Children's Academic Trajectories Research Articles

Academic Trajectories of Children in Formal and Informal Kinship Care.

The academic achievement places children on a positive trajectory for their lifespan. The aim of this study was to examine the academic trajectories of children in out-of-home care (OOCH) and whether kinship care has a protective effect relative to nonkin foster care. The sample analyzed for this study consists of 519,306 racially diverse youth in North Carolina schools 8 to 11 years old in the school year 2009-2010 (e.g., 27% African American, 12% Latinx, 53% White). Four longitudinal administrative data sources were merged to create this unique sample. Multilevel modeling revealed no difference between formal and non-OOHC, but showed differences between nonkin foster, informal, and non-OOHC. Children's academic performance who reside in formal kinship care is similar to children in non-OOHC.

The impact of family socioeconomic status and parenting styles on children's academic trajectories: A longitudinal study comparing migrant and urban children in China.

The positive development of migrant children in China is hampered due to their unequal accessibility to quality urban education resources. This research aimed at exploring the developmental trajectories of migrant and urban children's literacy and mathematics performance, as well as the impact of family socioeconomic status (SES) and parenting styles, including the mediating effect of parenting styles, by comparing migrant children with their urban counterparts. Growth mixture modeling identified distinguishable trajectories of mathematics development for migrant children (i.e., "falling behind" and "keeping pace" groups) and urban children (i.e., "catching up" and "keeping pace" groups), as well as distinguishable trajectories of literacy development for migrant children (i.e., "jumpstarting" and "keeping pace" groups) and urban children ("falling behind" and "steadily progressing" groups). Multinomial logistic regression analyses further clarified that authoritative parenting increased the likelihood of favorable trajectories of migrant children's mathematics development and urban children's literacy and mathematics development. Family SES enhanced migrant children's mathematics development. Family SES contributed to urban children's literacy development through authoritative parenting, yet such a mediating effect was not observed for migrant children. This study highlights the importance of focusing on distinct trajectories of migrant and urban children's literacy and mathematics in improving their school achievement.

Parental Expectations and Children's Academic Performance in Sociocultural Context

In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achievement within and across diverse racial and ethnic groups. Our review suggests that the level of parental expectations varies by racial/ethnic group, and that students' previous academic performance is a less influential determinant of parental expectations among racial/ethnic minority parents than among European American parents. To explain this pattern, we identify three processes associated with race/ethnicity that moderate the relation between students' previous performance and parental expectations. Our review also indicates that the relation of parental expectations to concurrent or future student achievement outcomes is weaker for racial/ethnic minority families than for European American families. We describe four mediating processes by which high parental expectations may influence children's academic trajectories and show how these processes are associated with racial/ethnic status. The article concludes with a discussion of educational implications as well as suggestions for future research.

Parenting and Academic Development

The four articles in this issue exemplify several exciting trends in the ongoing effort to understand the nature and sources of children's academic trajectories. Particularly noteworthy is the common thread of searching for key parenting and child mediators of the connection between parental educational accomplishments and child outcomes. In an effort to unite the contributions, a working conceptualization of parenting is proposed within which the pattern of positive and negative findings is interpreted. Implications for future theoretical and methodological advances are highlighted.

Supplemental Material for The Academic Trajectories of Children of Immigrants and Their School Environments

Supplemental Material for The Academic Trajectories of Children of Immigrants and Their School Environments

The impact of kindergarten learning-related skills on academic trajectories at the end of elementary school

Recent research indicates that children's learning-related skills (including self-regulation and social competence) contribute to early school success. The present study investigated the relation of kindergarten learning-related skills to reading and math trajectories in 538 children between kindergarten and sixth grade, and examined how children with poor learning-related skills fared throughout elementary school on reading and math. Latent growth curves indicated that learning-related skills had a unique effect on children's reading and math scores between kindergarten and sixth grade and predicted growth in reading and math between kindergarten and second grade. In addition, children with poor learning-related skills performed lower than their higher-rated peers on measures of reading and mathematics between kindergarten and sixth grade, with the gap widening between kindergarten and second grade. Between third and sixth grade, this gap persisted but did not widen. Discussion focuses on the importance of early learning-related skills as a component in children's academic trajectories throughout elementary school and the need for early intervention focusing on children's self-regulation and social competence.