Early Family Environments May Moderate Prediction of Low Educational Attainment in Adulthood: The cases of childhood hyperactivity and authoritarian parenting

Using longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, this study explored conditions under which the effects of risk factors for low educational attainment might be moderated. Two different risk factors, hyperactivity and maternal authoritarian parenting attitudes, were studied. The results showed that on the whole these two risk factors were negatively related to educational attainment at age 26. However, mother's authoritarian parenting was not related to educational attainment in children raised in low‐resource (e.g., low social class) environments. Analogously, hyperactivity was less strongly associated with low educational attainment in children raised in low‐stimulation (e.g., maternal depression and low maternal educational attainment) environments. The implications of these findings for intervention programs are discussed.