The influence of parent education and family income on child achievement: the indirect role of parental expectations and the home environment.

This study examined the process of how socioeconomic status, specifically parents' education and income, indirectly relates to children's academic achievement through parents' beliefs and behaviors. Data from a national, cross-sectional study of children were used for this study. The subjects were 868 8-12-year-olds, divided approximately equally across gender (436 females, 433 males). This sample was 49% non-Hispanic European American and 47% African American. Using structural equation modeling techniques, the author found that the socioeconomic factors were related indirectly to children's academic achievement through parents' beliefs and behaviors but that the process of these relations was different by racial group. Parents' years of schooling also was found to be an important socioeconomic factor to take into consideration in both policy and research when looking at school-age children.

[1]  B. Wolfe,et al.  The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings , 1995 .

[2]  R. P. McDonald,et al.  Principles and practice in reporting structural equation analyses. , 2002, Psychological methods.

[3]  V. Lee,et al.  The Relative Importance of Home and School in the Development of Literacy Skills for Middle-Grade Students , 1994, American Journal of Education.

[4]  Kathleen V. Hoover-dempsey,et al.  Why Do Parents Become Involved in Their Children’s Education? , 1997 .

[5]  Jeanne Brooks-Gunn,et al.  How money matters for young children's development: parental investment and family processes. , 2002, Child development.

[6]  G. Duncan,et al.  Does neighborhood and family poverty affect mothers' parenting, mental health, and social support? , 1994 .

[7]  S. Jimerson,et al.  A longitudinal study of achievement trajectories: Factors associated with change. , 1999 .

[8]  S. Preston,et al.  Educational differentials in mortality: United States, 1979-85. , 1996, Social science & medicine.

[9]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development. , 2002, Developmental psychology.

[10]  D. Halpern.  Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities , 1986 .

[11]  D. Entwisle,et al.  When expectations work: race and socioeconomic differences in school performance , 1994 .

[12]  J. Eccles,et al.  School and family effects on the ontogeny of children's interests, self-perceptions, and activity choices. , 1992, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

[13]  Rashmita S. Mistry,et al.  Economic well-being and children's social adjustment: the role of family process in an ethnically diverse low-income sample. , 2002, Child development.

[14]  B. Byrne.  Structural equation modeling with EQS : basic concepts, applications, and programming , 2000 .

[15]  M. Kohn.  Social Class and Parent-Child Relationships: An Interpretation , 1963, American Journal of Sociology.

[16]  G. Brody,et al.  Economic pressure in African American families: a replication and extension of the family stress model. , 2002, Developmental psychology.

[17]  Elaine C. Meyer,et al.  Ethnic and minority parenting. , 1995 .

[18]  J. Eccles,et al.  Financial strain, parenting behaviors, and adolescents' achievement: testing model equivalence between African American and European American single- and two-parent families. , 1999, Child development.

[19]  B. B. Brown,et al.  Ethnic differences in adolescent achievement. An ecological perspective. , 1992, The American psychologist.

[20]  K. Frasch,et al.  Consequences of growing up poor , 1999 .

[21]  K. Dodge,et al.  Externalizing Behavior Problems and Discipline Revisited: Nonlinear Effects and Variation by Culture, Context, and Gender , 1997 .

[22]  Bruce E. Haas,et al.  The Relation between Parental Values and Parenting Behavior: A Test of the Kohn Hypothesis. , 1989 .

[23]  J. L. Mahoney,et al.  Family Influences on School Achievement in Low-Income, African American Children. , 1997 .

[24]  K. Matthews,et al.  Socioeconomic differences in children's health: how and why do these relationships change with age? , 2002, Psychological bulletin.

[25]  Nancy Mather,et al.  Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised: Recommendations and Reports , 1992 .