Parents’ Aspirations and Commitment with Education. Lessons from a Randomized Control Trial in a Shantytown

Abstract This paper documents the impact of an after-school program called Apoyo Escolar, sited in one of the most vulnerable neighborhoods of a developing country, Uruguay. The outcomes of interest are academic achievement, behavior at school and grade retention. By a field experiment, we explore the interaction effects of being randomly assigned to an after-school program with an indicator of parent commitment – an unaddressed question in previous literature. We found novel results that should guide policy design. Increasing time spent in safe settings does not guarantee academic success: the after-school program is effective in improving academic performance when children have committed parents. And students’ performance at school is highly correlated with parents’ educational expectations. Thus, the interaction between hope, family and after-school for disadvantaged children deserves more attention in policy design.

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