Racial Disparities in PreAcademic Knowledge:

1
Racial Disparities in Pre-Academic Knowledge
Examining Models of Family Influence
Aryn M. Dotterer1, Iheoma U. Iruka2, and Elizabe
th Pungello2 1Purdue University 2The University o
f North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• STUDY GOAL
• To explore how the distal factors SES and race
  are related to school readiness via proximal
  processes of parental distress and parenting
  quality
• BACKGROUND
• The achievement gap is a national concern as
  low-income and ethnic minority children perform
  at levels below those of children from higher
  income families and European American children
• The family stress paradigm hypotheses that
  financial stress interferes with parenting
  quality, which in turn is related to poor child
  outcomes
• An alternative model suggests socioeconomic
  background shapes parenting behaviors, which in
  turn is related to child outcomes
  
• In the present study, we examine whether these
  two models are equivalent for African American
  and European American families using a sample
  designed to reduce the confound between race and
  income
• METHOD
• PARTICIPANTS
• 164 families included in the present study were
  part of a larger (n 207) longitudinal study of
  child health and development
  
• 57 (n 94) were African American and 42 (n
  70) were European American
  

• RESULTS continued
• MODEL FIT
• ?2 6.63, p .16 CFI .98 TLI .94 RMSEA
  .04
  
• The financial stress model was not supported
  (Figure 1)
  
• Parenting quality mediated the link between SES
  and pre-academic knowledge for European American
  families as indicated by a significant indirect
  effect, b .21, p
• Parenting quality did not mediate the link
  between SES and pre-academic knowledge for
  African American families

• MEASURES continued
• Pre-Academic Knowledge was assessed with the
  Bracken Basic Concept Scale Revised, School
  Readiness Composite subscale at 36 mo.
  
• Colors, letter identification, numbers/counting,
  comparisons, shapes
  
• Cronbachs alpha .93
• RESULTS
• PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
• European American children scored significantly
  higher than African American children on
  Pre-Academic Knowledge, t (162) 6.88, p .001
• Bivariate correlations shown below (African
  American above the diagonal European American
  below the diagonal)
  
• p

Figure 2. Path Analysis of Parenting Quality and
Pre-Academic Knowledge

Note. Standardized estimates for African
Americans are green Standardized estimates for
European Americans are in blue
p

• CONCLUSIONS
• Our results support previous research indicating
  that the achievement gap is apparent as early as
  36 mo.
  
• Efforts in early childhood education are being
  made to reduce the achievement gap, however our
  findings suggest that parenting is a pertinent
  factor that must also be considered
• We found that parenting quality was related to
  both SES and pre-academic knowledge at the
  bivariate level for African American children,
  but did not mediate the link between SES and
  pre-academic knowledge
• SES was a powerful predictor of pre-academic
  knowledge for
  
• African American children, suggesting the need
  to consider
  
• sociocultural differences in the meaning of SES
  as well as parenting quality
  

Figure 1. Path Analysis of Financial Stress,
Parenting Quality and Pre-Academic Knowledge

Note. Standardized estimates for African
Americans are green Standardized estimates for
European Americans are in blue
p