Examining individual-level academic risk and protective factors for foster youth: School engagement, behaviors, self-esteem, and social skills

Students' school engagement is widely regarded as critical for positive school adjustment and overall academic success. Foster youth persistently face poorer educational outcomes than peers and demonstrate lower levels of school engagement and higher levels of academically threatening behaviors. The goals of the present study were (a) to explore relationships amongst various child-level correlates of school engagement and problem behaviors-namely, self-esteem and social skills-and (b) to respectively investigate the protective potential of self-esteem and social skills in the association between school engagement and behavior problems that threaten educational trajectories. Results indicate significant associations between school engagement and problem behaviors, as well as between self-esteem, social skills, and school engagement. Further, self-esteem mediated the association between school engagement and both youth- and foster parent-reported externalizing behavior, and social skills mediated the association between school engagement and both youth- and foster parent-reported externalizing behavior. Implications for future practice, research, and policy are discussed.