PARENTING STYLES, ADOLESCENTS ATTRIBUTIONS, AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES IN 9 HETEROGENEOUS HIGH-SCHOOLS

This article examined the contemporaneous and predictive relations bet ween parenting styles, adolescents' attributions, and 4 educational ou tcomes. Data were collected from adolescents attending 6 high schools in California and 3 high schools in Wisconsin during the 1987-1988 and 1988-1989 school years. The results of path analyses partially confir med the central hypotheses. Adolescents who perceived their parents as being nonauthoritative were more likely than their peers to attribute achievement outcomes to external causes or to low ability. Furthermor e, the higher the proportion of dysfunctional attributions made for ac ademic successes and failures, the lower the levels of classroom engag ement and homework 1 year later. Although adolescents' attributional s tyle provided a bridge between parenting style and 2 educational outco mes, it did not fully explain the impact of parenting on those outcome s. Additional analyses within gender and ethnic subgroups reinforced t he overall pattern of findings observed within the entire sample.