated with lower grade point averages. No other statistically significant relationship was found in this sample between the other parenting and demographic variables and adolescent academic achievement. The results of this study are discussed in terms of factors that may mediate the relationship found.