Abstract
Little attention has been paid to the role of peer social capital in the school context, especially as a predictor of adolescents’ academic outcomes. This study uses a nationally representative (N = 13,738, female = 51%), longitudinal sample and multilevel models to examine how peer networks impact educational achievement and attainment. Results reveal that, in addition to those factors typically associated with academic outcomes (e.g., school composition), two individual-level peer network measures, SES and heterogeneity, had significant effects. Although educational attainment was generally worse in low SES schools, for all ethnic groups higher attainment was associated with attending schools with higher concentrations of minority students. At the individual level, however, membership in integrated peer networks was negatively related to high school graduation for Asians, Latinos, and non-Hispanic whites, and to GPA for Asians and Latinos, as only African-American achievement increased in more racially/ethnically heterogeneous peer networks. Our results suggest that co-ethnic and co-racial peer friendship networks should not be viewed as obstacles to the educational accomplishments of today’s youth. In fact, in many cases the opposite was true, as results generally support the ethnic social capital hypothesis while providing little corroboration for oppositional culture theory. Results also suggest that co-racial and co-ethnic ties may mediate the negative effects of school choice, or more specifically of between-school socioeconomic segregation. Consequently, we conclude that school policies aimed at socioeconomic desegregation are likely to beneficially affect the academic outcomes of all race/ethnic groups.
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Acknowledgments
We appreciate the valuable comments of the editor, the peer reviewers, and Alfred DeMaris. This research was supported in part by the Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University which has core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD050959-01).
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Appendix
Appendix
Scale name | Questions | Cronbach’s alpha |
|---|---|---|
Parents’ educational expectations | How disappointed would your mother/father be: | 0.82 |
if you didn’t graduate from college? | ||
if you didn’t graduate from high school? | ||
Parents’ involvement | Done any of the following together with your parent(s): | 0.77 |
Gone shopping? | ||
Played a sport? | ||
Attended a religious service or related event? | ||
Talked about life? | ||
Talked about a date or party attended? | ||
Attended a movie, sports event, concert, play, or museum? | ||
Talked about a personal problem? | ||
Discussed grades or school work? | ||
Worked on a school project? | ||
Talked about other school activities? | ||
Parents’ supervision | A parent is present in the home most or all of the time when the adolescent: | 0.73 |
goes to school in the morning, | ||
comes home from school in the afternoon, | ||
goes to bed at night. |
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Goza, F., Ryabov, I. Adolescents’ Educational Outcomes: Racial and Ethnic Variations in Peer Network Importance. J Youth Adolescence 38, 1264–1279 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9418-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9418-8