Changes in parental involvement in secondary education: An exploration study using the longitudinal study of young people in England

Empirical research on parental involvement in children's education often makes the assumption that levels of involvement remain fixed over time. This paper highlights evidence from a longitudinal study that half of parents of young people in Year 9 reported becoming more or less involved in their child's school life over a two‐year period and explores the characteristics associated with mothers and fathers that change their levels of involvement. The young person's attitude to school, the mother's relationship with the school, attendance at parents’ evenings and the mother's ethnicity, qualifications and change in economic status had the strongest associations with a reported change in maternal involvement levels. Changes in paternal involvement were strongly associated with the father's ethnicity and the young person's behaviour.     

Modeling achievement in mathematics: the role of learner and learning environment characteristics

This study examined a structural model of mathematics achievement among Druze 8th graders in Israel. The model integrates 2 psychosocial theories: goal theory and social learning theory. Variables in the model included gender, father's and mother's education, classroom mastery and performance goal orientation, mathematics self-efficacy and self-regulated learning, mastery and performance goals, and mathematics achievement. Data on learner and learning environment variables and achievement in mathematics were collected from 273 boys and girls. Results indicate appropriate fit of the model for the entire sample. Invariance analysis across gender indicated that only 2 of the 11 path coefficients, mother's education on mathematics achievement and classroom mastery goal orientation on self-regulation, were not invariant across gender. The same pattern of relationships accounted for different amounts of variance in mathematics achievement for boys and girls.     

Advanced mathematics course-taking: A focus on gender equifinality

High school mathematics achievement predicts future success. Potentially different factors that lead to success for boys versus girls, termed equifinality, are not well understood. Such factors are needed to inform interventions to increase numbers of students taking advanced mathematics courses and going on into science and mathematics careers. With 16,373 diverse tenth grade participants of the 2002 Education Longitudinal Study, we used multi-group logistic regression modeling to investigate advanced mathematics course selection from a social cognitive perspective, testing relations separately by gender. Girls took advanced mathematics courses at significantly higher rates than males. Family background and cognitive factors were related to advanced mathematics coursetaking for both groups. Supporting the equifinality hypothesis, father's expectation, parent communication, and peer academic value were significant for girls yet mother's expectation and parent participation were significant for boys. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

Some Non‐Academic Developmental Correlates of Ability‐Grouping in Secondary Schools

Using data from the National Child Development Study, the relationship between certain non‐academic aspects of children's development and their school's ability‐grouping policy were examined.

The four areas of non‐academic development considered were: the young people's rating of their own ability in English, mathematics, science and practical subjects, their academic motivation, their plans for further education and occupational aspirations and their behaviour at school. However, in general there were no differences in any of these respects between children in streamed, setted and mixed‐ability schools.

The implications of these findings are discussed, in particular the potential differences which could arise between schools with different policies if more appropriate methods of teaching and organisation were adopted.     

Intergenerational effects of war trauma among Palestinian families mediated via psychological maltreatment

We tested the hypothesis that intergenerational effects of parents’ war trauma on offspring's attachment and mental health are mediated by psychological maltreatment. Two hundred and forty children and their parents were sampled from a war-prone area, Gaza, Palestine. The parents reported the number and type of traumatic experiences of war they had had during their lifetime before the child's birth and during a current war when the child was 10–12 years old. The children reported their war traumas, experiences of psychological maltreatment, attachment security, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress (PTSS), depression, and aggression. The direct and indirect intergenerational effects of war trauma were tested in structural equation models. The hypotheses were confirmed for father's past war exposure, and disconfirmed for mother's war exposure. The father's past war trauma had a negative association with attachment security and positive association with the child's mental health problems mediated by increased psychological maltreatment. In contrast, the mother's past war trauma had a negative association with the child's depression via decreased psychological maltreatment. The mother's current war trauma had a negative association with the child's depression and aggression via decreased psychological maltreatment. Among fathers, past war exposure should be considered as a risk factor for psychological maltreatment of children and the associated attachment insecurity and mental health problems. Among mothers, war exposure as such could be given less clinical attention than PTSS in the prevention of psychological maltreatment of children.     

Parent-Child Similarity in Environmental Attitudes: A Pairwise Comparison

Are adolescents’ environmental attitudes similar to their parents’ attitudes? The main objective of this study is to examine what quantitative associations, if any, exist in parent-child environmental attitudes within the family. The survey data was collected assessing attitudes toward the environment and nature from 15-year-old students (n = 237) and their parents (n = 212) in Finland. A significant positive correlation emerged in environmental attitudes between mothers and fathers. Interestingly, the results revealed some indicative evidence that girls’ environmental attitudes could relate more to their father's than mother's attitudes. Girls were as positive in their environmental attitudes as their parents and in contrast boys were noticeably more negative than either their parents or girls of the same age. The parental level of education was not found to be significantly related to the level of environmental attitudes of their adolescent offspring. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Correspondence between maternal and paternal parenting styles in early childhood

The goal of the present study was to investigate perceived similarities and differences in parenting styles between mothers and fathers in the same family. The 56 parents of 28 preschool children independently completed the parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire (PSDQ) [Robinson, C. C., Mandleco, B., Frost Olsen, S., & Hart, C. H. (2001). The parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire (PSDQ). In B. F. Perlmutter, J. Touliatos, & G. W. Holden (Eds.), Handbook of family measurement techniques. Vol. 2: Instruments and index (p. 190). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage]. Results reveal only modest similarity in parenting styles used by two parents within the same home. Permissive (and to a lesser extent, authoritarian) parenting was somewhat positively associated across parents but no cross-informant association was found for authoritative parenting. Fathers perceive their spouses to be more authoritative, more permissive, and less authoritarian than themselves, whereas mothers only perceive themselves to be more authoritative than fathers. Parents who share similar parenting styles are more accurate at reporting on their spouses’ parenting styles than are parents with differing styles. Correspondence in parenting style across both parents in the home is important as are parental perceptions of similarity and differences in styles. Independent assessment of both mother's and father's parenting styles, and each parent's perception of their spouse's parenting appears needed in research and practical settings.     

“The ‘Effects’ of infant day care reconsidered” reconsidered: Risks for parents,children, and researchers

In his article “The ‘Effects’ of Infant Day Care Reconsidered”, Belsky (1988) concludes that maternal employment puts infants at risk for developing emotional insecurity and social maladjustment. After a review of Belsky's and other research, this article offers a different conclusion. It is agreed that infants whose mothers work full-time during their first year are consistently and statistically significantly more likely than infants of mothers who work part-time or not at all to be classifed as insecurely attached when such infants are observed with their mothers in the Strange Situation. However, the difference is not large (8% greater probability), and it does not necessarily reflect emotional maladjustment. It is based on a single assessment procedure with a single partner, a procedure in which day-care infants may feel more comfortable than do other infants. Observations of heightened aggression in children who have been in day care as infants offer limited evidence of maladjustment as a consequence of maternal employment. But, there is no clear evidence that day care places infants at risk. Belsky suggests that observed day-care effects on attachment and aggression may be moderated by day-care quality; children's age, sex, and temperament; hours of separation from mother; overstimulation by mother; and congruence between the mother's attitude and work status. However, there is no convincing evidence that these factors are involved. The most promising factors to be used in accounting for individual differences in daycare infants' emotional development are the mother's attitude toward the infant, her emotional accessibility and behavioral sensitivity, and her desire for independence (her own and the infant's). What is needed now is research to assess and investigate such mediating factors, rather than blanket generalizations about day-care effects and implicit or explicit condemnations of maternal employment.     

The Development of Occupational Sex‐role Stereotypes,Occupational Preferences and Academic Subject Preferences in Children at Ages 8, 12 and 16

This paper reports data from a questionnaire‐based UK study aimed at examining occupational sex‐role stereotypes and occupational preferences of male and female pupils at three ages. Data were collected from 594 children in total (108 8‐year‐olds, 307 12‐year‐olds and 177 16‐year‐olds) who responded to questions that asked for their views on who (males, females or both) should perform certain occupations and how much they would like to have each of the occupations as their career. The children were also asked to indicate their favourite school subject. Analysis indicated that the youngest age group held significantly more stereotyped views regarding who should perform certain jobs than the older children and that, generally, boys sex‐typed appropriateness of occupations to a significantly greater degree than girls, although this difference was not significant in the youngest age group. Furthermore, analysis of the occupational preference ratings revealed significant differences between male and female subjects for many occupations, with higher ratings generally being awarded to stereo‐typically gender‐appropriate careers. Significant differences between the three age groups were also observed in the preference ratings for many occupations, with a tendency for the majority of occupations to be perceived less favourably with increasing age of respondent. Finally, school subject preferences were considered. No consistent or stable pattern of preference emerged for males and females across age‐groups, confirming recent suggestions that gender stereotyping of school subjects is weakening.     

Changing attitudes toward science: Undergraduates in 1967 and 1971

The purpose of the study was to examine the change in attitudes toward science and the scientific institution which had occurred among undergraduate university students between 1967 and 1971. Two similar cohorts of university undergraduates were given Form A of the Schwirian Science Support Scale (Tri-S) in 1967 and 1971. The populations were 398 students and 153 students, respectively. Data concerning relevant contingent independent variables were also collected. The data were analyzed utilizing nine, two-way analyses of variance. The major independent variable, time of administration, (1967 and 1971) was always one factor; the second factor in each ANOVA consisted of each of the nine contingent independent variables: (1) age; (2) sex; (3) religious preference; (4) father's education; (5) mother's education; (6) father's occupation; (7) academic major; (8) hometown size; and (9) type of high school. The data from the nine, two-way ANOVA's show significant differences ( p < .05 ) in only two instances. In the case of the association of the Tri-S Scores with father's occupation at times one and two, it was observed that the higher the status of the father's occupation, the higher the student's Tri-S score. This relationship was observed in both 1967 and 1971; there was no significant effect of time. Statistically significant differences in Tri-S scores were also observed among students from different sized hometowns; and in this case, there was a change over time. In 1967 students from small and medium-sized communities had significantly lower Tri-S scores than students from farms and large cities. By 1971 the mean scores of the students from small and medium sized communities had increased, producing scores slightly higher than the farm and city students. The findings indicate that the 1971 Midwestern university students in the sample are no less positive in their attitudes toward science than their 1967 counterparts. No significant differences between overall 1967 and 1971 scores exist and no significant differences over time were observed by age, sex, religious preference, father's or mother's education, father's occupation, academic major, or high school type.     

Intergenerational Transfers of Preferences for Science Careers in Comparative Perspective

Using data from 24 countries, which participated in the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we examine the relationship between parental science employment and students' career expectations. In contrast to prior PISA-based studies, we find that the link between parental employment and adolescent plans to work in science is non-trivial and merits attention. In this context, we consider three versions of the gender socialisation hypothesis. The strong variant posits that girls' plans are shaped solely by their mothers' career pathways while boys model their expectations exclusively on fathers’ occupations. The weaker version of this hypothesis expects children to be influenced more by the same-sex than by the opposite-sex parent. Finally, the third possibility is that, as egalitarian ideologies prevail, parents inspire adolescent occupational plans regardless of gender. These hypotheses are assessed separately for student career plans related to biology, agriculture and health (BAH) in contrast to computing, engineering and mathematics (CEM), because the involvement in these fields of science is known to be segregated by gender. Using two-level multinomial logit modelling, we find some support for the weak version of the gender socialisation hypothesis. Although within-family transfers of preferences for science careers vary considerably across countries, we note certain regularities. In many nations, relevant paternal employment enhances sons' interest in science careers regardless of their field. In contrast, maternal employment inspires daughters in fewer countries and this influence tends to be limited to careers in BAH. We discuss the possible implications of these findings for science educators.     

Mother's age at arrival in the United States and early cognitive development

This paper focuses on the cognitive development of young children from diverse backgrounds with a particular focus on ethnic and nativity differences in home environments. Hypotheses are developed addressing the extent to which home environment and parenting practices mediate the relationship between mother's age at arrival and cognitive development in early childhood. Data from the first two waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth cohort are employed. Children whose mothers arrived in the United States at the youngest ages (0–7 years) have similar cognitive scores to children whose mothers are born in the United States once socioeconomic status and family background are considered. Multivariate analyses indicate parenting practices and home environment are associated with cognitive development and act as partial mediators between cognitive scores and mother's age at arrival. Overall, the results highlight the need to consider parental migration experiences and differences in the home environments of children of immigrants in the United States as sources of variation in outcomes for the second-generation.     

The Role of Socioeconomic Status in SAT–Freshman Grade Relationships Across Gender and Racial Subgroups

Recent research has shown that admissions tests retain the vast majority of their predictive power after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES), and that SES provides only a slight increment over SAT and high school grades (high school grade point average [HSGPA]) in predicting academic performance. To address the possibility that these overall analyses obscure differences by race/ethnicity or gender, we examine the role of SES in the test‒grade relationship for men and women as well as for various racial/ethnic subgroups within the United States. For each subgroup, the test‒grade relationship is only slightly diminished when controlling for SES. Further, SES is a substantially less powerful predictor of academic performance than both SAT and HSGPA. Among the indicators of SES (i.e., father's education, mother's education, and parental income), father's education appears to be strongest predictor of freshman grades across subgroups, with the exception of the Asian subgroup. In general, SES appears to behave similarly across subgroups in the prediction of freshman grades with SAT scores and HSGPA.     

The intergenerational transmission of schooling: Are mothers really less important than fathers?

There is a “puzzle” in the literature on the intergenerational transmission of schooling, where twin studies emphasize the importance of fathers’ schooling, whereas IV-studies often emphasize the importance of mothers. We provide new evidence on this “puzzle” using register based Swedish data on the largest sample of twins used so far in the literature. In contrast to previous twin studies, our results confirm the importance of mothers’ schooling. We also provide the first twin-based evidence of possible role model effects, where our estimates suggest that mother's schooling matters more than father's schooling for daughters schooling. One additional year of mothers’ schooling raises daughter's schooling by a tenth of a year, which is similar to some of the previous IV-based estimates in the literature. Finally, we bring in new US twin data that for the first time allows a replication of previous twin-based estimates of the intergenerational transmission of schooling in the US. The results show no statistically significant effect of mothers’ and fathers’ schooling on children's schooling. Our results have implications for assessing the efficiency of policies that subsidize the schooling of men and women and are in contrast to most previous findings in the twin literature.     

Higher Education: is more better? Gender Differences in Labour Market Returns to Tertiary Education in Israel

Research on the transition from post-secondary education to the labour market refers mainly to differences between academic and vocational tracks in secondary education. In this paper we analyse Israeli data focusing on the transition from different levels of post secondary degrees and from various fields of study to the labour market. We examine three labour market outcomes: employment status, occupational prestige attainment, and job match. Data are drawn from a supplement to the 1983 Israeli Census, which includes a random sample of Israel's tertiary education degree holders (vocational and academic). Our central finding is that men who work in female-dominated occupations get better returns than women, and women who work in male-dominated occupations get better returns than men. We discuss several explanations of this finding.     

Working with adolescent mothers of babies and toddlers: an approach to parent education

Adolescent mothers and their very young children are a high‐risk group, physically, emotionally and socially. These very young parents present special challenges to the early childhood educator, who must often deal with the simultaneous demands created by an immature adolescent and the needs of her child for responsible parenting. Social isolation, lack of education, inexperience, and un‐met needs to play further complicate the lives of teen parents, and of educators who attempt to teach them parenting skills.

Recognising the adolescent needs of very young parents and building a parent education program based on concrete, playful experiences with plentiful opportunities to interact with peers seem to be keys to successful intervention. In this presentation we will look at the special characteristics of adolescent parents and review a series of field‐tested hands‐on parent education workshops for them.     

Father-child and mother-child speech: A perspective on parental roles

An analysis of the existing research on parents' speech to young children suggests that the differences between mothers' and fathers' speech appear especially in the nature of their vocabulary and in certain functional and conversational aspects of their speech when addressing their children. The findings suggest that the father is a more demanding or challenging conversational partner for the young child than the mother, who tends to be more sensitive to the child's abilities and requires less of the child as a conversational partner. We interpret these differences as reflecting parental roles which are in part different and complementary. The mother's specific role is to provide a feeling of security by avoiding situations where the child's established acquisitions would be challenged, while still stimulating the child. The father's specific roles is to prompt the child to attain higher levels of success, even if it means momentarily destabilizing the child. Literature on children's communicative behaviors with each parent was also examined. The sparse amount of research in this field reveals that children may communicate differently with mothers and fathers. The conclusions of this literature review are discussed in terms of different perspectives open for future research.     

Predictors of mothers' and fathers' teaching of reading and mathematics during kindergarten and Grade 1

The aim of the present longitudinal study was to investigate factors contributing to mothers' and fathers' teaching of reading and mathematics to their children during kindergarten and Grade 1. It was assumed that mothers' and fathers' teaching during kindergarten would be influenced by their socioeconomic status and their own learning difficulties, whereas during Grade 1 by their children's academic performance. A total of 189 mothers and 165 fathers filled in questionnaires regarding their teaching of reading and mathematics twice, once in kindergarten and once in Grade 1. Children's reading and mathematics performance was also examined twice, once in kindergarten and once in Grade 1. The results showed that the lower the socioeconomic status of mothers and fathers, the more teaching of reading and mathematics they reported. Moreover, the lower the children's academic performance in reading and mathematics in the beginning of Grade 1, the more teaching by mothers and fathers reported later on. Overall, the results suggest that mothers and fathers adjust their teaching to the actual skill level of their children when their children enter primary school.     

Patterns of interaction between a mother and her Down's syndrome child: A single case ethological study

The study reports the analysis of a mother/child interaction sequence. Its focus is on the mother's teaching strategies. The child was presented with two tasks. The first task was new and not previously experienced by the child; the second task was one that had been experienced. The mother's teaching of the tasks was videotaped and analysed. The material was analysed according to ‘on task’ behaviours. The results indicated that:

1. (a) both the mother and child were able to maintain a continuous communication sequence;

2. (b) the mother structured both tasks, but structured the new task more, and allowed some flexibility in the old task;

3. (c) the language used by the mother was ‘restricted';

4. (d) in responding to her child's behaviour, the mother made more use of verbal cues and used fewer non‐verbal cues

     

Exploring the Causal Effect of Interpretation Bias on Attachment Expectations

Attachment theory implies that children's inclination to interpret attachment figures behavior as supportive and available causally influences children's trust in their attachment figure's availability. An experiment was conducted to test whether training children (8–12 years old) to interpret ambiguous interactions with their mothers in a more secure way increases their trust in their mother's availability. Participants (N = 49) were randomly assigned to either a secure condition to train children to interpret their mother's behavior as supportive or a neutral placebo condition, where interpretations were unrelated to maternal support. Results supported the hypothesis: After the secure training, children interpreted maternal behavior more securely and trusted more in her availability. This suggests that attachment‐related processing biases causally affect attachment expectations.