Abstract:
This longitudinal study inspects the impact that African American paternal figures have on their daughters’ psychological adjustment and educational outcomes over time. By analyzing the responses of African American adolescent girls ages 11 through 16 who participated in the longitudinal study (2000-2009), the purpose of this study is to: (a) determine whether quality paternal relationships relate to African American adolescent girls’ psychological adjustment over time, (b) determine whether quality paternal relationships relate to African American adolescent girls’ educational outcomes over time, and (c) determine whether the psychological adjustment of African American adolescent girls relate to their educational outcomes over time. This research has implications for families, educators, and clinicians for adolescent research and interventions. The outcomes of this study suggest that warm paternal figures are important to adolescent girls in various ways, particularly during early adolescence. Warm paternal figures were associated with increased girls’ psychological adjustment during early adolescence in this study. Paternal figures also made contributions to girls’ academics in the specific area of mathematics in this study. Additionally, this study suggests that enhanced psychological adjustment affects girls’ achievement in math and reading during early adolescence.
