Parental Choice Research Articles

FACTORS AFFECTING FINANCING CHILDREN'S HIGHER EDUCATION- PARENTS’ PERSPECTIVES

This research paper investigates the factors influencing parental decisions regarding the financing of children's higher education. It employs a descriptive survey method to examine parents' attitudes using a sample of 198 parents in Delhi. By analyzing responses to a scale covering motivational, economic, social, and institutional factors, the research aims to inform educational policies and support initiatives to enhance access to higher education. Findings indicate that a significant majority of parents prioritize their child's interests and aspirations, viewing education as a critical pathway to future security and personal growth. Financial stability, both current and past, plays a pivotal role in these decisions, with parents adopting a pragmatic approach to budgeting and exploring various funding options, including informal income streams and student loans. The reputation of educational institutions and the choice of courses significantly impact parental choices, as parents aim to maximize the potential returns on their investments. The study identifies the need for enhanced financial literacy and greater access to financial aid information, emphasizing the importance of transparency from educational institutions regarding outcomes and placement rates. Recommendations include developing financial education programs, community support systems, and tailored financial assistance strategies to accommodate diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. By addressing these factors, the paper aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of parental decision-making in higher education financing and promote a more equitable educational landscape.

Politics of School Choice in Germany: The Abolition of the Binding Recommendation in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Saxony

ABSTRACT The German school system is known for its stratified secondary school system following the four-year elementary school. While access to grammar schools was strictly regulated in German school history, most federal states have now strengthened the will of parents and abolished the tradition of binding elementary school recommendations. New in the group of Laender that do not have a binding Gymnasium recommendation are Baden-Wuerttemberg and Saxony. By analyzing parliament debates, this paper analyzes why Baden-Wuerttemberg and Saxony abolished the binding elementary school recommendation and have strengthened parental choice for secondary schools.

Healthcare Professionals' Discursive Constructions of Parental Vaccine Hesitancy: A Tale of Multiple Moralities.

Healthcare professionals play a crucial role in addressing the concerns of vaccine-hesitant parents since they form a trusted source for vaccine-related information. An increasing body of evidence suggests that healthcare professionals are faced with complexities when navigating the sensitive topic of parental vaccine hesitancy, as they balance their own vaccine- and context-specific concerns with institutional and societal pressures to vaccinate. Furthermore, health choices, such as parental choices for childhood vaccination, are often linked to moralisation. Given the emphasis on effective communication with vaccine-hesitant parents in the patient-centred care literature, it is important to consider healthcare professionals' interpretations of parental vaccine hesitancy. Hence, a deeper understanding of how healthcare professionals make sense of, and moralise, childhood vaccination can help us understand how moralisation might appear in their communication with hesitant parents (in)directly. Drawing on a critical social-psychological framework for discourse analysis, this study analyses 39 semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals in Flanders, Belgium, and presents the discursive patterns articulated by healthcare professionals on parental vaccine hesitancy. The findings elucidate how healthcare professionals perpetuate, or resist, moral discourse in their accounts of vaccine hesitancy by constructing five different interpretative repertoires, that is, a "good" or "bad" parenting repertoire, a freedom of choice repertoire, an individual risk-benefit repertoire, a public health repertoire, and an accessibility repertoire. Our study highlights the complexities healthcare professionals experience in negotiating vaccine hesitancy, as their understandings of vaccine hesitancy are affected by, and contribute to, existing moral dilemmas and dominant discourses surrounding health and parenting.

Language Choices in Interracial Marriage: An Insight into Malay-Melanau Families in Sarikei, East Malaysia

This study aims to identify the language choices within interracial marriages, focusing specifically on Malay-Melanau families in Sarikei, Sarawak, East Malaysia. The primary objectives are (1) to investigate the language choices among Malay-Melanau families in Sarikei and (2) examine factors influencing their choices. A sample of 14 respondents, all hailing from Malay-Melanau backgrounds and married for over five years, was selected using purposive sampling methods. Employing a mixed-method approach, respondents completed a Google Form questionnaire comprising both open and close-ended queries. The findings underscore a prevailing inclination towards Malay as the preferred language within the household. This preference appears to be chiefly influenced by two key factors: parental guidance and immediate surroundings. Notably, the language predominantly spoken by the parents cohabiting with the couples significantly influences their linguistic selection. The study highlights the critical role of parental language choices and the immediate environment in shaping the language dynamics within these families. Additionally, it emphasizes the necessity of promoting awareness regarding language preservation, particularly the nurturing of less-dominant languages spoken within the home environment. Efforts in this direction are essential for fostering linguistic diversity and cultural vitality within mixed-ethnicity households. By understanding these dynamics, stakeholders can better support policies and initiatives that encourage the maintenance of linguistic heritage in multicultural contexts.

Marrow-ablative consolidation chemotherapy (HDCT) to decrease the development of choroid plexus carcinoma (CPC) specific relapse in high-risk TP53-mutated (germline or somatic) young children with newly diagnosed CPC.

2088 Background: Choroid plexus carcinomas (CPC) are highly malignant, early childhood cancers in which the loss of TP53 function is a central element of their development and defines unfavorable disease. To date, CPC-free survival rates have remained poor; recent data from St. Jude including complete TP53 mutation status, yielded CPC-free survival of only 29% with a non-marrow-ablative chemotherapy strategy. The rarity of CPC has constrained the ability to explore the role of HDCT with autologous hematopoietic progenitor cell rescue (AuHPCR). Previously reported results of the "Head Start" (HS) HDCT approach showed some promise of cure, but were limited by small patient numbers, short follow-up and incomplete TP53 mutation data. Consequently, the role of HDCT and AuHPCR in TP53-mutated CPC remains unclear. Methods: We have analyzed data on TP53 status, therapy, treatment responses, CPC-free and overall survivals (OS) and second cancers from the largest cohort of such patients, all who received initial therapy with the intent/consideration of undergoing consolidative HDCT. Results: Twenty-seven children with CPC (median age, 16 months) received HS-like induction chemotherapy regimens or ICE with the intent of utilizing consolidative HDCT. Twenty-three of 27 completed HDCT consolidation; the remaining 4 patients did not proceed with HDCT due to parental choice. Somatic or germline TP53 mutations were identified in 17 patients, while 4 patients exhibited TP53 wild type (TP53wt); TP53 status remains untested or unavailable in 6 patients. Five-year CPC-free survival and OS for the entire cohort were 47.8% and 44.4%. CPC-free survival for those with TP53 germline mutations (n=12) was 66%, for those with somatic tumor TP53 mutations (n=5) was 40% and for those with confirmed TP53wt (n=4) was 50%. The 5-year CPC-free survival for all 23 patients who underwent HDCT and AuHPCR was 52%, comprising 3/4 TP53wt patients, 10/12 TP53 germline mutated patients and all 5 TP53 somatic tumor mutated patients. Notably, all six survivors with TP53 mutations had undergone HDCT with AuHPCR, and all but one avoided irradiation. Eight out of 12 patients with documented genotypic (TP53 germline mutated) Li-Fraumeni Cancer Predisposition Syndrome (LFS) developed second malignancies. Conclusions: Our data indicate that HDCT with AuHPCR consolidation is associated with improved CPC-free survival compared with historical reports in young children with high-risk TP53 mutated CPC. However, the ultimate development of second cancers substantially affects outcomes for those with LFS, irrespective of HDCT treatment. These data justify the inclusion of HDCT and AuHPCR in the prospective international trial under development for young children with newly diagnosed TP53 mutated CPC.

Healthy Eating Report Card for Pre-school Children in Hong Kong.

This study aimed to develop the Healthy Eating Report Card for Pre-school Children in Hong Kong for evaluating the prevalence of healthy eating behaviours and favourable family home food environments (FHFEs) among pre-school children in Hong Kong. In this cross-sectional study, 538 parent-child dyads from eight kindergartens in Hong Kong were recruited. Parents or guardians completed a questionnaire comprising Report Card items. The Report Card included two indicators of Children's Eating Behaviours (ie, Children's Dietary Patterns and Children's Mealtime Behaviours) and three indicators of FHFEs (ie, Parental Food Choices and Preparation, Avoidance of Unhealthy Foods, and Family Mealtime Environments). Each indicator and its specific items were assigned a letter grade representing the percentage of participants achieving the predefined benchmarks. The grades were defined as A (≥80%, Excellent); B (60%-79%, Good); C (40%-59%, Fair); D (20%-39%, Poor); and F (<20%, Very poor). Plus (+) and minus (-) signs were used to indicate the upper or lower 5% of each grade. Overall, Children's Eating Behaviours were classified as Fair (average grade of 'C'), whereas FHFEs were classified as Good (average grade of 'B'). The sub-grades ranged from 'C' to 'A-', as follows: Children's Dietary Patterns, 'C+'; Children's Mealtime Behaviours, 'C'; Parental Food Choices and Preparation, 'C+'; Avoidance of Unhealthy Foods, 'B'; and Family Mealtime Environments, 'A-'. The findings highlight areas for improvement in healthy eating among children. The Healthy Eating Report Card could offer novel insights into intervention tools that promote healthy eating.

Arranged and non-arranged marriages have similar reproductive outcomes in Nepal

Much of the evolutionary literature on mate choice presumes that individual mate preferences function to increase individual fitness, and this assumption has been confirmed in several experimental studies with animals. However, human mate choice, in many cultures, is heavily controlled by parents via arranged marriages, rather than the selection of the marrying individuals. Several studies have demonstrated that parents and offspring do not exhibit identical preferences for an in-law or spouse, respectively. If parental choice thwarts offspring’s evolved mate preferences from being expressed, then arranged marriages should reduce fitness. Using data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study, I examined whether having an arranged marriage, as compared to a non-arranged marriage, is associated with differences in total births, offspring survival to age 15, or interbirth intervals in Nepal, a culture with a rich history of arranged marriage. I find that there are no differences in any reproductive outcomes between arranged, co-selected, and self-selected marriages. These results indicate that individuals in arranged and non-arranged marriages may achieve similar fitness outcomes via different pathways, which may be unique to human mating systems.

Publicly funded Steiner education in England–Beautiful anomaly? Missed opportunity? Or both?

This paper reflects on an educational policy initiative taken by the New Labour Government in England in the 1990s–2000s to extend parental choice in publicly funded school education, and to widen social access to different educational approaches. As such, the policy which led to the opening of a Steiner Academy School in Herefordshire contained elements of educational diversity and inclusion, a degree of parental choice that had not been considered previously, and an extending of social access to different and distinctive educational approaches. For example, in the case of the Steiner Academy Hereford, the National Curriculum for schools in England was set aside in favour of the Steiner Waldorf curriculum framework. The paper seeks to set out the main features of the negotiation that led up to the state funding of Steiner education in England, along with an exploration of the processes, compromises, achievements and setbacks that were encountered along the way.

Diversity Balance in Centralized Public School Admissions

Parental choice over public schools has become a major educational reform throughout the United States and the world. Most district policies are implemented via admission priorities. Diversity in admissions is a common policy goal. However, it necessitates the violation of some priorities. We develop an axiomatic theory for meeting diversity objectives with a reserves system. We axiomatize the trade-off between diversity and priorities. We characterize the solution that uniquely and optimally achieves the diversity objectives via reserves by minimizing priority violations. The choice rule corresponds to a simple and natural implementation of application orders in a reserves system.

Breeding density affects the movements of gull chicks, the size of their home ranges and their association with neighbours.

Colonies of ground-nesting species often have heterogeneous nest densities and their offspring experience different social conditions depending on the size and location of the breeding territory. For example, unintentional territory crossing by mobile chicks can trigger strong aggression from neighbouring adults, as observed in semi-precocial gulls. This would be expected to shape chicks' movement tendencies, exploratory behaviour and propensity for social contact through aversive feedback learning or pre-natal maternal effects, as mothers may pre-adapt their offspring's behaviour to the expected early life conditions. Therefore, we hypothesize that lesser black-backed gull chicks reared in denser areas of the breeding colony will move less, have smaller home ranges and have fewer social contacts with chicks from neighbouring nests. To test this, we first cross-fostered full clutches between and within high- and low-density parts of the colony, and then used ultra-wideband tags to track free-ranging chicks. In line with our predictions, we found that chicks reared in denser areas had a lower movement activity and smaller home ranges. However, these chicks still had more social contacts, although not necessarily with a higher number of unique individuals. Pre-natal breeding density had no significant effect on any of the parameters. We conclude that parental nest choice strongly affects the early social environment of their chicks, which can shape the development of their (social) phenotype, with potentially long-lasting consequences.

Research Design with Weighted Lotteries in School Choice

Centralized admissions are an integral part of parental school choice programs. Most districts use a version of the deferred acceptance algorithm to assign applicants to schools. Centralized admissions produce data with quasi-experimental variation in student assignment that is integral in program evaluation. Recent developments in research design consider the basic version of the deferred acceptance algorithm. However, most districts adapt advanced versions of the deferred acceptance algorithm to implement their diversity policy in admissions, such as favoring applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds in lottery tie-breaking. We develop research design for data from the deferred acceptance algorithm with weighted lotteries.

Choice, marketing and subjectivities: A discursive-semiotic analysis of six Montessori websites

In Australia, the term ‘preschool’ generally refers to settings that cater for the education of children in the year before compulsory schooling, hence making it a pivotal site for neoliberal discourses that seek to frame preschoolers as requiring ‘school readiness’. While much research has focused on the implications of neoliberal reforms in the primary through tertiary and childcare sectors, particularly the divisive social consequences of these shifts, insufficient attention has been paid to the ‘neoliberal creep’ – to co-opt Viggiano’s term – into the lives of Australian children and their parents/caregivers.1 This paper draws on a combination of discursive, affective and semiotic analysis to investigate how neoliberal discourses work through advertising regimes to influence parental choice in the current preschool market. Through the analysis of six Montessori preschool websites, the article highlights how, through the targeted manipulation of visual and linguistic elements, marketing experts create and reinforce idealised constructions of children, which in turn, contribute to the establishment of specific discursive and affective environments. This results in a sort of ‘emotional governance’ which directly influences the relationships between marketisation, discursive subjectivities, and the classed and gendered implications of parental choice in Australia.

Advertising a school’s merits in Hong Kong: weighing academic performance against students whole-person development

Against the background of expanding parental choices and declining global birth rates, schools are experiencing rising competition regarding student enrolment. Schools have responded by strategically presenting information about their students’ academic achievement and whole-person development orientation in the hope of attracting parents’ interest. However, few studies have investigated the impact of these factors on student enrollment, particularly in the context of diverse school types and educational orientations. Accordingly, this study utilized data from 327 secondary schools in Hong Kong to examine the effects of academic achievement orientation and whole-person development orientation on student intake. Using hierarchical regression analysis, we found a positive association between high whole-person development orientation and student intake in aided schools with a strong academic development orientation. The result implies parents are increasingly concerned about their children’s academic achievement and whole-person development at school. The study contributes to a broader understanding of the factors influencing parental choice in high-performing education systems, providing valuable insights for policymakers and educators seeking to improve educational offerings, enhance school transparency, and be better aligned with parental expectations.

‘Every day we’d have an arranged activity, so she’d have football, swimming, dance, gymnastics’: A sociological analysis of parenting and sports-based enrichment activities for the under-fives

In this article we provide a sociological analysis of parental choice in pre-school sports and physical activity, as a form of concerted cultivation, to understand the uptake of sports-based physical activity (PA) enrichment activities in England. Despite a growth in the under-five pre-school enrichment market, little is known about why parents pay for their under-five child(ren) to participate in sport and/or PA enrichment or how this relates to wider patterns seen in contemporary parenting. 24 semi-structured interviews with parents of early years children from across England were conducted. Findings suggest the reasons why parents enrol their child(ren) in sports-based enrichment activities can be considered a form of concerted cultivation. In particular, parents value routine and socialisation for themselves and their children. Parents look for paid-for activities that enhance their child's social and academic skills but do not emphasise the health benefits of being physically active as important in their decision making. Instead, they prioritise opportunities to enhance their child's social and cultural skills in ways that enable the child(ren) to be accepted and interact positively with adults and other children in key institutional settings. Parents also valued spaces where their young child(ren) could expend energy, although the importance of this was distinctly gendered. We conclude by outlining that paying for under-fives sport-based enrichment is linked to wider social and cultural expectations on parenting, and highlighting that more needs to be understood about the gendered, racialised and ableist spaces of commercial pre-school sport and PA.

Wisdom of the Masses? Users and Educators Contrasting Perspectives on the Data Privacy and Safety of Early Years’ Apps

A key focus is assessing children's apps, emphasising informational clarity, safety, and data ethics. The present study employs a structured database for app evaluation, by categorising 30 apps into edutainment, education, instruction, and training based on various criteria, including educational value and user ratings. Moreover, a comparative evaluation between the public ratings and the educator's evaluation was carried out. The findings underscore the challenges in app evaluation due to the proliferation of unregulated and untested applications. It highlights the discrepancies between public app evaluations and those conducted by experienced educators, pointing out the difficulties in obtaining relevant information for accurate app assessment. The study also addresses the aesthetic appeal of apps and how they influence parental choices, often overshadowing concerns about user security and privacy. In conclusion, the study calls for heightened parental awareness in selecting apps for their children. It stresses the importance of considering learning value, educational value, information clarity, security, and ethical data use.

A Quiet Revolution: Putting Parental Choice to Work for Social Justice

ABSTRACT AI offer first-hand account of a key stage in the development of parental choice in American public schooling, when Massachusetts state officials, concerned not to repeat the trauma and disruption resulting from mandatory reassignment of students to achieve desegregation in Boston, persuaded and helped more than a dozen other cities to adopt plans based upon guided parental choice. By 1993 over 200,000 students (25% of the state’s public school enrollment) were attending schools in communities relying on parental choice to address the isolation of minority students; most of these had abandoned residence-based assignments altogether. This account describes the means by which this was achieved. This essay does not discuss charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits, faith-based schools or educational savings accounts; those came in the future. It is reasonable to believe, however, that the widespread and successful adoption of parental choice of local public schools in Massachusetts helped to prepare the way for such further developments nationwide.

Navigating Educational and Urban Landscapes: Middle-Class School Choice Strategies in Local Education Markets

ABSTRACT The middle-classes use school choice as a strategy of class reproduction and comparative advantage. In this article, we show how middle-class parental school choice strategies are spatially dependent and how schooling preferences and final choices are bounded by the social and educational characteristics of the local education market of their neighborhood of residence in the city of Barcelona. Our findings reveal interesting differences relating to the search process and final decisions, which are dependent on parental preferences and risk perception in the different local education markets. Reflections on some policy implications of the analysis are considered in the conclusions.

Positioning for Success: An Analysis of Marketing Strategies used by Private Schools in Coimbatore, India

The marketing techniques used by private schools in Coimbatore, India, are examined in this study. Private schools are using more marketing strategies to draw students as the focus on parental choice in education grows. The study looks at the particular components of the marketing mix that these schools use, such as place (distribution channels, school location), pricing (fee structure, scholarships), and product (curriculum, facilities) and promotion (advertising, open houses). The effectiveness of these tactics in influencing parental choice of school and decision-making is examined in this study. A combination of surveys, interviews, and focus groups with parents, school administrators, and marketing staff will probably be used in the study process. The results will help to clarify the competitive marketing environment of Coimbatore’s private education sector and offer insightful guidance to school directors looking to maximize their marketing expenditures.

Clinical application value of pre-pregnancy carrier screening in Chinese Han childbearing population.

To explore the clinical application value of pre-conception expanded carrier screening (PECS) in the Chinese Han ethnicity population of childbearing age. The results of genetic testing of infertile parents who underwent PECS in the Reproductive Medicine Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, China, from September 2019 to December 2021, were retrospectively analyzed. The carrier rate of single gene disease, the detection rate of high-risk parents, and the clinical outcome of high-risk parents were statistically analyzed. A total of 1372 Chinese Han ethnicity patients underwent PECS, among which 458 patients underwent the extended 108-gene test, their overall carrier rate was 31.7%, and the detection rate of high-risk parents was 0.3%. The highest carrier rates were SLC22A (2.4%), ATP7B (2.4%), MMACHC (2.2%), PAH (1.8%), GALC (1.8%), MLC1 (1.3%), UNC13D (1.1%), CAPN3 (1.1%), and PKHD1 (1.1%). There were 488 women with fragile X syndrome-FMR1 gene detection, and 6 patients (1.2%) had FMR1 gene mutation. A total of 426 patients were screened for spinal muscular atrophy-SMN1, and the carrier rate was 3.5%, and the detection rate of parents' co-carrier was 0.5%. Monogenic recessive hereditary diseases had a high carrier rate in the population. Pre-pregnancy screening could provide good prenatal and postnatal care guidance for patients and preimplantation genetic testing for monogenic/single gene disorders (PGT-M) and prenatal diagnosis could provide more precise reproductive choices for high-risk parents.

Examining changes in adolescents' high school math and science motivational beliefs and their relations to parental STEM support and STEM major choice at the intersectionality of gender and college generation status.

Drawing on the situated expectancy-value, dimensional comparison theories, and the intersectionality approach, this article examined the changes in adolescents' math and science motivational beliefs, the parental and college correlates of those beliefs, and the differences at the intersection of gender and college generation status (i.e., female and male first- and continuing-generation college students). Findings based on the nationally representative high-school longitudinal study data (N = 12,070; Mage = 14 years; 54% female students; 28% first-generation college students; and 14% Latinx, 9% Black, 10% Asian, and 57% White) suggest that although adolescents' math and science ability self-concepts declined during high school, their science interest remained stable, and their math and science utility values increased. Adolescents' motivational beliefs in ninth grade and the changes from ninth to 11th grade positively predicted whether they declared a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college major. Parents' ninth-grade STEM support was more consistently associated with adolescents' concurrent beliefs compared to the changes in their beliefs. Finally, we found that female first-generation college students, who were more likely to be Latinx and Black students, tended to have lower math and science motivational beliefs, received less parental STEM support, and were less likely to choose a STEM major than their peers. The findings of this study indicate adolescents' math and science motivational development in high school matters for their college majors and that certain understudied groups, including female first-generation college students, may experience acute marginalization in STEM and warrant further attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).