Educational Expectations and School Achievement of Urban African American Children

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Abstract

The mechanisms used to convey parents' and teachers' educational expectations for the academic achievement of low-income African American children were explored using data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study. A total of 712 children were studied. A model of mediated effects was used to test the processes of influence from parents' and teachers' expectations to sixth-grade outcomes. Children's perceptions of expectations were hypothesized to mediate the effect of expectations to school outcomes. Study findings revealed that these perceptions only partially mediated the effects of expectations to sixth-grade reading and math outcomes, yet added unique independent variance to these outcomes. Prior achievement emerged as a powerful mediator of the effects of early educational intervention and sociodemographic variables to sixth-grade outcomes. These findings suggest a need to further investigate the processes of communicating parent and teacher expectations.

Section snippets

Parent Expectations

The link between parent expectations and school achievement has been examined, on the one hand, by researchers in the status attainment research tradition Entwisle & Webster 1974, Thompson, Alexander, & Entwisle 1988, and on the other hand, in studies of the family as a learning environment Marjoribanks 1984, Seginer 1983. Parent expectations have been defined along many dimensions such as short-term expectations for specific grades at the end of a marking period Entwisle and Hayduk 1978,

Teacher Expectations

Teachers' beliefs and expectations have also been linked with children's performance in school Good 1981, Smith 1980. In a meta-analysis of studies that combined research based on studies using diverse methods, Rosenthal and Rubin (1978) note that the size of the effect provides compelling evidence that teacher expectations influence student achievement. Teacher expectations may produce self-fulfilling prophecies by evoking students' performance levels that are consistent with those

Children's Perceptions of Parent and Teacher Expectations

Although study of the external factors that shape the educational outcomes of children is important, individuals themselves are not passive organisms (Bronfenbrenner, 1989). As children grow, they form ideas about their abilities that may shape their subsequent school performance Entwisle and Hayduk 1978, Rosenthal 1963. Research evidence indicates that not only high parent expectations, but children's perception of those expectations may be an important factor influencing children's school

Connections Between Educational Expectations and Academic Achievement

Although much of the research on parent and teacher influences on children's school achievement recognizes the role of educational expectations, the processes by which these expectations may affect children's performance remain an open question, especially for the African American children. Educational expectations may have little effect unless they are conveyed to the child. In recent years, a number of studies on the mainstream populations have hinted that a process model linking parent

The Research Context

This study was a part of the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS; Reynolds, Bezruczko, Mavrogenes, & Hagemann, 1994), a comprehensive investigation of school adjustment for 1,539 low-income, ethnic minority (95% African American and 5% Hispanic) children. These children attended government-funded kindergarten programs in Chicago Public Schools and fairly well represent inner-city children who are at multiple risk of school difficulties due to poverty and its associated factors (e.g., low parental

Descriptive Findings

Although there was some variation in parent expectations (M = 14.62, SD = 2.14, Table 1), about one third of parents (35.9%) expected their children to complete up to 16 years of education, which would be equivalent to graduating from college. Almost as many (32.6%) expected children to graduate from high school. Whereas 13.8% expected them to complete up to 18 years of college, the remaining (17.7%) expected their children to get some college education (up to 14 years). Teachers had average

Discussion

Testing a comprehensive model to examine the process of communication of parent and teacher expectations on sixth-grade reading and math achievement for African American children from low-income families yielded valuable information. Compared to parent expectations, teacher expectations emerged as a stronger predictor of sixth-grade reading and math outcomes in both the models. Teacher expectations mediated the effects of early educational intervention to sixth-grade outcomes even after

Acknowledgements

We thank the Department of Research, Assessment, and Quality Reviews and the Department of Early Childhood Education of the Chicago Public Schools for cooperation in data collection. We also thank Mavis Hagemann, Nikolaus Bezruczko, and the late Nancy Mavrogenes for their extensive contributions to the Chicago Longitudinal Study upon which the data are based. Support for this study came from, in part, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (#R29HD34294).

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