Does Geographic Setting Alter the Roles of Academically Supportive Factors? African American Adolescents' Friendships, Math Self-concept, and Math Performance

Abstract

The study is one of few to examine how living in rural, suburban, or urban settings may alter factors supporting African Americans adolescents' math performance. The study examines the relationship of math self-concept and perceptions of friends' academic behaviors to African American students' math performance. Participants (N = 1,049) are African American adolescents from rural, suburban, and urban schools. Findings suggest that having higher academic perceptions of friends related to greater math self-concept, which then related positively to math performance for students in all settings. However, urban students had less gender stratification in both academic perceptions of friends and math self-concept. Findings highlight how academically supportive factors are present for African American adolescents in various levels of urbanization.Keywords: friends, African American, math, academic motivation, urban, ruralResearch and the popular press often highlight negative aspects of African American adolescents, such as underperforming on standardized tests (Lee, Grigg, & Dion, 2007) and the presence of academically detrimental friendships (e.g., Fordham & Ogbu, 1 986). Lesser research and popular media focuses on the roles of academically supportive factors for African American adolescents' scholastic performance. Prior work suggests that academic self-concept and friends can enhance African Americans' academic functioning. African Americans hold favorable academic selfconcept (Graham, 1994; Ryan & Ryan, 2005) and can perceive friendships as enabling academic performance (Azmitia & Cooper, 2001; Horvart & Lewis, 2003; Witherspoon, Speight, & Thomas, 1997). Friendships and academic self-concept often interrelate, such that friendships can affect academic self-concept (Marsh, 1986; Matthews, Zeidner, & Roberts, 2006). A strong line of empirical and theoretical research highlights the academic benefits of friendships and academic self-beliefs (Berndt, 1999; Berndt & Keefe, 1995; Bouchey & Harter, 2005; Kindermann, 1993, 2007; Patrick, 1997; Ryan, 2001).A growing number of African Americans have and continue to move away from urban areas. This trend is noted by both the popular press (Bilefsky, 201 1) and supported by U.S. Census data. In 2000, 36% of African Americans lived in suburban settings and another 12.5% in rural settings (McKinnon, 2003). Despite nearly half of all African Americans living outside large cities, urban settings are the location for much of the research on the relationship among African Americans' friendships, academic self-concept, and academic achievement (e.g., Benner & Graham, 2007; Eccles, Wong, & Peck, 2006; Estell, Farmer, Caims, & Cairns, 2002). There is reason to believe that the academically supportive roles of friendships and academic self-concept could have differential relationships to academic performance based on students' geographic setting. For example, people in rural areas tend to emphasize social relationships and connections with others to a greater extent than those in urban settings (Hektner, 1995; Howley, 2006; Rojewski, 1999). Other research shows urbanization differences also exist in the academic influence of peers (e.g., Hardre, Sullivan, & Crowson, 2009) and academic achievement (Provasnik et al., 2007).Little existing research considers how academically supportive factors may vary by African Americans' geographic location. This is despite the growth of African Americans in non -urban settings (McKinnon, 2003). Therefore, the present study examines how perceptions of friends' academic behaviors and academic self-concept might aid students' academic achievement, and whether such supportive factors differ among African Americans in different geographic settings.AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS, FRIENDSHIPS, AND ACADEMICSA single definition of friendships is not fully agreed upon in the literature, but most researchers agree that friendships involve peers who regularly interact with each other, share beliefs and information, and freely associate with each other in dyadic relationships or groups of peers (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006; Urberg, 1999). …