Citation

English D, Lambert SF, Ialongo NS. J. Sch. Psychol. 2016; 57: 29-40.

Affiliation

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Society for the Study of School Psychology, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsp.2016.05.007

PMID

27425564

Abstract

Although the United States faces a seemingly intractable divide between white and African American academic performance, there remains a dearth of longitudinal research investigating factors that work to maintain this gap. The present study examined whether racial discrimination predicted the academic performance of African American students through its effect on depressive symptoms. Participants were a community sample of African American adolescents (N=495) attending urban public schools from grade 7 to grade 9 (Mage=12.5). Structural equation modeling revealed that experienced racial discrimination predicted increases in depressive symptoms 1year later, which, in turn, predicted decreases in academic performance the following year. These results suggest that racial discrimination continues to play a critical role in the academic performance of African American students and, as such, contributes to the maintenance of the race-based academic achievement gap in the United States.

Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en