TY - JOUR
T1 - Gender-Typed Personality Qualities and African American Youth’s School Functioning
AU - Skinner, Olivenne D.
AU - McHale, Susan M.
AU - Wood, Dana
AU - Telfer, Nicole A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding This work was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, R01-HD32336-02 Susan M. McHale and Ann C. Crouter, Co-Principal Investigators. During the writing of this report Olivenne Skinner was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation (#1714931).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/4/1
Y1 - 2019/4/1
N2 - Numerous studies document sex differences in African American girls’ and boys’ academic achievement and motivation, but little is known about how the enactment of gender, such as in the forms of gendered behaviors, attitudes, or personal-social qualities, is related to school functioning. To advance understanding of African American adolescents’ academic experiences, this study examined the longitudinal linkages between stereotypically feminine (i.e., expressive) and stereotypically masculine (i.e., instrumental) personality characteristics and school adjustment. The moderating effects of youth’s ethnic identity and school racial composition also were tested. Participants were 352 African American youth (50.1% girls; mean age at Time 1 = 12.04 years; SD= 2.03) who participated in annual home interviews. Net of biological sex, expressive traits (kind, sensitive) were positively related to school self-esteem and school bonding for both girls and boys, but youth with higher levels of instrumentality (independent, competitive) exhibited sharper declines in academic achievement across adolescence. School racial composition moderated the effects of instrumentality at the between-person level, such that instrumentality was positively related to school self-esteem only for youth who attended schools with fewer African American students. These results highlight the importance of incorporating gendered personality traits, rather than biological sex alone, into theoretical accounts of African American youth’s school functioning.
AB - Numerous studies document sex differences in African American girls’ and boys’ academic achievement and motivation, but little is known about how the enactment of gender, such as in the forms of gendered behaviors, attitudes, or personal-social qualities, is related to school functioning. To advance understanding of African American adolescents’ academic experiences, this study examined the longitudinal linkages between stereotypically feminine (i.e., expressive) and stereotypically masculine (i.e., instrumental) personality characteristics and school adjustment. The moderating effects of youth’s ethnic identity and school racial composition also were tested. Participants were 352 African American youth (50.1% girls; mean age at Time 1 = 12.04 years; SD= 2.03) who participated in annual home interviews. Net of biological sex, expressive traits (kind, sensitive) were positively related to school self-esteem and school bonding for both girls and boys, but youth with higher levels of instrumentality (independent, competitive) exhibited sharper declines in academic achievement across adolescence. School racial composition moderated the effects of instrumentality at the between-person level, such that instrumentality was positively related to school self-esteem only for youth who attended schools with fewer African American students. These results highlight the importance of incorporating gendered personality traits, rather than biological sex alone, into theoretical accounts of African American youth’s school functioning.
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U2 - 10.1007/s10964-018-0919-1
DO - 10.1007/s10964-018-0919-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 30209709
AN - SCOPUS:85053545582
SN - 0047-2891
VL - 48
SP - 680
EP - 691
JO - Journal of youth and adolescence
JF - Journal of youth and adolescence
IS - 4
ER -