Parenting, autonomy and academic achievement in the adolescence

ABSTRACT

Development as a configuration of personal and social conditions makes important to consider both sources of contribution to understand specific trends in adolescence. This study examined the role of adolescent autonomy in the relation between parenting and academic achievement. Two hundred and twenty-nine mothers and their adolescents (mean age=11.8; SD=0.93) were surveyed in a cross-sectional design with schools in Colombia, South America. Parenting practices evaluated include parental involvement, expression of affection, communication, and rule-setting; multidimensional autonomy covered cognitive, motivational, and social dimensions in the academic context; academic achievement included grades in Social Sciences, Mathematics, Language, and Natural Sciences. Data were analyzed by estimating structural equation models. Major findings indicate that parenting had indirect effects on academic achievement with the intervention of adolescent autonomy. Communication and parental expression of affection show the greater contribution of parenting to the explanatory model. Cognitive, motivational, and social dimensions of autonomy, in that order, contribute to explain academic achievement, where Social Sciences and Mathematics are the academic areas with major loads. Conclusions include an analysis of parenting practices studied and their relationship with adolescent behaviours and outcomes. Implications address the opportunities offered for the intervention and future studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting
• adolescence
• autonomy
• academic achievement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and international declarations related, or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was included for all participants in this study.

Data availability statement

The data set associated with the document is available in the database files of the Socialization and Parenting research group of the National University of Colombia.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universidad Nacional de Colombia: [Grant Number 37519].