The Relationship among Ethnic Identity, Psychological Well-being, Academic Achievement and Intergroup Competence of African American High School Adolescents

Abstract

In the last two decades the demographic composition of the United States has witnessed extraordinary changes in the numbers of ethnic minorities, and no where is this more evident than in our nation's public school system. Due to this proliferation of changes in the demographics of our country, serious issues and concerns have been raised with regard to the mental health and academic achievement of school-age children from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The major purpose of the study was to examine the implications of the relationship of psychological well-being variables (life satisfaction, self-esteem and ethnic identity), mental health depression, and Intergroup interactional competence and academic achievement of school- age adolescents. In group assemblies of varying sizes, seven measures were explained to students to fill out either in school or at home and return to be collected. These measures have been previously utilized and have been found to have adequate reliability and validity (Crumly & Hyers, 2004). The reliability of all the measures was also assessed in this study and was found to have moderate to high range. The study utilized a total sample of 119 African American adolescents from low social economic status ranging in grades from ten through twelve.The findings indicated significant intercorrelations among some selected psychological variables and objective and self-reported measures of achievement. Gender differences were noted in the predictability of achievement of reading. The perceived caring, inter-group anxiety, and psychological sense of membership measures were found to be the best predictors of academic achievement. Implications of the study as well as recommendations for future research in this area are discussed.