Perceived school and home characteristics as predictors of school importance and academic performance in a diverse adolescent sample

School attitudes are considered an important aspect of adolescent development because of their implications in current and future educational achievement and future employment opportunities (Masten, Coatsworth, Neeman, Gest, Tellegen, & Garmezy, 1995). The formation of adolescent school attitudes is associated with various situational factors (Eccles, 2004; Eccles, & Roeser, 2003), and these situational factors and attitudes likely influence academic achievement (Masten et al., 1995). As a result, adolescent views of school importance, their academic performance, and their future success are likely associated with the characteristics of the various contexts in which they develop (e.g., school quality, resources available at home, and the academic and achievement views of their parent(s)). One explanation regarding the contextual associations with adolescent school attitudes concerns Bronfenbrenner's (2005) discussion of the interrelation between the environment and the individual. Bronfenbrenner proposes that development is shaped by a series of proximal environmental processes directly experienced by the adolescent and distal environmental processes indirectly experienced by the adolescent. Although distal processes are theorized to influence development, proximal processes are the more immediate situations that have a stronger influence on the adolescent. According to Bronfenbrenner (2005), adolescent development is influenced through unique interactions within specific contexts (e.g., within the home environment). However, adolescent behaviors within a specific context are associated with their behavior in other contexts due to the interconnected nature of developmental settings. For example, adolescent interactions within the family are associated with their school interactions. This connection between contexts (i.e., home and school) is associated with the proximal processes that influence adolescent development. In order to explain the processes associated with adolescent academic performance, researchers (e.g., Eccles, Midgley, Wigfield, Buchanan, Reuman, Flanagan, et al., 1993) have examined the associations among adolescents' home and school environments, their attitudes towards school importance, and their academic performance. For example, the home environment serves as a learning context (Carlson & Corcoran, 2001), and parental academic philosophies often guide the choices they make at home for their adolescent children (e.g., providing achievement-related materials and support). These philosophies can either place adolescents in a position to achieve or not to achieve academically. Further, according to Roeser, Eccles, and Sameroff (1998), secondary school is an important developmental context for adolescents, and schools that provide supportive learning environments are likely to have students who value school and are committed to achieving (Eccles et al., 1993; Roeser et al., 1998). In the current study, the combined roles of these variables (i.e., school characteristics, parental views of achievement, parental involvement, and academic resources at home) in predicting adolescent attitudes towards school importance and academic performance were examined in order to examine contextual associations with adolescent school attitudes and academic performance. Because adolescents spend a considerable amount of time in the family context (Bronfenbrenner, 2005), parents play an important role in the development of adolescent school attitudes by influencing how their adolescent will view the importance of achievement. A parent that is achievement-oriented is likely to model behavior consistent with academic achievement for their children. For example, Scott (2004) argues that parents socialize their children to understand the value of achievement by communicating that belief to their children. Further, parents serve as academic role models for their children by interacting with them academically (Gutman & Eccles, 1999; Orr, 2003). …