The Role of Cognitive Stimulation in the Home and Maternal Responses to Low Grades in Low-Income African American Adolescents’ Academic Achievement

Parental involvement in education has generally been shown to foster adolescent academic achievement, yet little is known about whether two important forms of parental involvement—how parents respond to academic underachievement and how parents provide cognitive stimulation in the home—are related to academic achievement for African American adolescents. This study uses two waves of data to evaluate whether these forms of parental involvement are related to future academic achievement for low-income African American adolescents and whether there are gender differences in these associations. African American mothers and adolescents (N = 226; 48% girls) were interviewed when adolescents were ages 14 and 16. Mothers of girls reported higher mean levels of punitive responses to grades than mothers of boys, but child gender did not moderate associations between parental involvement and academic achievement. Cognitive stimulation in the home was related to changes in academic achievement from 14 to 16 years of age, controlling for age 14 academic achievement. This study provides evidence that nonpunitive responses to inadequate grades and cognitive stimulation at home are linked to academic achievement among African American adolescents.