School Grades and Responsibility for Younger Siblings: An Empirical Study of the "Teaching Function"

Hypotheses derived from the confluence model of family effects upon intellectual growth and from related theory and research are tested in data from sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grade students. Self-reported school grades have a substantial negative relationship with number of older siblings among whites, but not among blacks. The grades of the black respondents have a surprising negative relationship with responsibility for younger siblings. Confluence-model ideas appear to be less adequate for blacks than for whites, but some revisions in the model may be required in the case of whites also. Among whites, grades are curvilinearly related to responsibility for younger siblings, indicating that very frequent responsibility for younger sisters and brothers may be counterproductive. Females report greater responsibility for younger siblings than males, but there is no indication that the sex difference in this variable accounts for the sex difference in grades.