Black and white TV: Race, television viewing, and academic achievement

This study examines the relationship between television viewing and academic achievement for both African-American and White students. This relationship is explored while controlling for individual and school-level sociodemographic factors, including schoolmate TV viewing habits, socioeconomic status (SES), school racial composition, and family structure. Student achievement is a factor score derived from the three 10th grade components of the Louisiana Graduation Exit Examination. The data are drawn from the 1990 test results of all 42,000 10th graders who took the examination. In general, this study finds that television viewing has a moderate negative effect on the academic achievement of the advantaged group (Whites), but has no effect, or even a very slight positive effect on the achievement of the disadvantaged group (African-Americans). Family SES has the strongest effect on White student achievement, whereas the family structure of schoolmates has the strongest effect on African-American achievement.