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Description
The authors examined the relationships between interracial best friendships and 10th-grade students' academic achievement. The analysis consisted of data from 13,134 participants in the ELS:2002 database. The results indicated that interracial best friendships for minority students (African Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians) generally have a positive relationship with students' academic achievement. Discussion and implications of the results are presented.
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One of the greatest influences on youth today is their peers. Peers influence youth in the ways they dress, talk, and act--for better or for worse. According to Burk and Laursen (2005), "friendship quality is a key indicator of adolescent psychosocial adjustment" (p. 156). Peer influence on youth may differ depending on environmental factors, such as school (see Hallinan & Smith, 1985; Hansell, 1984; Lease & Blake, 2005; Stearns, 2004) and home environments (see DuBois & Hirsch, 1990; Mills, Daly, Longmore, & Kilbride, 1995; Wilson & Lavelle, 1990). School environments include class size, proportion of majority versus minority students, and the friendliness of the classroom. Home environments include the racial composition of the neighborhoods and peer networks within neighborhoods. Neighborhoods typically consist of individuals or families that are similar to each other. Additionally, youth are generally exposed first to the individuals closest to them in proximity, in their neighborhood. Therefore, friendships are typically first initiated in the neighborhood in which youth grow up (Mills et al.). These friendships compose the first "peer group" for youth. As such, neighborhood friendships tend to have a great influence on youth (Mills et al.).
When youth enter the school environment, they enter with the peer group from their home environments, but they also are exposed to youth from other home environments or neighborhoods. Depending on the size and location of the school district, these youth may be introduced to youth from differing backgrounds. Regarding school environments, the ratio of majority versus minority youth in the school can have a direct impact on the development of new friendships (DuBois & Hirsch, 1990; Wilson & Lavelle, 1990). Youth may have more opportunities to meet others who are diverse and may form alliances with students who are different from those in their home environments. These new alliances, in turn, could have additional influence on these youth. Thus, school and non-school settings may have an influence on friendship patterns (DuBois & Hirsch), which in turn may impact peer relationships.
Parsons' (1963) conceptualization of the influence process has been used to study the concept of peer influence. The influence process is a process whereby differing entities, in this case, diverse youth, become more united; the differences between them diminish. The influence of others varies depending on their trustworthiness. Close friends and best friends may have an influence on both educational aspirations and educational attainment. Given the potential influence of school and home environments on friendships and peer relationships in relation to the influence of friend choice, gender, race, and social class, one might wonder what influence peer relationships have on youths' academic achievement and if there is a difference when it comes to interracial friendships. Issues such as trustworthiness of friendships as well as aspirations, both personal and academic, can directly impact the amount of influence these friendships have. Despite the recent emphasis upon students' academic development, only a few studies (Crosnoe, Cavanagh, & Elder, 2003; Hallinan & Williams, 1990) have focused on interracial friendship and its relationship to academic achievement.
Guided by Parsons' (1963) conceptualization, Hallinan and Williams (1990) studied peer influence. Using the High School and Beyond database, they examined the effects of gender, race, and academic track on college expectations and college attendance among friend dyads. This large-scale, longitudinal study originally examined 20,036 dyads (i.e., student and friend) who were either sophomores or seniors in high school. Follow-up data were obtained 2 years later for 1,438 of those dyads. When considering gender and friendship dyads, those with different-gender (male-female) dyads had higher expectations and attendance at college. In relation to race and friendship dyads, approximately 55% of the same-race dyads planned to attend college and 53% actually attended. Approximately 64% of different-race dyads planned to attend college and 60% actually attended. Finally, the relationship between academic track (e.g., academic, vocational) and friend dyads indicated that students in dyads where they both were in the same track had equivalent expectations... |
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