Alienation and school adjustment among black and white adolescents

Black and white students (N = 186) in the 10th through 12th grades were given measures of alienation and social adjustment. Third-order partial correlations were computed. Alienation scores correlated negatively with grade point averages and positively with some measures of behavioral maladjustment. There were negative correlations between alienation scores and social involvement. Alienation scores appeared to have a more uniform and pervasive negative influence on black students than on white students.