Out-of-School Influences

A natural outgrowth of developmental contextualism is the concern that educational psychologists have expressed about out-of-school influences that act decisively on students' learning. Educational psychologists have traditionally focused on those forces that are directly related to the classroom and school (instructional techniques, time-on-task, etc.), but now the time has come to adopt a broader perspective. Understanding the wellsprings of students' achievement demands that we know more about their lives beyond the classroom. What do we know about their families, their peers, their socioeconomic circumstances, and their cultural setting? It's becoming increasingly clear that all of these influences can play a significant role in motivating students to study and achieve in school.

In a recent survey of nine high schools involving about 20,000 students, Steinberg (1996) concluded that school is only one influence that affects what students learn and how well they do on tests of that learning. For example, the existence of differences in ethnic groups was the most important finding: Asian students outperform whites, blacks, and Latinos. Initially thinking that Asian students might believe that academic success correlated closely with out-of-school success, that is, there is a "payoff" for academic success, Steinberg was surprised this wasn't the case. All students believed that doing well in school would have a payoff. The students actually differed, however, in their belief that failing in school would have negative consequences. The Asian students clearly felt that poor academic performance would definitely and negatively affect their future. Non-Asian students didn't share this belief, with black and Latino students not really believing that doing poorly in school would hurt their chances for future success.

Another of the findings related to the students' home: Parents exert a profound and lasting effect on their children's achievement in school by three things they do:

1. Deliberately or casually, they communicate specific messages to their children about teachers, schools, and learning. Their children quickly learn whether school is or isn't important, and whether they should expend much effort there.
   
2. Parental behavior sends clear and unmistakable signals about the importance the parents place on schooling. Disregarding notices from the school, not attending parental functions, refusing to volunteer in school activities, all paint a stark picture for children-"School just isn't that important, no matter what I may say."
   
3. Their parenting style encourages, or discourages, engagement in school. Interestingly, Steinberg found that such parental activities as checking homework or encouraging children to do better in school were not the most significant forms of parental engagement. What seemed to make a real difference was the actual physical presence of the parents at school: attending school programs, participating in teacher conferences, joining in extracurricular events, and so on.

Quite obviously, not all students will be fortunate enough to have cooperative parents, and you'll work with students from different types of families. Families change, and as they do, they exercise different effects on a child's development-some significant, others not so (Scarr, 1992). For example, children who remain in an intact family, or who experience the death of a parent, or who go through a parental divorce-even though the experiences are quite different-all undergo changes that must affect development. You can see the need to carefully consider the out-of-school influences of students to better understand their classroom behavior.