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Educational Expectations in African American Families: Assessing the Importance of Immediate Performance Requirements

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Abstract

Prior research has shown that parents’ educational expectations contribute positively to several student academic outcomes, including grades in school, standardized test scores, and school completion. These expectations are typically conceptualized as long-term educational attainment beliefs, and consequently, it remains unclear how parents’ short-term expectations for performance (i.e., grades in school) impact their children’s academic success. It is conceivable, for example, that the greater immediacy and actionability of short-term performance expectations make them highly important to student achievement as well. Moreover, previous research on parents’ expectations of any type has rarely considered African American families specifically. In response, the present study uses hierarchical regression modeling with an intra-racially diverse longitudinal sample of African American families to examine the degree to which African American parents’ short- and long-term educational expectations simultaneously impact their children’s academic achievement. Results suggest that independent of prior performance and social background, African American parents’ short-term requirements for performance are more important to their children’s grades in school than are expectations for long-term attainment. This finding was likely obfuscated in prior research by a lack of simultaneous consideration of short- and long-term expectations, particularly in the African American family context. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

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  1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    James P. Huguley & Ming-Te Wang

  2. Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA

    Eric Kyere

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  1. James P. Huguley
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Huguley, J.P., Kyere, E. & Wang, MT. Educational Expectations in African American Families: Assessing the Importance of Immediate Performance Requirements. Race Soc Probl 10, 158–169 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-018-9229-1

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