The structure of educational inequity: Adolescents' access to parent education through friendship networks and its impact on academic outcomes. Issue 1 (6th December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McDermott, Elana R.; Umaña‐Taylor, Adriana J.; Schaefer, David R.; Martinez‐Fuentes, Stefanie; Co, Lindsey; Ison, Ashley; Ryan, Allison M.; Rivas‐Drake, Deborah
• Is Part Of: Social development. Volume 31:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 27
• Page End: 51
• Publication Date: 2020-12-06
• Subjects: adolescence -- ethnicity‐race -- friends -- parent education -- social network; Child development -- Periodicals; Socialization -- Periodicals; 305.0791
• DOI: 10.1111/sode.12494
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0961-205X

Abstract

Abstract: Parents and friends are important influences on adolescents' academic outcomes. We examine whether and how adolescents' social networks compensate for or enhance the effects of their parents' education on academic outcomes. Among a large ethnoracially diverse sample of high school students in the Southwestern ( N = 2, 136) and Midwestern ( N = 1, 055) United States, results from network autocorrelation models showed that higher levels of mother and father education were related to greater academic self‐efficacy and engagement and higher aspirations, expectations, and grade point averages at both schools. Friends' parents' education levels were positively associated with adolescents' academic aspirations, expectations, and grade point averages across all of the models; higher levels of friends' parents' education were related to greater academic self‐efficacy across all models, except for mothers in the Southwest; and friends' fathers' education levels were positively related to adolescents' academic engagement for students in the Midwestern school only. There were no significant interaction effects between parents' and friends' parents' education levels in predicting academic outcomes. Differences in the distribution of parental education across ethnic‐racial groups shaped the implications of the model for adolescents' academic adjustment. Findings highlight the impact of educational opportunity across generations in shaping academic inequities.