Series 06-14 ADOLESCENT ROMANTIC

Parent and peer influences on academic achievement are well documented, but little research has examined links to romantic involvement during the adolescent period. The current study draws on interviews with 572 currently dating teens and results indicate that the romantic partner’s grades are significantly related to adolescent respondents’ self-reported grades, even after their own orientation toward school and traditional family, peer, and demographic controls have been taken into account. We hypothesize, following results on peer influence processes, that this concordance reveals a tendency to select partners relatively similar to oneself, but may involve social influence processes as well. We draw on the content of in-depth interviews elicited from a subset of the respondents to illustrate both types of mechanisms (selection vs. influence). Quantitative analyses also explore the role of age, gender and race/ethnicity as affecting the nature of this relationship. While age and race do not appear to uniquely influence the association, analyses indicate a gender effect —results reveal a stronger influence of partners’ grades on boys’ own self-reported grades relative to the association documented among girls. These results underscore the importance of continuing to explore the role of romantic partners in connection with a broad range of prosocial as well as problem adolescent outcomes.  Research on academic achievement has focused on the importance of family characteristics and processes for cognitive and social development, teacher expectations, academic aspirations/attainment, and dropping out behaviors (DeGraaf, DeGraaf, and Kraaykamp, 2000; Farkas, 1996; Jeynes, 2005; Rumberger, 1990; Steinberg, 1990). While somewhat less voluminous, research has also linked peer relations and characteristics of friends to academic motivation, school disruption, aspirations, and achievement (Berndt, Laychak, and Park, 1990; Crosnoe and Elder, 2003; Epstein, 1983; Fordham and Ogbu, 1986; Urdan, 1997). Thus, family and peer relations are critical to an understanding of adolescents’ social and academic lives. During adolescence, teens also become interested and involved in dating, and it is clear that over the period, heterosexual relationships gain in importance (see e.g., Furman, Brown, and Feiring, 1999). Yet despite the ubiquity and general importance of dating, the role of romantic partners on academic achievement has not been systematically investigated. Brown, Feiring, and Furman (1999) note that the tendency to overlook dating partners as a source of social influence may trace back to the idea that such relationships are likely to be relatively superficial and transitory (see e.g., Merten, 1996), particularly when compared to family and friendship bonds. However, recent studies focused directly on the character, meaning and importance of romantic relationships to adolescents themselves develop a portrait that contrasts with these earlier depictions (Furman and Hand, 2006; Furman and Shaffer, 2003; Giordano, Longmore, and Manning, 2006). Studies of other adolescent behaviors such as delinquency also suggest that research on partner effects may be important to pursue (Haynie, Giordano, Manning, and Longmore, 2005). Thus, the objective of the current study is to determine whether the dating partner’s academic performance is related to adolescents’ academic achievement levels, once the well-documented influence of parents and peers has been taken into account. We rely on data from the first wave of the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), a longitudinal investigation of romantic, peer and family relationships during adolescence, in order to assess whether the dating partner’s level of academic performance (measured by grades) is significantly