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School Cultural Socialization and Academic Performance: Examining Ethnic‐Racial Identity Development as a Mediator Among African American Adolescents
Author(s) -
Del Toro Juan,
Wang MingTe
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13467
Subject(s) - socialization , ethnic group , extant taxon , psychology , identity (music) , academic achievement , developmental psychology , longitudinal study , social psychology , sociology , statistics , physics , mathematics , evolutionary biology , anthropology , acoustics , biology
Historic racial disparities in the United States have created an urgent need for evidence‐based strategies promoting African American students’ academic performance via school‐based ethnic‐racial socialization and identity development. However, the temporal order among socialization, identity, and academic performance remains unclear in extant literature. This longitudinal study examined whether school cultural socialization predicted 961 African American adolescents’ grade point averages through their ethnic‐racial identities (49.6% males; M age = 13.60; 91.9% qualified for free lunch). Results revealed that youth who perceived more school cultural socialization had better grades 1 and 2 years later. In addition, identity commitment (but not exploration) fully mediated these relations. Implications for how educators can help adolescents of color succeed in schools are discussed.