A R T I C L E
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN CAMBODIA: DOES CAREGIVER TRAUMA MATTER? Sothy Eng and Miriam Mulsow Texas Tech University
Harrington Cleveland Pennsylvania State University
Sybil L. Hart Texas Tech University
How will hostilities occurring around today’s world influence future generations in affected areas? Cambodia may be one place where this question can be answered, and academic achievement is one way to measure these effects. Cambodian adolescent/caregiver dyads (n 5 288) were examined for links between caregiver trauma history and adolescent academic achievement, using self reports of adolescents’ relationships with caregivers, caregivers’ reports of trauma history and symptoms (Harvard Trauma Questionnaire), and school records of adolescents’ academic achievement. Fourteen percent of caregivers met criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Overall, caregiver trauma predicted caregiver education, which then predicted caregiver warmth, but not adolescents’ academic achievement. Adolescents’ academic achievement was predicted by caregivers’ brain-related trauma, child gender, hours taking extra classes, and father’s education. Implications for community health C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. professionals are offered. Cambodia is a Southeast Asian country that has experienced continuous wars and social unrest, the most brutal being the genocide led by Pol Pot in the 1970s (Yale
This study was funded by the Department of Human Development and Family Studies and College of Human Sciences of Texas Tech University. The authors would like to acknowledge Prof. Phan Chan-Peou of Royal University of Phnom Penh for his data collection supervision, and other psychology students who helped with interviews. Correspondence to: Sothy Eng, 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409. E-mail:
[email protected] JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 37, No. 6, 754–768 (2009) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). & 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.20329
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University Cambodian Genocide Program, 1994). One effect on survivors is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research has shown that 28% of adult Cambodians suffered from PTSD (Jong et al., 2001). Based on Holocaust studies, it would be expected that PTSD would have an impact on the survivors’ children (Bar-On et al., 1998). Rumbaut (1991) found that compared to other refugee students in the United States such as Vietnamese, Chinese, and Hmong, Cambodian students had low grade point averages (GPA). The researcher also found correlations between adolescent GPA and caregiver psychological disturbances. Following Pol Pot’s genocidal regime (1975–1979), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was found in 28% of Cambodians (Jong et al., 2001) with symptoms of intrusion and avoidance present in almost 50% in some provinces (Dubois et al., 2004). As survivors of Pol Pot’s years became parents, the intergenerational transmission of these effects needed to be considered. The goal of the present study was to examine the impact, as indicated by academic achievement and relationships between caregivers and adolescents, of caregiver trauma on the adolescent children of Pol Pot’s victims. Under the direction of Pol Pot’s Angka (official units), children were separated from their parents and asked to spy on them. Solidarity between parents and children was forbidden. Adults and children were murdered by the state, often after slow, brutal torture. The millions that survived lived through imprisonment, rape, brainwashing, forced marriage, starvation, no access to medical care, and labor in harsh conditions without rest from sunrise until sunset (Mollica, McInnes, Poole, & Tor, 1998). A recent cross-national survey (Jong et al., 2001) with 610 Cambodians and 2438 Algerians, Ethiopians, and Gaza residents showed that 28.4% of Cambodian people met PTSD diagnostic criteria. This is the second highest rate of PTSD after Algeria (37.4%). For comparison, the prevalence of PTSD among adults in the United States is about 8% (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth EditionText Revision (DSM-IV-TR; APA, 2000), symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, intense psychological distress, physiological disturbances, and feeling as if traumatic events were recurring. Additionally, individuals may experience constant avoidance behavior related to trauma-like events and elevated arousal that may be displayed as sleep disturbances, irritability, poor concentration, hypervigilance, and exaggerated startle response. Symptomatic individuals may show occupational and social impairments that can have a negative effect on family relationships and community support networks. The DSM IV-TR notes that trauma symptoms of avoidance impact interpersonal relationships within families. This may include relationships with adolescent children, due to a lack of warmth from parent to child. For the purpose of this study, caregiver warmth is defined as consisting of consultation with adolescents, warm verbal communication, and reinforcement (Radin, 1971). Danieli suggested, ‘‘the multigenerational legacy of traumay is a universal phenomenon’’ (1998, p. 669). Such traumatic events include the Nazi Holocaust, World War II, genocide, the Vietnam War, repressive regimes, domestic violence, crime, terrorism, and life-threatening diseases. Trauma among war-surviving parents is transmitted to their children through emotional unavailability, problematic verbal communication, and behaviors (Chaitin & Bar-On, 2002). Although there are protective influences on the relationship between war-surviving parents and their children, ‘‘there is no doubt that the traumas experienced by the victims of the Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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Holocaust often negatively affected their relationships with their children’’ (Chaitin & Bar-On, 2002, p. 300). Children may experience distress and maladaptation to their parents’ emotional states of disconnectedness and isolation. Bar-On et al. (1998) suggests that Holocaust survivors often lack the ability to cope or encounter difficulties in coping successfully with their mourning, referring to ‘‘sequential traumatization’’ following the Holocaust. Although it is clear that trauma transmits intergenerationally and affects interpersonal relationships between family members, little is known about whether it also affects survivors’ children in academic performance, a resilience indicator. A comprehensive survey conducted by UNICEF (2001) found that even though schooling is mandatory for Cambodian children, enrollment of children in school is low compared to the average in the region. UNICEF further found that Cambodian children were not very optimistic about for their futures compared to children from the other 16 countries in the Asia–Pacific region. Furthermore, the percentage of primary school entrants reaching grade 5 in 1995–1999 was about 45% for Cambodian students compared with 83% of their Vietnamese counterparts (UNICEF, 2003). A 2008 survey by UNICEF showed that 62% of 6-year-old, 33% of 7-year-old, 16% of 8-year-old, and 9% of 9-year-old Cambodian children had never attended school. Retention (repeating grades) rates in Cambodia are high, with grade 1 at 40.9%, and grade 4 at 12.2%. High dropout rates have also been reported, grade 1 of 10.7% to grade 5 at 16.2% and grade 6 of 14.1% (Ministry of Education, 1995). According to the International Labour Office (2006), more than 50% of Cambodian children under 14 years of age are forced to drop out of school and go to work. The report also notes that although the child labor rate has been decreasing in other countries with comparable economic conditions, this rate is not decreasing in Cambodia. Child labor is fulltime work, so most child workers do not attend school. This educational disadvantage among the offspring of Pol Pot survivors is observed abroad as well. Sack, Clake, Kinney, and Belestos (1995) found that about 25% of Cambodian–American high school students in Oregon were unable to pass high school exams. Furthermore, Kim (2002) revealed that Cambodian American children scored much lower in both reading and math standardized tests than did Vietnamese American children. Kim noted that Vietnamese children tended to have higher educational aspirations than their Cambodian counterparts. Although many factors might account for the poor performance of Cambodian adolescents living abroad, the effects of their parents’ traumatic experiences during the Pol Pot regime should not be underestimated. Not only are the effects long lasting (Carlson & RosserHogan, 1993), they may also be transmitted intergenerationally. Sack et al. (1995) found that 41.2% of children with both parents diagnosed with PTSD also met a PTSD diagnosis. Rowland-Klein’s studies on the transmission of trauma across generations suggest that unconscious processes, such as projective identification—imagination of traumatic events as if they occur although one never experienced them—account for the resulting trauma transmission among children of Holocaust survivors (RowlandKlein & Dunlop, 1998). Parents’ trauma experience, which Kim (2002) did not examine, could account for intra-Asian ethnic differences. Ying and Akutsu (1997) found that Cambodians had the highest level of trauma when compared to other Southeast Asian refugees, and trauma was a powerful predictor of Cambodian refugees’ demoralization. The current study examines the possibility that parental trauma influences academic achievement and parent–child relationships. To do so, this study used data Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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drawn from three sources, adolescents’ self-reports of their relationships with their caregivers, caregivers’ reports of their life histories of trauma and trauma symptoms, and school records of adolescents’ academic achievement. Using these data, two hypotheses were addressed: first, that higher levels of caregiver trauma would predict poorer quality of caregiver–adolescent relationships (Hypothesis 1); second, that higher levels of caregiver trauma would predict lower academic achievement among their adolescent children (Hypothesis 2). METHODS Participants Five high schools in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, were chosen for the study. From each school, 100 students were selected from lists of students whose latest monthly average scores were in the bottom or top quartiles of academic achievement based on their average scores (50-point scale). To be eligible, students were required to be in grades 10 or 11, be 15 to 18 years old, and live with their parents in Phnom Penh. Parents of these students were old enough during the Pol Pot years to remember and understand what was going on in their lives. Data were collected from 430 students. Requiring caregiver data limited the sample to 288 caregiver-child dyads. Fourteen caregiver fathers (5% of the total sample of parents) were included in the study. These fathers were the primary caregivers instead of their wives. Therefore, despite the strong prevalence of caregiving mothers in the study, the parent participants will be referred to as caregivers. Among 288 adolescents, 50% were females, and the average age of adolescents was 17 years old (SD 5 1), ranging from 13 to 22. The average scores of the first semester were 36.43 (SD 5 6.15), ranging from 21 to 47. Number of siblings ranged from 1 to 9 with the average of 3.57 (SD 5 1.46). Most adolescents took extra classes with the average hours per week of 16.36 (SD 5 9.36). About half of the caregivers were 46 years old and above, and 32% were between 41 to 45 years of age. Almost all of the caregivers were married (88%). Generally, the education of fathers was higher than that of mothers (56% vs. 24.3% with high school degree and up). About 14% (40) of the caregivers met PTSD diagnostic criteria. Instruments Adolescent questionnaire Demographics. Adolescent demographics include age, gender, grade levels, scores, and weekly hours in extra classes. Scores were reported by the adolescents and checked with the schools’ records. Relationship with caregiver. Caregiver–adolescent relationship quality was assessed with the 34-item Relationship with Mother Scale (Mayseless & Hai, 1998). Items included ‘‘She can make me feel better when I’m in a bad mood’’ and ‘‘I enjoy talking to her.’’ The response patterns are 5-point Likert scales, ranging from ‘‘not at all like’’ to ‘‘very much like.’’ Because this scale has never been used in Cambodia before, cultural applicability was examined with factor analysis, using a Promax rotation. Results revealed that 20 items loaded greater than 1.74 onto a single factor. Other items did not load onto this factor. Generally, low alphas suggested these items did not form cohesive scales. Examination of items that did not load onto this factor revealed that Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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they tended to assess permissiveness and equality of the parent–adolescent relationship, a concept that may not be culturally appropriate for Cambodian family relationships. With an alpha of .84, the remaining 20-items (e.g., Mayseless & Hai, 1998) were used to construct a unidimensional scale, labeled Caregiver Warmth. Academic Achievement. Students’ academic performance was evaluated by their latest monthly average scores obtained from the schools’ administrative offices. The grading system in Cambodia is a 50-point scale, with 50 indicating highest achievement. Caregiver questionnaires Demographics. Caregivers were asked demographic questions including age, gender, number of children, marital status, occupation, and level of education. Harvard Trauma Questionnaire. Caregivers were interviewed using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire Khmer Version (HTQ; Mollica, Caspi-Yavin, Bollini, & Truong, 1992). The questionnaire was already translated into the Cambodian language by a group of local and international psychiatrists in collaboration with Harvard University’s trauma project staff. The questionnaire consists of three domains. The first domain, trauma events, asked participants about 17 different events (e.g., ‘‘Lack of food or water,’’ ‘‘Rape or sexual abuse,’’ ‘‘Forced separation from family members,’’ etc.). Participants were asked to indicate if they had ‘‘experienced,’’ ‘‘witnessed,’’ or ‘‘heard about’’ each event. The second domain, brain-related trauma (called head injury in HTQ’s manual) consists of four questions relating to occurrences that can result in brain injuries (e.g., ‘‘Did you lose consciousness?). The final scale was constructed for a trauma symptoms domain. This scale was constructed from 30 questions describing trauma symptoms (e.g., ‘‘feeling on guard,’’ ‘‘inability to remember parts of the most traumatic or hurtful events’’), to which participants rated themselves on a 4-point scale from 1 5 Not at all, to 4 5 Extremely. Those whose scores averaged 2.5 or greater are considered to be symptomatic for PTSD (Mollica et al., 1992). Test-retest reliability with Indochinese populations (i.e., Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) on both trauma events and trauma symptoms, respectively, has been reported as r 5.89, po.0001 and r 5.92, po.0001. Reported Cronbach’s alpha was .90 and .96, respectively, for trauma events and trauma symptoms. The Cronbach’s alphas found in this study were .86 and .94, respectively, for trauma events and trauma symptoms. Thus, the scale was judged to be reliable.
RESULTS Preliminary Analysis Frequency counts were run to check the distributions of each important variable. Missing data analysis on academic achievement among students who were dropped and kept in the study was run using independent-samples t tests. Academic achievement did not differ significantly between these groups, t(209.257) 5 .019, p 5 .98. In addition, because the mother–adolescent relationship questionnaire has never been used and validated in Cambodia before, factor analysis was run to check the factors of this scale. Correlation coefficients were run among important predictor and criterion variables. Descriptive statistics of traumatic events experienced were also reported. Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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Traumatic Events Most caregivers (over 70%) reported that they lacked food or water and had experienced forced separation from family members, and almost 60% reported that they were brainwashed. Half (50%) said that they were close to death and 43% reported that they had family members or friends murdered. About 20% reported that they were tortured and another 10% said that they were imprisoned. Sixty percent responded that they were in a situation that was very frightening or felt that their life was in danger. Sixty-two percent reported that they experienced lack of shelter and ill health without access to medical care. Thirty-four percent experienced combat situations and 28% experienced serious injury. Events that involve potential brainrelated trauma included suffocation (50%), attempted drowning (32%), beating to the head (11%), and loss of consciousness (31%). Table 1 provides the bivariate correlations among primary predictor and outcome variables. These preliminary results provide evidence of the impact of traumatic experiences on later life. Significant associations (po.01) were found between caregiver trauma symptoms and traumatic events (r 5.38), and brain-related trauma (r 5.42). Hypothesis 1 Hypothesis 1 stated that higher levels of caregiver trauma would predict poorer caregiver warmth. As shown in Table 1, these variables are significantly associated (r 5 .12, po.05), providing primary support for this hypothesis. Table 1, however, also revealed that caregiver’s education was associated with both caregiver trauma (r 5 .15, po.05) and caregiver warmth (r 5.20, po.01). To examine whether caregiver education accounted for the association between caregiver trauma and caregiver warmth, a regression analysis was used. When caregiver education was added to the equation, the association between caregiver trauma and caregiver warmth was no longer significant (b 5 .09, p 5 .14). However, caregiver education was significantly related to caregiver trauma (b 5 .15, po.05). In this case, caregiver’s education served as a mediator. The first condition for mediation (Baron & Kenny, 1986) was satisfied in that caregiver trauma was significantly associated with caregiver warmth (r 5 .13, po.05). The second condition was also satisfied in that caregiver trauma was significantly related to caregiver’s education (r 5 .15, po.05). The third condition was met in that caregiver’s education was related to caregiver warmth (r 5.20, po.01). Finally, after adding caregiver’s education (see Figure 1), the relationship between caregiver trauma and caregiver warmth was no longer significant (b 5 .09, p 5 .14), indicating that the fourth condition was met. To confirm whether caregiver’s education served as a mediator, Sobel (1982) tests were conducted. The results showed that this mediation analysis was significant, z 5 1.94, p 5 .05. Hypothesis 2 Hypothesis 2 stated that higher levels of caregiver trauma would predict lower academic achievement among high school adolescents in Cambodia. As shown in Table 1, no significant association between caregiver trauma and adolescents’ academic achievement was found (r 5 .006, p 5 .93) at the zero-order correlation. This indicated that Hypothesis 2 was not supported. Despite not supporting the existence of an association sufficient to support Hypothesis 2, Table 1 provides several significant associations between academic Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
p o.05; po.01.
Gender of adolescents Academic achievement Extra classes Trauma symptom Traumatic events Brain-related trauma Father’s education Caregiver’s education Maternal warmth
–
Gender of adolescents (N 5 268) .30
Academic achievement (N 5 254) .11 .40
Extra classes (N 5 261) .03 .00 .00
Trauma symptom (N 5 253) .01 .05 .04 .38
Traumatic events (N 5 266) .04 .15 .03 .42 .33
Brain-related trauma (N 5 261)
.03 .23 .18 .02 .04 .03
Father’s education (N 5 249)
.02 .11 .10 .15 .12 .13 .43
Caregiver’s education (N 5 263)
.03 .00 .02 .12 .01 .12 .09 .20 –
Maternal warmth (N 5 255)
Table 1. Bivariate Correlations among all Studied Variables
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Caregiver’s Education
ß = -.15* (Condition 2)
ß = .20** (Condition 3)
ß = -.13* (Condition 1) Maternal Trauma
Maternal Warmth ß = -.09, ns (Condition 4)
*p < .05. **p < .01.
Figure 1. Mediating effect of caregiver’s education on maternal trauma.
achievement and other study variables. To consider these associations simultaneously, rather than in a zero-order fashion, each was entered into a multiple regression analysis. Results from this model provide a more complete perspective on the potential effects of other predictor variables on adolescents’ academic achievement. Variables entered in this multiple regression model include adolescent gender, weekly hours of extra classes, father education, caregiver warmth, and caregiver brain-related trauma. The model was significant, F(5, 207) 5 16.18, po.001, R2 5 .26, accounting for 26% of variance in academic achievement. Individual regression coefficients indicated that adolescent gender (b 5 .28, po.001), hours of extra classes studying a week (b 5 .31, po.001), education of father (b 5 .17, po.01), and caregiver brain-related trauma (b 5 .13, po.05) each contributed to adolescents’ academic achievement. Even when simultaneous associations (i.e., multicolinearity) are considered, female adolescents performed better academically than males. Having more hours of extra classes and fathers with higher education predicted adolescents’ higher academic achievement; whereas caregivers who experienced higher levels of brain-related trauma predicted adolescents’ poorer academic achievement. DISCUSSION The present study examined the relationship between caregiver trauma and academic achievement among their adolescents. Only 14% of parents had PTSD scores above the DSM III-R cutoff of 2.5. This was half the rate reported by Jong et al. (2001). Various reasons may account for these inconsistent results. First, this study was conducted more than 5 years after Jong’s et al. study. Within this period, some Cambodian people may have recovered from their trauma. Second, this study was conducted solely in the city, leaving out more than 85% of Cambodian people in the countryside, whereas Jong’s et al. study was conducted in four different areas in Cambodia, covering both rural and urban areas. Furthermore, all participants in the current study were nearing completion of high school. They had reached levels of education that were indicative of family resilience when compared to families of adolescents who had dropped out of school. Thus, the rate of PTSD may have differed in this higher functioning, urban population compared to the general population of Cambodia. Hypothesis 1 Hypothesis 1 stated that higher levels of caregiver trauma would predict poorer caregiver–adolescent relationships (as measured by caregiver warmth scale). Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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Results supported the hypothesis, but only a small amount of variance was accounted for by this variable. The effect of trauma on caregiver warmth can be traced back to the time that these caregivers were young during the Pol Pot’s regime and how they were forced to separate from or spy on their parents. These children, who are presently parents of adolescents, were indoctrinated with the concept of denouncing ‘‘crimes’’ of their older generation (Kinzie, Boehnlein, & Sack, 1998). In an interview with 40 Cambodian high school adolescents who immigrated to the United States after Pol Pot, it was found that 46% were separated from their parents for more than 2 years (Kinzie, Sack, Angell, Manson, & Ben, 1986). The current study showed that 73% of the caregivers reported that they were forced to separate from family members. Kinzie et al. (1998) noted that among their Cambodian patients ‘‘Warmth is lacking and the parents display avoidance and withdrawal behavior, with periodic agitation and irritability’’ (p. 214). Research on Holocaust surviving parents indicated that when eating, parents would say to their children ‘‘Don’t leave food on your plate, because y then and there, we had nothing!’’ (Kellermann, 2001, p. 59). When their adolescents encountered difficulty, their parents would say to them, ‘‘It could be worse, you know. What do you cry about?’’ or ‘‘You have to do more if you want to survive. You have to be strong!’’ (p. 59). Anecdotal evidence in the Cambodian context also showed similar parenting styles to Holocaustsurviving parents. However, because caregiver trauma predicted low education of caregiver, it may be that caregiver’s education mediates the relationship between caregiver trauma and caregiver warmth. Analysis confirmed that caregiver’s education was a mediator, suggesting that caregiver’s education accounted for the occurrence of the relationship between caregiver trauma and caregiver warmth. In this study, 67.4% reported that they attended either primary school or secondary school or never attended school. This high percentage of low caregiver’s education might have been problematic in caregiver-adolescent relationships as perceived and reported by adolescents. Adolescents may perceive that their low educated caregivers do not understand and do not provide warm relationships to them, or caregivers with lower levels of education may experience higher levels of stress caused by lack of resources, which then detract from their parenting (Brody & Flor, 1998). To increase warmth in caregiver–adolescent relationships when caregivers have experienced trauma, emphasis may be needed on increasing educational opportunities, especially for female students. Hypothesis 2 Hypothesis 2 stated that higher levels of caregiver trauma would predict lower academic achievement among high school adolescents in Cambodia. Results showed that this hypothesis was not supported. Because caregiver trauma might have a negative effect in some adolescents’ academic achievement and a protective effect in others, the net effect would be zero. It should be noted that Cambodia, similar to other Asian countries such as India or Japan, is a collectivistic society where other members of the family such as grandparents, uncles, or aunts also take on the role of caregiver. This child-rearing practice may be one of the reasons why we did not find any significant relationship between adolescents’ academic achievement and caregivers’ trauma because perhaps, other family members who are less traumatized are able to tend to the adolescents’ needs. Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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Moreover, Rousseau, Drapeau, and Platt (1999) suggested that among Cambodian families who immigrated to Canada, trauma seemed to play a protective role for their adolescents regarding school performance, risk behavior, and externalizing symptoms. The authors argued, ‘‘This pattern of association could be understood as overcompensation on the part of children and grandchildren of the survivors of the massacre, who inherit the implicit obligation to succeed for the sake of those no longer among the living’’ (Rousseau et al., 1999, p. 1270). To restore the family, parents push their children to study hard. In fact, Cambodian mothers and grandmothers sing the following song to their children: Sleep well my child. We have gone through three fields. The field of death, the field of chains and prison and the field of remembrance. My child you should remember this. The regimes of separating and killing. You should remember and must never forget. If you want your country to live study hard, cooperate and gather together (Mitchell, 2005, p. 9). Interestingly, caregivers with higher levels of trauma had lower levels of education (see Table 1). However, this caregiver trauma was not associated with their adolescents’ education. Some reasons should be considered when making inferences about this issue. First, most of the caregivers were mothers. In general, it is the case that female children have less priority to go to school compared with their male counterparts in Cambodia. Therefore, they (mothers of adolescents in this study) would have less education. Second, it has long been a culture of Cambodian parenting practice that ‘‘If a child is shocked or experiences some traumatic event, Khmers believe that the soul, or part of the soul, may leave the body’’ (Smith-Hefner, 1999, p. 74). Meanwhile, Cambodian parents also believed that it was fruitless to impose or force children to achieve things (Smith-Hefner, 1999). Thus, when the mothers’ parents believed that their daughters had lost their souls, it would be even more likely that they would feel discouraged or unmotivated to send their children, especially girls, to school. Additional analysis beyond the relationship between caregiver trauma and adolescents’ academic achievement showed that gender of the adolescents predicted academic achievement, in that female adolescents performed better than their male counterparts. Jacqueline King of the American Council on Education, in the report entitled, ‘‘Gender Equity in Higher Education: Are Male Students at a Disadvantage?’’ noted that the media popularized that males are falling behind their female counterparts in terms of academic achievement (King, 2000). Grabill, Lasane, and Povitsky (2005) noted that female adolescents tended to perform better academically than their male counterparts. The authors related this finding to the self-regulation Table 2. Multiple Regressions Predicting Adolescents’ Academic Achievement (N 5 207) Variables
B
SE
Gender of adolescents Extra classes Education of father Maternal warmth Brain-related trauma
3.51 .20 2.13 .16 2.76
.74 .04 .75 .79 1.25
po.05; po.01; po.001.
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X .28 .31 .17 .01 .13
F
DR2
16.18
.26
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and structured academic environment as a feminine phenomenon. Regarding the Cambodian context, this result may be true in that female adolescents perform better than male adolescents for those living in the city. Urban schools in Cambodia may be more structured than rural schools. Studies conducted with those living in the countryside are needed. Finally, because girls are less likely to be allowed by their families to continue through high school than are boys in Cambodia, those girls who do continue may be only the ones who have been most successful in school. Hours that the adolescents spent taking extra classes strongly predicted academic achievement, indicating that the more hours the adolescents spent taking extra classes, the more likely that they had higher grades compared to those who spent less time. This result is consistent with the findings of Di (1996) and Lahmers and Zulauf (2000). However, this result reflects a controversy among educational advocators in Cambodia as well as in other parts of Asia (Bray, 2003). Generally, students take extra classes by paying money for individual teachers who tutor classes after their official hours. It is generally believed that these students earn higher scores if they take extra classes provided by their teachers. The teachers in Cambodia use it as a means to earn money to compensate for their low salary. Teachers would tutor particular questions in their extra classes that they would test students on in their official classes. Thus, the students who took their private tutoring classes would do better in the tests because they already knew the answers. Because of these extra costs, differences in educational opportunities exist based on socioeconomic status even in primary school in Cambodia. Interestingly, the findings revealed that adolescents’ low academic achievement was predicted by caregiver brain-related trauma. Brain-related trauma, as measured by suffocation, attempted drowning, head beating, and unconsciousness, negatively affected adolescents’ academic achievement. It may be true that brain-related trauma is associated with cognitive functioning (Rapoport, McCullagh, Shammi, & Feinstein, 2005). Research also showed that parents with traumatic brain injury (TBI) may lead to ‘‘less goal setting, less encouragement of skill development, less emphasis on obedience to rules and orderliness, less promotion of work values, less nurturing, and lower levels of active involvement with their children’’ (Uysal, Hibbard, Robillard, Pappadopulos, & Jaffe, 1998, p. 57). Uysal et al. also showed that spouses of the individuals with TBI had less acceptance of their children and showed lower levels of warmth and love to their children. Although there is no published research to support the relationship between caregiver brain-related trauma and their adolescents’ academic achievement directly, the results of this study and the results found by Uysal et al. (1998) call for an examination of this direct relationship. In sum, adolescents’ academic achievement may be associated with caregiver neurological problems rather than psychological ones. This finding may have important implications for practitioners who work with traumatized people, by emphasizing the importance of conducting screening for brain-related trauma and providing some additional services for offspring who may suffer cognitive impairments. Although much Western literature shows relationships between caregiver warmth and their adolescents’ academic achievement, this study did not find any significant relationship and found only a small relationship between caregiver warmth and caregiver trauma. One way to explain why caregiver warmth did not predict academic achievement, and caregiver trauma predicted only a small amount of caregiver warmth, is that the parent–adolescent relationship in Cambodian culture is very formal. Cambodian parents are unlikely to show a great deal of warmth to their Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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children. Doing so, the parents believe, would spoil their children (Smith-Hefner, 1999). It may be that children have learned and been raised to normalize this behavior. The other way to explain this relationship is that children are raised and encouraged to place greater emphasis on family ‘‘face.’’ Thus, the children would perceive that only study would make them able to restore their family face in their community. One needs to examine the role that sociocultural contexts play in parent–adolescent relationships that ultimately contribute to academic achievement. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study One of the strengths in this study is that the data were collected from both caregivers and adolescents. In addition, there are few studies conducted in Cambodia on academic achievement, so the present study makes an important contribution to the literature. Finally, the results from this study may be useful not only for Cambodians, but also for other traumatized populations. Weaknesses of the study include the few fathers who were available to participate, and the low levels of PTSD in the sample compared to that expected (thus, the sample may not have been representative). In addition, the mother–adolescent relationship scale was not validated before with Cambodian adolescents. Thus, the scale may be problematic. Moreover, adolescents’ emotional states, their peer relationships, and parents’ socioeconomic status—generally believed to play a key role in adolescents’ academic achievement—should be included in future studies. Finally, there is not much variance accounted for in caregiver warmth from caregiver trauma. Although this relationship is significant, it is important to point out a distinction between significance and importance in a statistical relationship. A highly significant relationship between two variables can come from a large sample size, but not have much meaning. What is more important is the size of the relationship, indicated by the amount of variance in the dependent variable accounted for by the addition of the independent variable to the equation. The amount of variance accounted for in Hypothesis 1 is small, probably due to cultural issues previously discussed. CONCLUSIONS The present study suggested that caregiver trauma might be not problematic for adolescents’ academic achievement. It should be understood in terms of Cambodian parents’ child-rearing practices and overcompensation patterns of adolescents to restore family dignity and socioeconomic status. Interestingly, the results showed that caregiver brain-related trauma predicted adolescents’ academic achievement, suggesting that adolescents’ academic achievement may be associated with caregiver neurological problems rather than psychological ones. Implications include that practitioners who work with traumatized populations should conduct screening tests for brain-related trauma. Practitioners should also assess social and cognitive functioning of their traumatized clients as well as the cognitive functioning of their adolescents. Caregiver trauma that predicted caregiver warmth was also mediated by caregiver’s education. This indicated that caregiver’s education accounted for the relationships between caregiver trauma and caregiver warmth. In other words, education served as a buffering effect between trauma and relationship difficulties. Community health professionals working with people in Cambodia should benefit from the results of this study. As discussed above, the insignificant relationship between caregivers’ trauma and students’ academic achievement might be due to the Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop
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involvement of other family members who take a role in attending to the adolescents’ needs. Preventive intervention programs need to emphasize using available resources within families to help children attain academically. Community workers also need to pay attention to assessing war-surviving parents’ brain-related trauma. Simple questions as used in this study may serve as a useful tool to assess quickly whether parents experienced brain-related trauma either during the war or thereafter. Referrals may be needed if brain-related trauma is found. The study also found that trauma among caregivers was related to poor relationships with their children. Although this poor relationship quality did not predict students’ academic achievement, it might affect students’ behavioral outcomes such as delinquency. Although we did not have data on behavioral outcomes, previous studies have shown the importance of relationships on these (e.g., Burt, McGue, Krueger, & Iacono, 2007; Lor & Chu, 2002; Simons, Robertson, & Downs, 1989). Thus, preventive intervention programs may need to assess adolescents’ behavioral issues when they have traumatized caregivers.
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