1-063 - Family correlates of academic risk and achievement

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The family environment, including housing instability, demographic characteristics and parent-child interactions, plays a powerful role in shaping children’s development. This symposium examines family factors that support or inhibit academic success for diverse populations and includes a discussant who is an established expert in academic achievement.

The first paper explores longitudinal relations between housing instability and academic achievement for low-income children from preschool to first grade. Findings reveal that residential moves during preschool have direct and indirect effects on math and literacy in kindergarten and first grade. The second paper investigates employment status, residential moves, and parent education on Latino children’s math, literacy, and inhibitory control (IC) and the relation between IC and math and literacy. Results suggest that employment status and residential moves were significantly related to math and IC, and IC was associated with math and literacy. The third paper examines two aspects of parent-child relationship quality (warmth and conflict) and two types of parenting behaviors (parental knowledge and educational values socialization) as they relate to school engagement (bonding, trouble, self-esteem in school) among urban racial/ethnic minority middle school students. Findings indicate that parental knowledge was associated with changes in all three dimensions of school engagement, whereas relationship quality was less consistently linked to changes in school engagement.

The results provide evidence for several familial factors that are related to academic success for diverse samples of children, and suggest a need for intervention or other supports designed to promote academic success for children experiencing family risk.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Amanda Roy, University of Illinois-Chicago

Discussant

• Kirsten L Kainz, Univ of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• Housing instability and academic trajectories for children in Head Start - Presenting Author: Sara Anne Schmitt, Purdue University; Shannon Tierney Lipscomb, Oregon State University

• The influence of demographic factors on low-income Latino children’s school success - Presenting Author: Guadalupe Diaz, Oregon State University; Megan M McClelland, Oregon State University

• Family Correlates of Changes in School Engagement among Racial/Ethnic Minority Students - Presenting Author: Aryn M Dotterer, Purdue University