Chapter 6: Going Beyond Parental Involvement: Parent Perceptions of Teacher Support and its Influence on the Achievement Outcomes of Urban African American High School Adolescents

Parental perceptions of home-based (HB) involvement, defined as parent– adolescent communication about school and learning, and teacher support (TS) were examined to determine if they were predictive of achievement outcomes (self-reported grades, school attendance, & discipline referrals received) in urban African American high school adolescents. The goals of the study were to determine if: (1) perceived TS significantly added to African American adolescents’ achievement outcomes beyond the influence of HB involvement and (2) the interaction between HB involvement and TS better explained achievement outcomes. Results indicated that TS significantly added to the variance accounted for with all three achievement outcomes while none of the interaction effects were statistically significant. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are presented.