Using data on 582 middle and high school students who were participants in the Communities in Schools program, this article examines the relative role of selected risk and protective factors on students' achievement and affective investment in schooling. Teacher support was found to have a greater impact than home status and home academic culture risk on educational investment and the only statistically significant effect on grades. In support of an additive model of risk and protection, lower home academic culture risk and higher teacher support were found to be associated with greater educational investment of students. The findings suggest that, although school social workers can promote educational attainment both by addressing home academic culture deficits and by helping teachers convey appreciation, encouragement, and concern to their students, school social work efforts targeting teacher support factors may be the more effective of the two strategies in promoting positive student outcomes.
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Bowen et al. (1998) studied this question.