Academic Expectations and the School Attainment of Young Children

Abstract

This paper focuses on the 'scholastic achievement of five cohorts of white middle-class children as they progressed through their first grade year. Estimates of block recursive models suggest the extent to which sex, IQ, and kindergarten teacher's forecast influenced parental perceptions of children's school abilities and, in turn, how these prior variables influenced children's own academic expectations and their first-grade marks in reading, arithmetic, and conduct. To our knowledge, such models have not previously been used to explicate data gathered from young children. Parents' expectations for their children's performance responded to IQ :both directly, and indirectly through parents' estimates of children's ability), to the child's sex, and to the kindergarten teacher's forecast. Parental expectations influenced only conduct marks (not reading or arithmetic marks) and exerted little impact un children's expectations eiccpc for year-end reading expectations. Parents' estimates of children's ability, of their (spouse's) intention to assist the child with homework, and of the total amount. of schooling they thought their child would eventually complete, all served to clarify sources of parental expectations, but these variables did not influence children's marks or expectations directly. Children's expectations were much less predictable than parents'