Adding to the Education Debt: Depressive Symptoms Mediate the Association between Racial Discrimination and Academic Performance in African Americans

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• 作者：Devin English^a ; ^{de5@gwmail.gwu.edu" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Sharon F. Lambert^a ; Nicholas S. Ialongo^b
• 关键词：Racial discrimination ; Academic achievement ; African American ; Adolescent
• 刊名：Journal of School Psychology
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：August 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：57
• 期：Complete
• 页码：29-40
• 全文大小：765 K

文摘

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 (M_age = 12.5). Structural equation modeling revealed that experienced racial discrimination predicted increases in depressive symptoms 1 year 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.