Elsevier

Academic Pediatrics

Volume 17, Issue 6, August 2017, Pages 633-641
Academic Pediatrics

Behavioral Concerns and Mental Health
The Role of Social-Emotional and Social Network Factors in the Relationship Between Academic Achievement and Risky Behaviors

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2017.04.009Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

We examined whether standardized test scores and grades are related to risky behaviors among low-income minority adolescents and whether social networks and social-emotional factors explained those relationships.

Methods

We analyzed data from 929 high school students exposed by natural experiment to high- or low-performing academic environments in Los Angeles. We collected information on grade point average (GPA), substance use, sexual behaviors, participation in fights, and carrying a weapon from face-to-face interviews and obtained California math and English standardized test results. Logistic regression and mediation analyses were used to examine the relationship between achievement and risky behaviors.

Results

Better GPA and California standardized test scores were strongly associated with lower rates of substance use, high-risk sexual behaviors, and fighting. The unadjusted relative odds of monthly binge drinking was 0.72 (95% confidence interval, 0.56–0.93) for 1 SD increase in standardized test scores and 0.46 (95% confidence interval, 0.29–0.74) for GPA of B− or higher compared with C+ or lower. Most associations disappeared after controlling for social-emotional and social network factors. Averaged across the risky behaviors, mediation analysis revealed social-emotional factors accounted for 33% of the relationship between test scores and risky behaviors and 43% of the relationship between GPA with risky behaviors. Social network characteristics accounted for 31% and 38% of the relationship between behaviors with test scores and GPA, respectively. Demographic factors, parenting, and school characteristics were less important explanatory factors.

Conclusions

Social-emotional factors and social network characteristics were the strongest explanatory factors of the achievement-risky behavior relationship and might be important to understanding the relationship between academic achievement and risky behaviors.

Section snippets

Study Design and Sample

We analyzed data from the Reducing Health Inequities through Social and Educational Change (RISE) study, a natural experimental study of students who had applied to 1 or more high-performing public charter high schools in low-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles.24 We first identified 7 potential charter schools for the study that were in the top tertile of all California public high schools on the basis of the California 2009 Growth Academic Performance Index (API).25, 26 Of these schools, 3

Results

Table 1 shows the demographic, parental, and educational characteristics of our sample of 929 adolescents who participated in the RISE study. The sample was comprised of 84% Latino and 12.6% African American students with 38.6% being native English speakers. Just over half of students (50.7%) had at least 1 parent who had graduated from high school, whereas 91.7% of students 1 one or more parents working full time. A small number of students had performed at the level of proficient or above on

Discussion

Consistent with previous studies, our results indicate that lower rates of risky behaviors are very strongly linked to higher academic achievement.17, 38, 39, 40 Our study extends previous literature by investigating GPA as well as standardized test scores and by examining a wide range of risky behaviors related to substance use, sex, and violence. The association between risky behaviors with academic achievement was fairly consistent across behaviors and consistent when GPA or CST scores were

Acknowledgments

Financial disclosure: This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (PI: Wong; grant number RC2MD004770).

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    The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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