Broadening Family Education and Income Policy through a Long-Term Research-Practice Partnership in Two-Generation Approaches

• In Event: From Research to Action: How Two-Generation Approaches Can Inform Policy Change

Abstract

Two-generation approaches represent an emerging strategy to reduce family poverty (Sommer et al., 2024). Family-centered programs and policies address the interrelated concerns that 10 million U.S. children live in poverty, 42% of all children live in households in which no adult has a college education, and parents’ education and economic well-being is significantly linked to children’s outcomes (Duncan et al., 2014; NCES, 2024; U.S. BLS, 2023). 

CareerAdvance, a two-generation program operated in Tulsa, Oklahoma by the Community Action Project of Tulsa (CAP Tulsa), integrated higher education, early education, and comprehensive wraparound services. The program offered tuition-free healthcare training to low-income parents paired with Head Start for young children. Supportive services included coordinated parent-child schedules, coaching support, peer meetings, and financial incentives.  

We began our relationship with CAP Tulsa in the early 2010s, developing a collaborative research-practice partnership to evaluate the impact of CareerAdvance. Using quasi-experimental methods, we found that parents in CareerAdvance demonstrated increases in education, employment in the healthcare field, self-efficacy, and optimism, with no effects on income, in the short-term (Chase-Lansdale et al., 2019; Chor et al., 2023). Subgroup analyses suggest differing benefits to parents based on initial education level. Parents’ CareerAdvance participation also led to increased child attendance and less chronic absence in Head Start (Sommer et al., 2020) but there were no effects on young children’s development (Sabol et al., 2024).  

We then deepened our partnership to study longer-term program impacts. Of the 338 families in the original study, 227 parents and adolescents participated in a follow-up online survey approximately 10 years after baseline (CareerAdvance n=122, comparison n=105). Like the original sample, the follow-up sample was a group of racially diverse families (37% Black, 27% White, 12% Latino/a/x, and 24% another race).  

Using a two-stage matching process, we found CareerAdvance parents were more likely to hold a certificate (B=0.49, p<.001) and be employed in healthcare (B=0.83, p<.001) than comparison parents a decade after baseline. Program parents also reported less material hardship (B=0.51, p<.05). Although there were no effects on income in the full sample, parents who began the program with postsecondary credentials reported higher wages per week (B=0.41, p<.05). There were no significant differences between adolescents of parents who participated in CareerAdvance and adolescents of comparison parents on all survey outcomes. 

The current study is one of the first to examine the short- and long-term effects of a two-generation education program on parent and child (now adolescent) outcomes. One limitation of this work, and the field of two-generation programming and policy, is the lack of innovative and culturally sensitive measurement around family dynamics. Current survey measures, particularly for youth, likely fail to capture the dual development of parents and children in two-generation programs (Sabol et al., 2021). In sum, this study’s findings, as well as those from our benefit-cost analysis of coordinated service programs (Sommer et al., 2018), suggest a family-centered approach to education offers a promising direction for future policy investment at the national level.

Author

• Teresa Eckrich Sommer
  Presenting Author