ABSTRACT
In considering the context within which academic motivation is embedded, the role of environment is primary in discerning the variables that either moderate or mediate motivation. A pertinent aspect of understanding the role of context concerns determining the contributions of distal and proximal environment that impact academic motivation. Across the 20th century, studies of environment have investigated both distal and proximal variables with an increasingly large emphasis on the proximal environment to determine the specifi c experiences that directly impinge on the child (A.W. Gottfried, 1984; Hunt, 1961; Skodak, 1939; Van Alstyne, 1929; Wachs & Gruen, 1982; Walberg & Marjoribanks, 1976). Distal environmental variables (also referred to as macroenvironmental) comprise background factors such as socioeconomic status (SES), maternal employment status, gender, race, and the like, whereas proximal variables (also referred to as microenvironmental) provide an analysis of the specifi c environmental processes that directly impinge on the child (Bradley, 2002; A. E. Gottfried, Gottfried, & Bathurst, 1988; A. W. Gottfried, 1984; A. W. Gottfried, & Gottfried, 1984; A. W. Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, & Guerin, 1994; Wachs, 1991). Whereas distal variables may be related to children’s development in reliable ways, they, by themselves, do not comprise the specifi c environmental processes to which children are exposed. Rather, the proximal environment provides information as to the cognitive, social-emotional, family, peer, and physical environment impinging on children. Research in developmental and educational psychology has proliferated to explore and investigate the infl uence of proximal environment on children’s development and academic outcomes (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979; A. E. Gottfried, 2008b; A. E. Gottfried, Fleming, Gottfried, 1994, 1998; A. W. Gottfried, 1984; Hunt, 1971; Kellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez, & Bloom, 1993; Wachs, 1992).
