Gender matters, too: The influences of school racial discrimination and racial identity on academic engagement outcomes among African American adolescents.

Abstract

The authors examined relationships among racial identity, school-based racial discrimination experiences, and academic engagement outcomes for adolescent boys and girls in Grades 8 and 11 (n = 204 boys and n = 206 girls). The authors found gender differences in peer and classroom discrimination and in the impact of earlier and later discrimination experiences on academic outcomes. Racial centrality related positively to school performance and school importance attitudes for boys. Also, centrality moderated the relationship between discrimination and academic outcomes in ways that differed across gender. For boys, higher racial centrality related to diminished risk for lower school importance attitudes and grades from experiencing classroom discrimination relative to boys lower in centrality, and girls with higher centrality were protected against the negative impact of peer discrimination on school importance and academic self-concept. However, among lower race-central girls, peer discrimination related positively to academic self-concept. Finally, socioeconomic background moderated the relationship of discrimination with academic outcomes differently for girls and boys. The authors discuss the need to consider interactions of individual- and contextual-level factors in better understanding African American youths' academic and social development.

School Racial Climate and the Academic Achievement of African American High School Students: The Mediating Role of School Engagement

“…Previous research supports this assertion and indicates that adolescent youth perceive differential treatment from same-age peers (DuBois, Burk-Braxton, Swenson, Tevendale & Hardesty, 2002;Fisher et al, 2000;. Peer racial discrimination manifests in multiple ways, including intentional or overt social exclusion, teasing, hitting, and unfair treatment based on ethnic group membership (Brown & Bigler, 2005;Chavous et al, 2008;Greene et al, 2006;Rosenbloom & Way, 2004;Verkuyten & Steenhuis, 2005;. The ethnic and racial hierarchies that emerge in classroom-based sociometric research (Graham, Taylor, & Hudley, 1998;Verkuyten & Kinket, 2000), in which ethnic minorities tend to have lower status and are ascribed less favorable characteristics when rated by peers, also suggests that implicit negative group stereotypes operate within same age-peer groups.…”

“…Fisher and colleagues (2000) also found that 46% of African Americans youth reported that they were given a lower grade than they deserved because of their race or ethnicity. Research also provides evidence that African American students are more likely to be disciplined more harshly at school due to race (e.g., Chavous et al, 2008;Cogburn, Chavous & Griffin, 2011;Fisher et al, 2000;. In the same study, Fisher and colleagues (2000) found that when compared with students from other ethnic groups, African American students in particular felt that racial discrimination resulted in their wrongly being disciplined in school by teachers.…”

“…Not surprising then is that African American youths report racially biased treatment within the classroom. They are more likely, for instance, to contend with negative racial stereotypes and being perceived by teachers as less intelligent Chavous, Rivas-Drake, Smalls & Griffin & Cogburn, 2008;Fisher et al, 2000;Green et al, 2006;Marcus, Gross, Seefeldt, 1991;. In their sample of 177 high school youth, Fisher and colleagues (2000) noted that 32% of African Americans reported being discouraged from taking advanced level courses and being treated unfairly in comparison to 13% of the White youth in the sample.…”

“…Given that previous research has demonstrated the deleterious impact of racial-related stressors such as negative perceptions of racial fairness and discrimination experiences on academic-related outcomes (e.g., Chavous et al, 2008), it was expected that increased perceptions of teacher and peer discrimination would be negatively associated with grade point average, standardized test scores, and academic aspirations whereas decreased perceptions of racial fairness would be associated with decreased academic achievement.…”

“…A small but growing body of literature examining within-school racial discrimination experiences and academic adjustment among adolescent youth also indicate that racial discrimination undermines success in the academic domain (e.g., Fisher et al, 2000;Chavous et al, 2008;. In particular, adolescents who perceive more discrimination, compared with those who perceive less discrimination or none at all, have lower grades , lower academic self-concept (Eccles, Wong, & Peck, 2006) and less academic curiosity and persistence (Fisher et al, 2000).…”