Abstract
Drawing on the coordinated-management-of-meaning perspective, this study probes whether adolescents’ perceptions of parental communication forecast two major risk factors for dropping out of high school: low academic achievement and chronic absenteeism. Survey data were collected from students (enrolled in an alternative vocational high school in the southeastern United States. Participants rated how often mothers and fathers expressed three message families—control/autonomy, emotional support, and shared participation—while a 12-item semantic-differential scale captured self-esteem dimensions (efficacy, positive attributes, power). Official school records supplied GPA-to-ability ratios and absence counts. Separate path analyses for males and females revealed modest, gender-specific patterns: for boys, perceived maternal control and positive self-attributes unexpectedly increased absenteeism, whereas greater self-efficacy reduced it; paternal participation correlated with lower achievement. For girls, perceived maternal support directly lowered absenteeism and raised achievement, while both parents’ controlling messages dampened daughters’ positive self-attributes, indirectly suppressing grades. Overall, parental communication exhibited direct rather than self-esteem-mediated effects on school outcomes, and high perceived control consistently aligned with poorer indicators. The findings challenge assumptions that boosting self-esteem alone curbs dropout risk and highlight nuanced, sometimes counterintuitive, parental influences worth disentangling in future longitudinal research.
Recommended Citation
Lanza-Kaduce, Linda and Webb, Lynne M.
(1992)
"Perceived Parental Communication and Adolescent Self-Esteem: Predictors of Academic Performance and Drop-out Rates,"
Association for Communication Administration Bulletin: Vol. 82, Article 1.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/aca/vol82/iss1/1
