Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p> <bold>Objective</bold> : Adolescents from single-parent families and stepfamilies represent a growing population whose pathways to academic success remain insufficiently understood. This study examined whether adolescents' self-educational expectations function as a motivational pathway linking family socioeconomic status, parent-child relationship quality and parental educational expectations with academic achievement among Chinese adolescents in intact, single-parent and stepfamily contexts. <bold>Methods</bold> : Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2020; N = 1,259), with supplementary explanatory variables matched from earlier waves, this observational study used path analysis and multi-group path analysis to test a mediation model across intact families, single-parent families and stepfamilies. <bold>Results</bold> : A significant resource gradient was observed across family structures: intact families showed advantages in socioeconomic status, parent-child relationship quality and adolescents' self-educational expectations, whereas parental educational expectations were broadly consistent across family types. No significant differences in academic achievement were observed across the three family structures. Self-educational expectations accounted for the associations of family socioeconomic status, parental educational expectations and parent-child relationship quality with academic achievement. Multi-group analyses indicated that structural path coefficients were statistically comparable across intact, single-parent and stepfamily groups. At the same time, within-group patterns revealed theoretically meaningful variation: self-educational expectations were positively associated with academic achievement across all family structures, parental educational expectations showed relatively stable links with adolescents' self-expectations and achievement, whereas paths involving family SES and parent-child relationship quality were more evident among intact families and stepfamilies than among single-parent families. <bold>Conclusion</bold> : Self-educational expectations emerged as a key motivational pathway linking family resources and parent-child processes to adolescents' academic achievement. The findings contribute to psychological research by shifting attention from family structure as a deficit category to the motivational and relational processes through which adolescents may sustain academic functioning across diverse family contexts, while requiring cautious interpretation because of the observational design and subgroup size limitations. </p>