Relationship Between Early Familial Racial/Ethnic Socialization and Academic Outcomes of African American Students and the Mediating Effects of Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between early familial racial/ethnic socialization and the self-efficacy and academic achievement of African American children during the elementary years, and across the transition to middle school. In particular, the mediatory effects of self-efficacy were examined longitudinally. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten class of 1998 - 1999 (ECLS-K) was used to examine the impact of kindergarteners' at-home exposure to racial/ethnic socialization on levels of school-related self-efficacy and academic achievement of the same children in fifth and eighth grades. African American students (N = 3224) from this nationally representative dataset were a part of this study. Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (also referred to as the Social Learning Theory) with particular focus on his conceptualization of Self-Efficacy, was used as a guiding framework for this study. Analyses were conducted using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results showed that there was a significant and positive relationship between early childhood racial/ethnic socialization and the later academic achievement of pre-adolescent and adolescent African American school children in both fifth and eighth grades. However, the results also indicated that that self-efficacy had only minimal and insignificant mediating effects on the relationship between racial/ethnic socialization and academic achievement. The implications from these findings include impetus for marriage and family therapists and other practitioners and educators to include more family-centered and ethnically/racially relevant strategies and interventions to support families faced with school-based difficulties. Additional implications for therapists, educators, and researchers, were discussed.