Project PASS (Promoting Academic Success for Students)Nancy E. Hill, Ph.D.Associate Professor of Psychology
Dept. of Psychology: Social and Health Sciences
Duke University
A pattern of differential achievement levels across ethnic groups is present both nationally and locally. As early as third grade, we find that less than half of African American children are performing at grade level or above in math and English, compared to approximately 75% of Euro-American children. These children, at least in the local public school district are sitting the same classrooms and presumably receiving the same level of instruction but are not learning at the same pace. There are very few longitudinal studies that have explored early parenting and family socialization practices that might be predictive of later school success. Moreover, most studies comparing ethnic minority and majority samples confound ethnicity with other demographic factors. Project PASS is a longitudinal study of socioeconomically comparable samples of African American and Euro-American kindergarten children and their families. The study seeks to understand ethnic and socioeconomic variations in the prediction of fourth grade school performance based on kindergarten school readiness and family socialization strategies. This study examines ethnic and socioeconomic variations in the predictive relationships among parenting, family and academic socialization factors and school achievement.
The longitudinal follow-up of this study was funded by the Spencer Foundation.