Turning around reading achievement: Predictors of high school students' academic resilience

In a national, longitudinal database, factors were examined that enabled public school students on a path toward failure to significantly improve reading achievement by high school graduation. Youths who faced the proximal risk of low achievement during the transition to high school were vulnerable to continued low achievement or failure; yet, a small number improved reading proficiency from failing the basic level to passing the intermediate or advanced levels. Being Caucasian, being female, having an internal locus of control, and taking an academic curriculum in high school independently predicted academic resilience. The role of student socioeconomic status in predicting resilience was explained by psychological and school environment variables. The path between locus of control and resilience was partly mediated by high school curriculum; the path between 8th-grade educational aspirations and resilience was fully mediated by curriculum.