Differences Between Black and White Students in the Effect of Parental Separation on School Grades

Abstract

Effects of parental separation on self-reported school grades are examined in a sample of 1,709 seventh and ninth grade public school students, 44.5 percent of whom are black. A significant statistical interaction between parental separation and race reveals a marked black/white difference in the effect of the timing of separation on grades. Only separation after the second grade has a significant negative effect on the white students, while only separation before kindergarten has a significant negative effect on the black students. It is tentatively concluded that the white students have been negatively affected by conflict between their parents and/or emotional trauma associated with separation, while the black students have been negatively affected mainly by structural weakness of the mother-only family as an economic unit and/or agency of socialization.