No abstract

The academic achievement gap impacts the African American family in various ways. It can influence how African American children experience school; and it has implications for their high school dropout and graduation rates, college attendance, and college completion rates. For parents, the academic achievement gap may influence their own socioeconomic status via their educational attainment, which then has direct implications for their children. The purpose of this article is to present a comprehensive review of the academic achievement gap for the African American family from school entry through college graduation. We do so by examining current trends and theoretical perspectives, under the rubric

While Latino/a students represent the fastest growing population in u.S. public schools, as a group, they are also considered at-risk in this system. Given the established evidence regarding family influences on children's academic achievement, we sought in this study to understand the effects of familial capital on the academic achievement of elementary school-age Latino/a students. using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten, hierarchical linear model analyses were performed to identify family-related predictors of academic achievement for 2,840 Latino/a students. Findings demonstrate that possessing certain aspects of familial capital at school entry is predictive of future reading and math achievement at the end of third grade. Implications for strategies to strengthen familial capital in this context are discussed.

Violence is a serious social issue that affects millions of individuals, families, and communities every year. It transcends across racial, age, gender, and socioeconomic groups, and is considered a significant public health burden in the United States. The purpose of this entry is to provide an overview of violence as a broad yet complicated concept. Definitional issues are discussed. Additional prevalence rates of select types of violence are presented in addition to risk and protective factors associated with violent behavior. The entry concludes with a summary of approaches to address violence in the context of prevention and intervention strategies.