Children's Educational Aspirations Research Articles

Parent–child educational aspiration congruence and adolescents' internalizing problems: The moderating effect of SES

Previous studies have found that adolescents and their parents may hold discrepant views about educational aspirations. However, little is known about how these discrepancies affect adolescents' internalizing problems and the moderating effect of SES on the relation between (in)congruence of parent–child educational aspirations and adolescents' internalizing problems. Therefore, this study explored the relation between (in)congruence of parent–child educational aspirations and adolescents' internalizing problems, and further tested the moderating role of SES. Based on two-wave survey data collected from a nationally representative sample of 8194 parent–child dyads in China (51.3 % boys, mean age = 13.58 years), multilevel polynomial regression and response surface analysis were performed to investigate the hypotheses. The results found that (1) internalizing problems were minimal when the two educational aspiration variables were congruent, (2) internalizing problems were the highest when the discrepancy between child educational and parental educational aspirations was largest, and (3) SES moderated the relation between (in)congruence in educational aspirations and adolescents' internalizing problems. The study's results not only comprehensively and intuitively reveal the influence of parents' and children's educational aspirations on adolescents' internalizing problems, but also provide targeted guidance and suggestions regarding parenting practices for families from diverse SES backgrounds.

Peran Pengurus Panti Asuhan dalam Menunjang Keberlanjutan Pendidikan Anak di Panti Asuhan An-Nur Pasanehan Candung

This study seeks to ascertain the role of administrators in facilitating children's educational aspirations, the challenges experienced by administrators in fulfilling their responsibilities, and the strategies used by administrators to overcome these challenges. The investigation used the descriptive technique. The used data collecting strategies include direct observation, direct communication, and documentary research. The corresponding data collection instruments include observation, interviews, and documentation. The study analysis was conducted in a qualitative descriptive fashion, including a total of 23 participants. These participants included 2 administrators from orphanages, 4 foster children from vocational schools, 16 foster children from middle schools, and 1 foster kid from an elementary school. Orphanage administrators have a crucial role in ensuring the uninterrupted education of children. They serve as motivators, facilitators, guides, and surrogate foster parents for the children's families or parents. The challenges faced by administrators in implementing the programme stem from the youngsters themselves and the availability of financing. The management is addressing the current difficulties by engaging with the children, seeking donors to provide financial support for the institution, and ensuring that all the requirements of the children at the orphanage are met.

The Impact of Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program on Children's Educational Aspirations and Attainments

Abstract The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) was launched by the government of Ethiopia in 2005 to support food-insecure rural households. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of PSNP on children's educational aspirations and actual attainments. We use longitudinal data from the Ethiopian sample of the Young Lives' survey and by means of a differences-in-differences, individual fixed-effects estimator, we find that the program increases both educational aspirations and actual attainment of children. In our preferred specification, the immediate effect (after 3 years) of the program is to increase by 1.05 years of educational aspirations and by about 0.35 years actual education of children. Furthermore, there is evidence that the program has significant effect even in the long run (after 6 years). The results point to broad and long-lasting positive effects on children education of a program designed primarily to relieve chronically poor households from food insecurity.

Incongruence between parental and adolescent educational aspirations hinders academic attainment.

Previous research has shown that parental educational aspirations for their children are an important predictor of children's academic attainment. However, recent studies have pointed to potential negative effects, in particular if there is a mismatch between parental educational aspirations and the aspirations of their children. This study examines (1) the role of socio-demographic and school achievement-related factors in shaping a potential (mis)match between parental educational aspirations and the aspirations of their children, and (2) whether incongruence between parental and their children's educational aspirations hinders academic attainment in times of social change. We use data collected for the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS70) and Next Steps (formerly known as the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England), a cohort of young people born in 1989/90. We find that in both cohorts socio-demographic and achievement-related characteristics are associated with incongruent aspirations, and that incongruent aspirations between parents and their children are associated with a decreased likelihood of participating in and completing higher education. The study contributes to current debates regarding the causes and correlates of discrepancies in educational aspirations and how such discrepancies affect later life chances.

Efekti korišćenja društvenih mreža na samopoštovanje adolescenata i njihov odnos prema obrazovanju i budućnosti

The paper presents a study aimed at determining the connection between the use of the Internet and social networks and the level of adolescent self-esteem and self-assessment of their own qualities and abilities, as well as determining the correlation between the social network use with children's educational aspirations. Adolescents' attitudes towards people, fear of the future, their willingness to take risks, reading classic books and attitudes towards multimedia learning and reading were also detected. The research was conducted by examining the attitudes of adolescents aged 14 to 19 years. The data were obtained by processing N=599 questionnaires of a representative focused sample of adolescents - high school students in the Republic of Serbia. The research was conducted in 2021. Descriptive, correlation and regression analysis was used in data processing. Descriptive analysis showed that the lowest average score was achieved for the dimension related to reading classic books, and the highest for the dimensions of attitude towards people and fear of the future. Correlative analysis between the dimensions showed that self-esteem and the use of social networks are not related, but the more positive attitude towards education, the higher are standards and the more positive are attitudes towards people. A similar finding is in the regression analysis, which shows that what affects self-esteem is the value of one's own standards, the attitude towards people, as well as the fear of the future.

Scientific workshop program to improve science identity, science capital and educational aspirations of children at risk of social exclusion

The access to science education shows large disparities across populations from different socio-economic statuses, ethnicities and genders, limiting science aspirations, science capital accumulation and the development of a proper science identity of children belonging to disadvantaged social groups. Additionally, school interventions to increase what have been traditionally called scientific vocations mainly target secondary education students, even though research has revealed that at that age students’ aspirations are already shaped and are unlikely to change. It is clear that such interventions need to be addressed to children of younger ages while they are still shaping their interests and aspirations towards scientific careers. In this study, we designed and delivered scientific workshops to 86 vulnerable children (8–13 years-old) at risk of social exclusion, belonging to low-income communities and minorities that have been historically excluded of this sort of learning opportunities. Scientific workshops were implemented as out-of-school activities since this practice has been recognized as a successful educational action. Results show a positive impact of science workshops in improving some of the science capital dimensions and in shaping a more inclusive science identity in which girls and ethnic minorities have a better fit allowing them to elevate their scientific and educational aspirations. Nonetheless our data also reveal some aspects that may act as barriers, hindering vulnerable children’s aspirations.

Commentary: COVID-19 and the Vulnerability of Single Mothers in Institutions of Higher Education.

Commentary: COVID-19 and the Vulnerability of Single Mothers in Institutions of Higher Education.

What Money Can’t Buy: Educational Aspirations and International Migration in Ecuador

This article studies how educational aspirations of children are shaped in Biblián, Ecuador, a traditional sending country. Data sources were a multi-level survey and semi-structured interviews that were analysed using logistic regression and thematic analysis, respectively. Several theoretical relationships are confirmed: the household socioeconomic status, caregiver’s educational aspirations and age are the most important variables that predict children educational aspirations. Child migratory dreams and the absence of the father or the mother only predict the educational aspiration of getting a high school degree, but do not predict the aspiration of a graduate degree. Thematic analysis suggests that, besides seeing education as a means to have higher incomes, mothers perceive it as a sign of social status and assign it an intrinsic value.

Inequalities in adolescent learning: Does the timing and persistence of food insecurity at home matter?

We investigated inequalities in learning achievements at 12 years by household food insecurity trajectories at ages 5, 8 and 12 years in a longitudinal sample of 1,911 Indian children. Estimates included extensive child and household controls and lagged cognitive scores to address unobserved individual heterogeneity in ability and early investments. Overall, household food insecurity at any age predicted lower vocabulary, reading, maths and English scores in early adolescence. Adolescents from households that transitioned from food insecurity at age 5 to food security at a later age, and adolescents from chronically food insecure households had the lowest scores across all outcomes. There was heterogeneity in the relationship between temporal occurrence of food insecurity and cognitive skills, based on developmental and curriculum-specific timing of skill formation. Results were robust to additional explanations of the “household food insecurity gap”, i.e. education and health investments, parental and children's educational aspirations, and children's psychosocial skills.

The Impact of Ethiopian Productive Safety-Net Program on Children's Educational Aspirations

Children’s educational aspirations are important predictors of educational attainment and of occupational success. However, aspirations can be affected by whether an individual is poor or rich. This paper evaluates the impacts of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), launched by the government of Ethiopia in 2005/06 to support food insecure rural households, on children’s educational aspirations. Using longitudinal data from the Young Lives’ survey in Ethiopia and applying a differences-in-differences methodology, we find that the program increases educational aspirations of children. In our preferred specification, the immediate effect of the program is to increase by 0.73 years of education aspirations of children. Furthermore, we find that aspirations are affected also in the long run, even if the point estimates are sensible to model specification. The results point to broad and long lasting positive effects of a program designed to relieve chronically poor households from food insecurity.

Parental education and educational aspirations of children: Cases of Serbia and Slovenia

The paper is focused on the asumption from contemporary studies showing that students whose parents have lower levels of education are underrepresented in student populations in Serbia and Slovenia, as well as Bourdieu?s claims that in capitalist societies subjective expectations are affiliated with objective chances. We investigated if educational expectations are in correlation with parental education in this post socialist countries. Bearing in mind different paths of post socialist transformations in these two examined countries, we also tested if this correlation of parental education and educational expectations is different in two countries, or this correlation is stronger in slovenian society. In order to achieve this, we conducted survey among final year high school students in Serbia (n=1973) and Slovenia (n=867). Results are showing that in both, Serbia and Slovenia, higher educational level of parent is correlated with higher educational aspirations of child, as well as with their previous educational choices (type of high school attended). Also, it is remarked that the correlation is stronger in Slovenia, which can be explained by different dynamics of post socialist transformation.

Educational aspirations of Chinese migrant children: The role of self-esteem contextual and individual influences

This study investigated the relationship between educational aspirations, contextual influences, and self-esteem in a large group of Chinese children who had migrated with their families from rural to urban settings. A total sample of 2491 migrant students (mean age=14years) from 15 elementary and middle schools in Zhejiang, China participated in the study. Through the structural equation modeling, it was found that social support from family and school, and self-esteem had direct and positive effects on migrant children's educational aspirations, above and beyond the influence of low socioeconomic status. Self-esteem also partially mediated the effects of school and family support on educational aspirations. The association between family support and educational aspirations was stronger among elementary school students than among middle school students. These findings highlighted the critical role of contextual and individual factors in shaping Chinese migrant children's academic prospects.

Parental involvement, children's aspirations, and achievement in new immigrant families

ABSTRACTThe authors investigated the relationships among multiple aspects of parental involvement (English proficiency, school involvement, control and monitoring of children), children's aspirations, and achievement in new immigrant families in the United States. They used data on immigrant parents and school-age children (N = 1,255) from the New Immigrant Survey to examine immigrant families from diverse backgrounds. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that parental English proficiency and involvement in school education are related to children's academic achievement, cognitive development, and English language ability, directly as well as indirectly, through children's educational aspirations. Parental control and monitoring is not beneficial to immigrant children's cognitive development, although variations were found across different groups. They also observed intriguing findings regarding gender and racial or ethnic diversity. Based on their findings, they provide recommendations for the fostering of academic success and the design and implementation of educational programs and practices for immigrant children.

A General Approach to Effect Decomposition

ObjectiveThis article illustrates the commonality among the Oaxaca decomposition, mediation analysis, and path analysis used in various social science fields to decompose the effect of a predictor on the outcome into constituent components.MethodsA general approach is proposed that extends the Oaxaca decomposition to continuous predictors. It also removes one critical restriction on covariates in mediation analysis.ResultsAn empirical example shows that the effect of fathers’ education on children's years of schooling primarily works through children's early skill development and educational aspirations.ConclusionThe proposed approach is easy to implement since it requires only two pieces of information: simple correlations and standardized regression coefficients.

A Movement without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia

A Movement without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia

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.

Making something of the sacrifice: gender, migration and Mexican children's educational aspirations

AbstractTransnational families often use international migration as a strategy not only for survival, but also for social mobility. Migrant parents hope their sacrifices via migration will translate into educational benefits for non‐migrant children. In this article, we use mixed methods to explore the success of parents' efforts by considering the relationship between gender, family migration patterns and the educational aspirations of children in the Mixteca region of Mexico. Analysis of surveys collected from 1273 students show that mothers' migrations affect children's educational goals in different ways depending on whether they migrate alone or with their husbands. Fathers' lone migrations have no significant impact on children's educational aspirations. Interviews with 51 children of migrants suggest that children of unmarried migrant mothers are motivated academically because they invest in their mothers' migrations as a sacrifice, whereas the emotional consequences of parental absences lower the educational aspirations of children with both parents in the USA.

The Effects of Single Parenthood on Educational Aspiration: A Comparative Study of Children in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong

Using data collected by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment in 2003, this study examines the gap in the educational aspirations of children from single-parent families and two-parent families in the United Kingdom (UK) and Hong Kong. Consistent with previous research on the relationship between cultural orientation and academic motivation, our analysis shows that children in the UK have statistically significant lower levels of educational aspiration than those in Hong Kong. Moreover, children from single-parent families in the UK and Hong Kong are found to have statistically significant lower levels of educational aspiration than those from two-parent families. Further analyses indicate that family capital and school experience are important factors for understanding the negative effects of single parenthood. Finally, we observe that single parenthood has a less negative effect on educational aspiration in the UK than it does in Hong Kong, which can be explained by differences in government family policy and family capital between the two regions. Based on the outcomes from the current analysis, we put forward several policy and service recommendations for improving children's educational aspiration and enhancing family well-being.

Unforeseen Consequences of Mothers' Return to School: Children's Educational Aspirations and Outcomes

Parents' educational attainment is generally completed before offspring are born. Thus, there is little opportunity to study the ways in which children's observation of their parents' pursuit of education may augment the effects of structural factors on intergenerational transmission processes. In this article, the authors use qualitative and quantitative data collected from thirty-five women across a decade following their return to school to examine the effects of children's observations of their mothers' educational achievements on the children's educational aspirations and achievements in adulthood. The return to school was consequential only when mothers completed their degrees; when they did not, their enrollment appears to have had little or no effect on children's educational achievements. Mothers' completion of college was found to be the most important for children's educational outcomes when fathers were less educated and opposed to mothers' enrollment and when the return to school was fueled by personal and psychological, rather than career, motivations.

Precursors to the Gender Gap in College Enrollment: Children's Aspirations and Expectations for Their Futures

In light of the increasing gender gap in college enrollment, data from two waves of interviews with 115 elementary and middle school children were examined for developmental and gender differences in participants' aspirations and expectations for their futures. While there were no gender differences in children's educational aspirations or expectations, girls were more likely than boys to aspire to careers that require a college education, more likely to emphasize career advancement in their rationale for attending college, and less likely to choose sex-typed occupations. Implications for professional school counselors are discussed.