1-061 - Maternal Education, Parenting, and Children’s Academic Outcomes: Implications for Intervention

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Maternal education is one of the most salient markers of disparities for children in the U.S.: There is more than half a standard deviation difference in test scores between middle-school aged children whose parents have a college degree and children whose parents have a high school degree (Duncan et al., 2012). Such differences have implications for children’s longer-term educational outcomes: High school graduates whose parents have at least a bachelor’s degree are nearly twice as likely to enroll in college than those whose parents have less than a high school diploma (Choy, 2001).

Despite the central importance of maternal education for children’s academic development, much remains unknown. In this panel, we explore how and why maternal education influences children’s academic outcomes, and the implications of these findings for two-generation interventions that aim to simultaneously increase children and mothers’ education. Paper one builds on prior research that illustrates that increases in maternal education are related to improvements in young children’s academic skills (Magnuson, 2007) by using longitudinal data in a low-income sample to explore the role of maternal education in contributing to children’s cognitive scores. Paper two explores the relationship between maternal education and parenting practices that may explain the effects of maternal education on children’s academic outcomes. Paper three explores persistence in a two-generation intervention that directly targets maternal education. Katherine Magnuson who has conducted seminal work in this area will discuss links between the three papers and implications for policy and practice.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Jessica Harding, New York University

Discussant

• Katherine Magnuson, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Individual Presentations

• Understanding the Relationship Between Increases in Maternal Education and Child Development: A Longitudinal Approach - Presenting Author: Celia Gomez, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University; John B Willett, Harvard University

• Associations between Maternal Participation in Education and Positive Parenting Practices - Presenting Author: Jessica Harding, New York University; Pamela Morris, New York University

• Parents’ Persistence and Certification in a Two-Generation Education and Training Program - Presenting Author: Terri Sabol, Northwestern University; Teresa Sommer, Northwestern University; P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Northwestern Univ; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University; Christopher King, UT-Austin; Ummul Kathawalla, Northwestern University; Rayane Alamuddin, Northwestern University; Celia Gomez, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Emily C. Ross, Northwestern University