The Impact of Environmental Influences on African Americans Academic Performance
Your environment plays an important role on who you are and what you become. Statistics have proven that African Americans are more likely, than any other race, to drop out of school, perform incompetently on standardize test, and are less likely to attend college than European Americans. Many scholars have linked academic underachievement to lack of support and low motivation. People who are exposed to uncaring and unsupportive environments are likely to have low self-esteem and feelings of neglect; as a result, they tend to perform poorly in school. Conversely, researchers have discovered that when African American parents protect, nurture, and prepare their …show more content…
Before this study, Ecclesa and colleagues acknowledged that race and ethnicity influence psychological development most directly through social situations and psychological processes, such as ethnic discrimination and stereotypes. To test their theory, they conducted research focusing on the association of African American youths’ daily experiences of racial discrimination at school and how it changes academic motivation and engagement. These researchers hypothesized that African American adolescents will lower the significance that is ascribe to school as they become increasingly aware of likely future racial discrimination in educational …show more content…
This data showed that most students, at an early age, wanted and expected to attend college and that their aspirations were congruent with their expectations. After graduation, 31.7% were reported being enrolled into college. Overall, the correlation indicated that early experience with discrimination was associated with later academic expectations, but not academic aspirations. Since researchers have discovered that racial discrimination is almost inevitable, future studies should consider other variables such as faith, this is, what happens when one believes in a higher power and/or relationships, this is, how does their relationships with parents and friends effect their academic achievement?
To summarize, environmental influences manifest itself in both academic underachievement and overachievement in the African American community. Both studies linked underachievement to early exposure of racial discrimination; yet, Ecclesa et al. confirmed that negative effect is noticeably reduced in those youth who have a positive culturally connected racial identity. Nevertheless, we must approach this subject holistically in order to reduce the chances of negative academic performances in the African American
Your environment plays an important role on who you are and what you become. Statistics have proven that African Americans are more likely, than any other race, to drop out of school, perform incompetently on standardize test, and are less likely to attend college than European Americans. Many scholars have linked academic underachievement to lack of support and low motivation. People who are exposed to uncaring and unsupportive environments are likely to have low self-esteem and feelings of neglect; as a result, they tend to perform poorly in school. Conversely, researchers have discovered that when African American parents protect, nurture, and prepare their …show more content…
Before this study, Ecclesa and colleagues acknowledged that race and ethnicity influence psychological development most directly through social situations and psychological processes, such as ethnic discrimination and stereotypes. To test their theory, they conducted research focusing on the association of African American youths’ daily experiences of racial discrimination at school and how it changes academic motivation and engagement. These researchers hypothesized that African American adolescents will lower the significance that is ascribe to school as they become increasingly aware of likely future racial discrimination in educational …show more content…
This data showed that most students, at an early age, wanted and expected to attend college and that their aspirations were congruent with their expectations. After graduation, 31.7% were reported being enrolled into college. Overall, the correlation indicated that early experience with discrimination was associated with later academic expectations, but not academic aspirations. Since researchers have discovered that racial discrimination is almost inevitable, future studies should consider other variables such as faith, this is, what happens when one believes in a higher power and/or relationships, this is, how does their relationships with parents and friends effect their academic achievement?
To summarize, environmental influences manifest itself in both academic underachievement and overachievement in the African American community. Both studies linked underachievement to early exposure of racial discrimination; yet, Ecclesa et al. confirmed that negative effect is noticeably reduced in those youth who have a positive culturally connected racial identity. Nevertheless, we must approach this subject holistically in order to reduce the chances of negative academic performances in the African American