A Study of the Effects of Parental Educational Expectation on Secondary School Students' Academic Performance: Parent-Child Communication as a Mediator

Abstract

Educational expectation perspective of Sewell et al. has made significant contributions to the study of educational attainment, but the theoretical model constructed by Wisconsin of how educational expectations lead to differences in educational attainment needs to be further explored. In this paper, multiple linear regressions and KHB mediated effects decomposition are conducted by using baseline data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) for the 2013-2014 school year. The results show that after controlling for gender, age, family economic status, family cultural capital, parental education and occupation, parental education expectation has a significant positive effect on children's academic performance and parent-child communication. The parent-child communication had a significant positive effect on children's academic performance. The mediation effect decomposition finds that parent-child communication has a partial mediation effect between parental educational expectations and children's academic performance, accounting for 9.89% of the total effect. The study also notes that parental educational expectation, parent-child communication, and academic performance differed by gender and parents' occupation, which should be taken into account in the follow-up process of family education to promote the integration of family education and children's individual development to achieve educational equity.