How Divorce Affects Adolescents' Academic Achievement
This paper examines the effects of parental divorce on adolescents, with particular emphasis on academic achievement. Beginning with a historical overview of rising U.S. divorce rates, the paper traces the growing number of children affected by family dissolution. A literature review synthesizes several key studies addressing GPA disparities, school attendance, parental involvement, family income and socioeconomic status, and single- versus two-parent household structures. The paper also discusses gender differences in behavioral and social outcomes following divorce. Conclusions highlight poverty as a critical underlying factor and call for further research into programs that can mitigate divorce's negative impact on children's educational outcomes.
- The Rising Divorce Rate and Its Impact on Children: Historical rise in U.S. divorce rates and child impact
- Academic and Social Effects on Adolescents: Gender differences in academic and social outcomes
- Literature Review: Ham (2003) study on GPA and attendance gaps
- Parental Involvement and Remarriage: Jeynes (2002a) on parental involvement and remarriage effects
- Family Income, Socioeconomic Status, and Academic Achievement: Jeynes (2002b) on SES and family income effects
- Single-Parent Households and Educational Outcomes: Cross-national research on single-parent household achievement gaps
- Conclusions: Poverty as key factor; need for further research
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its argument in concrete historical statistics, tracing the U.S. divorce rate from 5% after the Civil War to 50% by 1990, which establishes the urgency of the research question immediately.
- Each literature review section clearly states the study's purpose, methodology, and findings before drawing conclusions, modeling proper academic summarization of secondary sources.
- The conclusion avoids oversimplification by identifying poverty — not divorce itself — as a primary driver of poor academic outcomes, demonstrating nuanced critical thinking.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates effective use of a literature review structure to build a cumulative argument. Rather than simply listing studies, each source is introduced with a research question, followed by methodology and results, and then connected to the paper's central thesis. This layered approach allows the writer to show how multiple studies reinforce and complicate one another — for example, using Jeynes (2002a) and Jeynes (2002b) to show that neither parental involvement nor remarriage fully offsets the academic disadvantage of divorce.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a statistical introduction establishing the scope of the divorce problem and its general effects on children. A transitional paragraph leads into a formal literature review covering four major studies. The conclusion synthesizes findings and redirects the explanatory focus toward poverty and family system change. The bibliography follows APA format throughout.
The Rising Divorce Rate and Its Impact on Children
The divorce rate in the United States has risen at an alarming pace. Just after the Civil War, approximately 5% of marriages in the United States ended in divorce. The divorce rate increased to approximately 10% by the 1920s and approximately 35% by the mid-1960s. By 1990, the divorce rate in the United States had risen to 50%. In a span of 125 years, the divorce rate in the United States increased by 900%.
These rising divorce rates have undoubtedly had a profound effect on children. In 1988, 15% of all children lived with a divorced or separated parent. Presently, more than one million children per year experience a parental divorce. In the 1960s, almost 90% of children lived in homes with two biological parents. By 1995, approximately 18.9 million children under the age of 18 lived with one parent.
The alarming rise in the number of children from divorced households has generated concern among educators, mental health professionals, researchers, and society as a whole. Although divorce affects children in a number of ways, one of the most important areas impacted is academic achievement. A number of research studies have demonstrated that children from divorced families do not excel as well in academic endeavors as their counterparts from non-divorced families. Although there is little doubt that divorce has a negative impact on academic achievement, the underlying causes of diminished performance are not clearly understood.
Academic and Social Effects on Adolescents
With the rising divorce rate, it is important to examine how divorce affects adolescents. In terms of academics, both boys and girls from divorced families perform below the level of children from non-divorced families. There is also a lower rate of college enrollment among these children. One notable gender difference is that boys from divorced families tend to exhibit the most behavioral problems — such as aggressiveness and impulsivity. These poorer behavioral skills prior to or during the divorce contribute to decreased school performance. Additionally, the dropout rate for boys from divorced families is higher than that of girls in the same situation.
Divorce also produces significant social effects on adolescents. Many teens from divorced families take on greater responsibilities at home — such as babysitting and household chores — leaving them less time to spend with friends or attend social events. Many teens experience anger and frustration toward their parents as a result. These stressors, among others, contribute to depression, which is frequently observed in teens from divorced families. One notable gender difference in social adjustment following divorce is that girls tend to become sexually active at a younger age.
Literature Review
Ham (2003) investigated the effects of divorce on the academic performance of high school seniors. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between divorce and the academic achievement of adolescents, specifically comparing the GPAs and attendance records of high school seniors from intact and divorced families. Differences were also examined in relation to gender and ethnicity. This study tested two hypotheses: (1) that the grade point averages of high school seniors would be lower for students from divorced families than for students from intact families, and (2) that high school seniors from intact families would have higher school attendance than students from divorced families.
The subjects for this study were students from the Academy School District in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The students were selected from one of four high schools in the district, yielding a potential sample of 318 seniors. The students were administered a questionnaire to assess the variables of interest.
The results indicated that family structure plays a significant role in both grades and attendance. Students from non-divorced families performed better than students from divorced families, with GPAs nearly 11% higher. High school seniors from divorced households missed almost 60% more unexcused school days than did seniors from intact families. Students residing with both biological parents had an increased chance of excelling academically. This study also demonstrated a positive relationship between a mother's education level and a child's academic success: the further the mother progressed in her own formal education, the better the child tended to perform. The results further substantiated the negative effects of divorce on academic success.
Bibliography
Ham, B. (2003). The effects of divorce on the academic achievement of high school seniors. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 38(3/4), 167–185.
Jeynes, W. H. (1999). The effects of children of divorce living with neither parent on the academic achievement of those children. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 30(3/4), 103–120.
Jeynes, W. H. (2002a). Does parental involvement eliminate the effects of parental divorce on the academic achievement of adolescents? Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 37(1/2), 101–115.
Jeynes, W. H. (2002b). Examining the effects of parental absence on the academic achievement of adolescents: The challenge of controlling for family income. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 23(2), 189–210.
Pong, S.-L., Dronkers, J., & Hampden-Thompson, G. (2003). Family policies and children's school achievement in single- versus two-parent families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65, 681–699.
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