The Relative Effects of Married Versus Divorced Family Configuration and Socioeconomic Status on the Educational Achievement of African American Middle-Grade Students

Abstract

This article reports research examining the relative effects of parental marital status and socioeconomic status (SES) on the educational achievement of African American middle-grade students. Analyses of data from a nationally representative sample (NELS:88) reveal that at lower levels of SES, African American students from divorced households scored significantly higher on a standardized test measure. At the mean and higher levels of SES, no significant difference was found between students from divorced and married households on the test measure. The article concludes with discussion of the reasons behind these findings and the implications of the findings for public policy. INTRODUCTION Regardless of one's personal feeling about divorce, statistics clearly show that it has become popular. They also reveal that the trend toward rising divorce rates is not likely to be reversed in the near future. For example, Norton and Miller's (1992) research projects that 40% of first marriages will eventually end in divorce, while others argue that the dissolution rate is as high as 60% (Bumpass, 1990). Stratifying across race, African American couples have been found more than twice as likely as European American couples to divorce (Saluter, 1992). More recent research suggests that given current rates, as many as two-thirds of all recent African American marriages will end in divorce. By the age of 16, Baca Zinn and Eitzen (1996) maintain, two out of every three African American children, compared to only about one out of every three White children, will experience the dissolution of their parents' marriage. It is more than clear that these racial/ ethnic differences in divorce rates did not occur overnight. Morgan, McDaniel, Miller, and Preston's (1993) research found that even at the turn of the 20th century, African American households were less likely to be nuclear and more likely to be headed by women than were White households. Using census data, McDaniel (1994) compared contemporary African and White American household structures to those that were common during the slavery era and found significant similarities in family organization between the two time periods. After analyzing data from the 1960 through 1980 censuses, Wojtkiewicz (1993) concluded that the increasing number of female-headed African American families-the end-products of divorce, separation, and never marrying-was a factor contributing to the deepening economic inequality noted between Blacks and Whites. The reasons suggested for these differences in African and European American divorce rates are as plentiful as the statistics themselves. For example, Heaton and Jacobson (1994) considered a number of demographic variables and found that none of them satisfactorily explained the disparities noted. They subsequently conclude that the differences are attributable to differences in the ways Black and White families respond to various cultural and structural constraints. Crosbie-Burnett and Lewis's (1993) work focusing on racial differences, coping strategies, and divorce extols the pedi-focal coping strategies used by African American postdivorce families and suggests that these strategies might also be useful for European American postdivorce families. Other researchers, who conducted cultural-ecological analysis using data from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households, found that after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and other variables, African American single mothers reported having higher expectations for their children than did their White counterparts (Fine, McKenry, & Chung, 1992; McKenry & Fine, 1993). They further note that the Black single mothers in their sample also reported that their children had a higher quality of life than did White single mothers. Another interesting racial difference concerning divorce was reported by Glenn and Kramer (1987), who note that among their sample of four groups of adult children of divorce-White males, White females, Black males, and Black females-only White females showed statistically significant divorce-proneness as a result of divorce. …