Summary. While holding the influence of socio‐economic status constant, the relationship between locus of control and academic achievement, anxiety, and level of aspiration was examined among 2,438 ninth grade Israel‐Jewish students of Asian or African background and European, American, or Israeli backgrounds. It was observed that, in general, internals tend to attain greater academic achievement, to express less anxiety, and to have higher level of aspiration. The relationship between academic achievement, level of aspiration, and the perception of locus of control appears to be accentuated among students of Asian or African origin to a greater extent than among students of European, American, or Israeli origin.
Two important attributes that tend to interact with achievement in de termining an individual's status are sex and ethnic group affiliations. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that achievement and aspiration differences would be found between the sexes within different ethnic groups in society and that in some cases there would be a sex-ethnic origin interaction, meaning that gender differences would vary by ethnic group. After controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and ability, social sex roles and the process of identifying with them were expected to explain the differences between boys and girls in achievements and aspirations. Such differences were found in the discontinuity of girls' achievements in high school (teacher evaluations, grouping and tracking, getting into the academic track, number of school years-all girls' advantages) and their early status attainment as it is expressed in cognitive achievement and educational and occupational aspirations at age 17-18.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.