Children's Educational Expectations Research Articles

Educational Expectations of Parents and Children: Findings from a Case of China

To examine educational expectations and the factors that influence them, this paper presents a study of elementary school‐aged children in China, with a particular interest in migrant children. This study revealed the significance of family socioeconomic status (SES), parental involvement, and children's school experiences to children's educational expectations. The findings of this study showed no significantly different patterns of factors influencing children's educational expectations between the migrant and the non‐migrant children in public schools. The implication of this finding is that it is not simply migrant status which affects a child's educational expectation; rather it is a set of family SES and school experiences. Future research considering diverse migrant child population is suggested.

The Role of Educational Aspirations and Expectations in the Discontinuity of Low-income Status Between Generations.

The present study investigates one potential mechanism mediating continuity and discontinuity in low-income status across generations: children's educational aspirations and expectations. Data are drawn from a community sample of 808 students followed from age 10 into their 30s. Four subgroups of trajectories of children's educational expectations and aspirations were identified from ages 10 to 18: a "stable high" group, a "stable low" group, an "increaser" group, and a "decreaser" group. Among youths from low-income families, those in the stable high educational aspirations and expectations group and the increaser group were equally likely to graduate from high school. High school graduation was positively associated with level of total household income at age 30. Findings suggest that social work efforts that support the development of high educational aspirations and expectations in children may serve to reduce the intergenerational continuity of low-income status.

Do parental assets matter for children's educational attainment?: Evidence from mediation tests

This study investigates (1) the effects of parental assets on children's educational attainment from high school completion to college degree attainment, and (2) mediating roles played by parental involvement, child's educational expectations, and child's self-esteem. The study sample (N = 632) is drawn from the Child and Young Adult data supplement to the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979. Results indicate that parental assets are associated with children's later educational attainment. Financial assets and home-ownership are significantly associated with high school completion and college attendance. In addition, family income becomes non-significant when specific measures of assets and liabilities are taken into account. Non-financial assets and income are significant predictors of college degree attainment. Children's educational expectations mediate the effect of financial assets on high school completion. Empirical evidence provides support for asset-building programs and policies designed to promote long-term educational attainment.

Framing the Future: Revisiting the Place of Educational Expectations in Status Attainment

This study revisits the Wisconsin model of status attainment from a life course developmental perspective. Fixed-effects regression analyses lend strong support to the Wisconsin framework's core proposition that academic performance and significant others' influence shape educational expectations. However, investigating the process of expectation formation back to the elementary grades yields insights not evident when analyses are limited to the high school years: (1. many youth consistently expect to attend college from as early as fourth grade; (2. the expectations of middle- and low-SES youth are less stable, and across years the preponderance of their exposure to socialization influences mitigates against sustained college ambitions; (3. long-term stable expectations are more efficacious in forecasting college enrollment than are changing, volatile expectations. As anticipated in the Wisconsin framework, family- and school-based socialization processes indeed contribute to social reproduction through children's educational expectations, but the process starts much earlier and includes dynamics outside the scope of the original status attainment studies.

Parent-Child Differences in Educational Expectations and the Academic Achievement of Immigrant and Native Students

This article argues that both parents' and children's educational expectations are spurred by between-family social capital and within-family social capital and that agreement between parents and children on educational expectations facilitates children's achievement. The analyses of eighth graders from four immigrant groups (Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Mexican) and three native groups (Mexican, black, and white) indicate that high levels of parent-child interactions increase parents' and children's expectations and that higher shared family expectations enhance achievement and greater differences suppress achievement. Immigrant status increases expectations, for Chinese and Korean families more than for Mexican families, and Chinese background is beneficial for children's achievement, but Mexican background is harmful. However, all else being equal, the higher rate of retention of parental language promotes academic achievement, which gives immigrant Mexican children an advantage over their Asian counterparts.

Why not use contraception? Economics of fertility regulation among rural Egyptian women.

Abstract Use of contraception by rural Egyptian women who desire no more children is examined within a modified microeconomic framework. Four sets of factors are hypothesized to influence current use of contraception: (1) costs of contraception, ‘(2) factors influencing the slope of the desired family size function, (3) anticipated costs of child rearing and (4) strength of motivation for fertility regulation. Women's education and two measures of psychic costs were found to be important predictors of contraceptive use. Factors affecting the demand for children and thus indirectly influencing the motivation for fertility regulation were also important. Land ownership, cultivating status of the household, and educational expectations for children were significantly related to current use. Strength of motivation, although significant, was less strongly related to use of contraception. The findings suggest women who want no more children, but who are not practicing contraception, are affected by factors infl...