DescriptionThe current study examined whether or not parent-adolescent discussions and neighborhood poverty mediated the relationship between family poverty and academic achievement in reading and math. The study used data for eighth grade participants in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to test these relationships. Parents of participants reported on the extent of parent-student discussion in the home. Direct cognitive assessments were given to the eighth graders during their spring of the 2006-07 school years to assess their academic achievement in reading and math. Finally, zipcodes for the participants’ homes were matched with data from the 2000 census to determine the percentage of households in each zipcode below the poverty line. Multiple regressions were used to test for possible mediation effects. The results indicated neighborhood poverty partially mediated the relationship between family poverty and academic achievement in both reading and math. There was no significant correlation between parental discussion and family poverty, and consequently parental discussion could not be a mediator of the association of family poverty with academic achievement. However, there was a significant interaction between family poverty status and parental discussion in the prediction of academic achievement indicating that parental discussion is more valuable in affluent families than in poverty stricken families. Further research is needed to examine why parental discussion is not as valuable in low income families. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the relation of academic achievement to family poverty.