Adolescents’ Resilience and Academic Achievement in Professional Schools and Parental Attitudes

Abstract

Parental attitudes represent a relevant research theme concerning the parent-children relationship with impact on individual development, as seen from multiple, recent research on children’s personal skills development and success. The present study focused on analysis of the relationships between parental attitudes, resilience and academic achievement of adolescents in professional or vocational schools. Quality of parenthood was addressed considering adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ affection and child-rearing practices. Several resilience resources and socio-demographic variables were analyzed. Participants included around three hundred Portuguese and African adolescents, between 14-23 years old (M= 17.84; SD=2.02), from professionalor vocational schools (7th-12th grades) in the center of Portugal. The majority were males (61.70%), from low socio-economic classes. For assessment, we used the Youth Perception Inventory-YPI (Streit, 1978; Portuguese version: Fleming, 1997), the Healthy Kids Resilience Assessment Module-HKRA (Constantine Benard, 2001; Portuguese version: Martins, 2005, Palma, 2010), school results (2011/2012) and a socio-demographic questionnaire. The data make interesting contributions regarding the impact of demographic aspects on the variables studied, showing differences resulting from nationality, gender, type of family and the father’s qualifications. Although no significant associations have been found between school results and parental attitudes or resilience, the data show some relationships between parental attitudes and resilience. The results suggest that, in general terms, the perception adolescents have of their parents’ affection (love/hostility) is related to their resilience resources, namely external resources and involvement at home and in the community, and can have a positive and adaptive influence on adolescents’ development in several fields, such as the social, academic and health dimensions.