Racial-ethnic identity and perceptions of the environment in the prediction of academic achievement

Extant racial-ethnic identity literature suggests some general themes about the relationship between identity and academic outcomes. However, there is a paucity of knowledge about the mechanisms that underlie those relationships. The purpose of the current study was to examine how contextual factors, including one's perception of the interracial climate and sense of belongingness, affected the relationship between racial-ethnic self-schemas (RES) and academic achievement. A total of 73 African American, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) 8th grade students participated in this study. Multiple regression analyses were used to test the nature of the relationships between these variables, using prospective prediction of grade point average (GPA) as the criterion. The results of these analyses suggested two main findings.;First, the results suggested a mediated model between RES and GPA, at least for one of the RES types: Dual RES. Dual RES describes individuals who feel positive membership within their own racial-ethnic group and the White, dominant group. In the present study, Dual RES predicted greater feelings of belongingness within the school context. Belongingness, in turn, predicted higher GPA.;The second finding suggested an interaction between belongingness and RES Aschematic. RES Aschematics, those who do not have a schema to organize race-related information, appeared to have better academic performance than non-RES Aschematics when they had greater feelings of belongingness. Conversely, they had worse academic performance than non-RES Aschematics when they had low feelings of belongingness.;Post hoc and exploratory analyses uncovered possible gender differences in these analyses, suggesting that RES types manifest themselves differently by gender. There were apparent gender differences in how RES predicted one's perceptions of the environment. Furthermore, perceptions of the environment seemed to have different effects on GPA based on gender.