Parental 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.

Parental Investment in Children’s Educational Pathways: A Comparative View on Swiss and Migrant Families

Abstract What strategies do parents adopt when it comes to realizing the aspirations they have for their children’s educational career? Drawing on a longitudinal and intergenerational mixed-method study, we explore the complex interplay between children’s educational pathways and parental educational aspirations and strategies. We focus on parents of modest social status (with and without migration background) whose children’s educational trajectories have developed successfully.

The Impact of Parents, Intimate Relationships, and Friends on Students’ Dropout Intentions

The importance of close social contacts in the educational process has been widely documented, but mainly for the school sector. The present article examines the importance of close relationships on university students’ dropout tendencies. Using longitudinal panel data collected at a medium-sized German university, students (N = 7,169) were surveyed in four waves. The authors investigate how the family situation, partnerships and relations to peers correspond with students’ dropout intentions. Data analyses revealed three main findings: First, parental educational aspirations negatively influence the tendency to dropout. Second, students living in partnerships display lower dropout intentions; however, a new partnership favors the tendency to drop out. Third, while close friends decrease students’ dropout intentions, having a high proportion of friends from non-university life domains increases them.

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.

Discrimination at the Crossroads? Evidence from a Factorial Survey Experiment on Teacher‘s Tracking Decisions

Abstract Using a factorial survey experiment, we investigate whether teachers discriminate against lower class and minority children. The vignettes include information on the pupil’s gender, social and ethnic origin, academic potential, motivation, behaviour in class as well as parental educational aspirations. While the discrimination hypotheses are not supported, we find gender-specific effects of challenging behaviour, to the disadvantage of girls. Both the usefulness as well as potential pitfalls of the factorial survey approach are discussed.

Gender Differences in the Link between Family Scholarly Culture and Parental Educational Aspirations

Gender Differences in the Link between Family Scholarly Culture and Parental Educational Aspirations

Parental educational aspirations and children's academic self-concept: Disentangling state and trait components on their dynamic interplay.

The dynamic interplay of parental educational aspirations and children's academic self‐concept was examined from late childhood through mid‐adolescence within a transactional socialization framework. Parental and child data were gained from a representative Swiss sample within 3‐year intervals (N T1 = 1118; 51% females; 28% migration background; M age T1 = 9.26, M age T2 = 12.14, M age T3 = 15.32). Results from a random intercept cross‐lagged panel model revealed positive associations between the two constructs at the between‐ and within‐person level. Findings showed general and time‐specific associations between children and parents and reciprocal spill‐over effects, whereby higher than usual aspirations predicted higher than usual academic self‐concept over time and vice versa, highlighting transactional processes in the context of educational transitions.

Religiosity and parental educational aspirations for children in Kenya

Poor households make little investments in human capital, despite the potential benefits and are hence trapped in poverty. To overcome this poverty trap, households can invest more in children’s education as such investments reflect hopes and aspirations to break the intergenerational poverty chain. In this study, we examine the relationship between religiosity and parental educational aspirations for their children in rural Kenya. We study religiosity from both an extensive (membership in a religious institution) and an intensive perspective (extent of personal spiritual practice such as engaging in worship, meditating and praying) and elicit parental aspirations for children using vignettes. By employing inverse probability weighting with regression adjustment and multivalued treatment effects estimators on cross-sectional data, we show that membership in a religious institution and high levels of religiosity increases the educational aspirations of parents for their children and girls in particular. Overall, we provide empirical correlational evidence that religion can be a transformative pathway to socio-economic development through nudging aspirations and loosening internal constraints and activating progressive beliefs about development in many rural African settings.

Parental Investment After the Birth of a Sibling: The Effect of Family Size in Low-Fertility China.

A large body of research has examined the relationship between family size and child well-being in developing countries, but most of this literature has focused on the consequences of high fertility. The impact of family size in a low-fertility developing country context remains unknown, even though more developing countries are expected to reach below-replacement fertility levels. Set in China between 2010 and 2016, this study examines whether an increase in family size reduces parental investment received by the firstborn child. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study improves on previous research by using direct measures of parental investment, including monetary and nonmonetary investment, and distinguishing household-level from child-specific resources. It also exploits the longitudinal nature of the CFPS to mediate the bias arising from the joint determination of family size and parental investment. Results show that having a younger sibling significantly reduces the average household expenditure per capita. It also directly reduces parental investment received by the firstborn child, with two exceptions: (1) for firstborn boys, having a younger sister does not pose any competition; and (2) for firstborn children whose mothers have completed primary education or more, having a younger brother does not reduce parental educational aspirations for them. Findings from this study provide the first glimpse into how children fare as China transitions to a universal two-child policy regime but have wider implications beyond the Chinese context.

Picking winners: An empirical analysis of the determinants of educational outcomes in India

We use data from the Young Lives longitudinal survey to analyse the effect of socioeconomic conditions and gender on the educational performance of young children in India. In particular, we use data for standardised scores on two cognitive tests: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and a maths test. Our results show that there are significant gender differences in the way that household wealth affects the educational performance of children. Specifically, boys born into wealthier households perform significantly better in maths than those from worse‐off economic backgrounds. The effect of wealth on the PPVT is stronger for girls than it is for boys. The results are robust across a range of specifications. The effect of household wealth on performance differed between the genders, even when we focused our analysis on the bottom 10% and top 10% of the performance distribution. One possible explanation for these differences is parental aspirations. We tested this hypothesis and found that boys from wealthier households with higher parental educational aspirations are positively and significantly associated with higher maths scores. Further analysis showed that the moderating role of parents’ educational aspirations was more pronounced at the top of the test score distribution, an indication that more able children are associated with wealthier and more ambitious parents.

Parental Investment After the Birth of a Sibling: The Effect of Family Size in Low-Fertility China

A large body of research has examined the relationship between family size and child well-being in developing countries, but most of this literature has focused on the consequences of high fertility. The impact of family size in a low-fertility developing country context remains unknown, even though more developing countries are expected to reach below-replacement fertility levels. Set in China between 2010 and 2016, this study examines whether an increase in family size reduces parental investment received by the firstborn child. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study improves on previous research by using direct measures of parental investment, including monetary and nonmonetary investment, and distinguishing household-level from child-specific resources. It also exploits the longitudinal nature of the CFPS to mediate the bias arising from the joint determination of family size and parental investment. Results show that having a younger sibling significantly reduces the average household expenditure per capita. It also directly reduces parental investment in the firstborn child, with two exceptions: (1) for firstborn boys, having a younger sister does not pose any competition; and (2) for firstborn children whose mothers have completed primary education or more, having a younger brother does not reduce parental educational aspirations for them. Findings from this study provide the first glimpse into how children fare as China transitions to a universal two-child policy regime but have wider implications beyond the Chinese context.

Elementary school pupils’ aspirations for higher education: the role of status attainment, blocked opportunities and school context

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the contributions of variables commonly used within the status attainment and blocked opportunities models in addition to school context variables in predicting pupils’ aspirations for higher education prior to the transition to differentiated upper secondary education in Croatia (14–15 years). The findings, arising from a longitudinal design, indicate that the school context does not contribute to the explanation of pupils’ aspirations for higher education. In contrast, gender, parental educational aspirations for their child, maternal academic support, the pupil’s possession of a work desk, pupil grades and school satisfaction predict aspirations. Arguably, pupils who attend different schools but have similar individual characteristics will likely have similar aspirations for higher education.

School Climate, Academic Achievement and Educational Aspirations in Roma Minority and Bulgarian Majority Adolescents

BackgroundSchool climate can promote students’ academic achievement and high educational aspirations. School climate refers to the quality and character of school life, norms, values, social interactions and organizational processes within a school.ObjectiveWe examined for the present sample whether (a) school climate relates to academic achievement and educational aspirations and (b) such relations vary for Roma minority compared to their majority peers.MethodParticipants in this cross-sectional study were 356 adolescents aged 11–19 years old (159 Roma, 197 Bulgarian majority), 332 mothers (149 Roma, 183 majority), 231 fathers (104 Roma, 127 majority) and 221 majority teachers who completed self-report surveys to address the study goals. Adolescents provided data on educational aspirations and academic achievement, parents on their children’s educational aspirations and teachers reported on school climate. We employed linear mixed models to explore associations of school climate, academic achievement and educational aspirations among Roma and Bulgarian majority youth.ResultsThere were negative associations between teacher-reported school climate and students’ academic achievement, as well as adolescent and parental educational aspirations for Roma adolescents only. Roma adolescents and parents reported lower academic achievement and educational aspirations than their majority counterparts.ConclusionsThis study supports the relevance of school climate in relation to academic achievement and aspirations of disadvantaged minority students. Interventions should pay close attention to perceptions and attitudes in a school to successfully promote positive outcomes among students.

Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Aspirations in Chinese Families: Identifying Mediators and Moderators

Parents' educational aspirations for youth play an important role in shaping youth's own educational aspirations; however, little is known about how and in what context parents may transmit their aspirations to youth effectively. This is of particular interest and import to be examined in Chinese families, given Chinese cultural emphasis on educational achievement and Chinese youth's outstanding academic performance internationally. By integrating several key theories of motivation and parental socialization (i.e., the expectancy-value model of academic achievement, the two-step model of value transmission, the contextual model of parenting, and the self-determination theory), the current study investigated simultaneously the mediating roles of parental involvement in youth's learning and youth's perceptions of parental aspirations, as well as the moderating role of parental warmth in the intergenerational transmission process of educational aspirations in Chinese families. A two-wave longitudinal study spanning about half a year was conducted among 323 Chinese seventh graders (54% female; Mage = 13.25 years) and one of their parents (median educational attainment = completion of high school, median monthly income = USD 766-1226). It was found that parental educational aspirations for youth were related positively both indirectly through parental involvement and directly to youth's perceptions of parental aspirations, which in turn were associated positively with youth's own educational aspirations about half a year later. It was also found that parental educational aspirations for youth and youth's own educational aspirations were associated positively with each other only when youth reported experiencing high levels of parental warmth, but unrelated when youth reported experiencing low levels of parental warmth, whereas such moderating effects of parental warmth were absent on the links from parental aspirations to youth's perceptions of parental aspirations and parental involvement. These findings highlight the importance of integrating multiple theories to understand parent-to-youth transmission of educational aspirations in non-western cultures, which helps not only reveal generalizability, as well as boundary conditions for Western-originated theories, but also inform practical endeavors at promoting youth's educational achievement worldwide to draw on strengths of different cultures.

Current issues on parental involvement in schools: a multicultural perspective

Family interaction is probably one of the most intriguing subjects in the field of educational research. Whenever I visit a for a research or for a teacher-family conference, I am always interested in the school's climate for parents. At all times, I want to know what this climate adds to the effectiveness of the and students' improvement. That is why, last year, I participated in the school-family association of my daughter's to see what parental involvement means and how it works in real context and to look over that deep meaning of parental involvement. Also I shared my proposal with Shirley O'Neill, the editor, to publish this special issue to find out recent issues on parental involvement in different contexts.We can easily claim that parental involvement is one of the most debated issues in education or Rosenblatt and Peled (2002) indicated it is one of the most prominent issues in our schools. Researchers of different educational settings have recognized the importance of parental involvement or parental engagement to reveal whether parents have influences on their children's schooling and more specifically to see if this partnership positively affects educational achievement and effectiveness of a school. Additionally those studies, using the terms engagement and involvement interchangeably, have been trying to grab and/or explain the meaning of the concept (Beveridge, 2005; Castro et al., 2015; Christenson & Reschly, 2010; Griffith, 2001; Harris, Andrew-Power, & Goodall, 2009; Hornby, 2011).There are different definitions or conceptualizations of parental involvement in the literature. Castro et al. (2015), for example, consider parental involvement as the active participation of parents in all aspects of their children's social, emotional and academic development (p. 34). They also clarify that,parental involvement concerns a wide range of issues, such parental expectations about their children's academic future, control over homework, the extent to which they become involved in helping children to learn for assignments or to do the homework, or the frequency with which parents are physically present at school. (p. 34)Similarly, Kaplan Toren and Seginer (2015) conceptualized parental involvement as a multidimensional construct, including parental educational aspirations, future plans for their children, educational decision-making, and support with work, parental knowledge and parental participation in the school (p. 812).We could briefly infer that it is clear that parental involvement contribute to effectiveness of a and to the students' success. However, it may differ in every culture. That is why I assume that this special issue could be an outlet to get a deep understanding of parental involvement issues in different contexts.The authors have contributed to the issue with their partial research conducted in their unique context or they have contributed to the issue with their conceptual papers. For example, Janet Goodall, examining the literature in the fields of parental engagement, communication and technology, aims to reveal the linked concepts of school-home communications, and parental engagement in children's learning, both of which are vital for supporting learning, particularly at times of transition.Paula Kwan and Yi-Lee Wong seek to link parental involvement to both SES and parental behavioural dispositions, namely their expectations in their children, self-efficacy in helping their children, and understanding of their children's life, simultaneously, based on a data-set comprising 921 parents of Hong Kong primary leavers. …

‘Simply the best for my children’: patterns of parental involvement in education

This article explores parental involvement in the educational trajectories of children in Europe. The analysis is embedded in the framework of the three dominant contemporary social processes that have been acknowledged as crucial factors for the educational and life trajectories of young people today, i.e. familialization, institutionalization, and individualization. The article draws on qualitative data gathered during interviews with parents of lower secondary school students in disadvantaged city areas within the research project, GOETE, in eight European countries. The analysis focuses on specific behavioral aspects that were identified as the most relevant in our empirical evidence: parental educational aspirations and future plans for their children, the role of parents in decision-making in educational transitions and trajectories, parental participation in the school, and parental support with schoolwork. The most striking finding is the persistent emphasis on individual responsibility for both students and parents in terms of education. Parents realize that the future of their child not only depends on the work of the teacher but also to a great and growing degree on parents as coeducators. This parental awareness results in a high level of confidence in the power of education, which is met by parental skepticism when they experience a lack of school support and distant parent–teacher relationships and communication.

Parental visions of their children’s future as a motivator for an early start in a foreign language

This paper reports on the qualitative part of a project investigating parental educational aspirations as manifested by enrolling their children (aged 3-6) into very early L2 instruction. The concept of educational aspirations is widely studied in educational psychology as well as in sociology and pedagogy. In SLA, these aspirations can fit in the new framework of imagery and creating visions as they are a part of an ideal L2 self. Data analysis concludes that parental visions towards their children’s achievement reflect self-efficacy beliefs; in other words, those parents who were unsuccessful foreign language (FL) learners themselves hoped that by starting early their children would learn lingua franca English well and this would help them achieve educational and vocational success, which indicates an instrumental motive. By contrast, those parents who were successful language learners were positive about their children’s future plurilingual attainment, not necessarily voicing the necessity of “an early start.” They believe languages contribute to overall emotional and cognitive growth, which shows more intrinsic and integrative motives. These findings suggest that the differences in ultimate FL attainment may start very early and are rooted in the socia (family) context.

Parental visions of their children’s future as a motivator for an early start in a foreign language

This paper reports on the qualitative part of a project investigating parental educational aspirations as manifested by enrolling their children (aged 3-6) into very early L2 instruction. The concept of educational aspirations is widely studied in educational psychology as well as in sociology and pedagogy. In SLA, these aspirations can fit in the new framework of imagery and creating visions as they are a part of an ideal L2 self. Data analysis concludes that parental visions towards their children’s achievement reflect self-efficacy beliefs; in other words, those parents who were unsuccessful foreign language (FL) learners themselves hoped that by starting early their children would learn lingua franca English well and this would help them achieve educational and vocational success, which indicates an instrumental motive. By contrast, those parents who were successful language learners were positive about their children’s future plurilingual attainment, not necessarily voicing the necessity of “an early start.” They believe languages contribute to overall emotional and cognitive growth, which shows more intrinsic and integrative motives. These findings suggest that the differences in ultimate FL attainment may start very early and are rooted in the socia (family) context.

Socioeconomic Adversity, Educational Resilience, and Subsequent Levels of Adult Adaptation

The aim of this article is to determine the extent to which individual, family, and contextual resources influence the school adjustment of 16-year-old teenagers and to investigate their consequent adult attainments at age 33. Adopting a longitudinal perspective, the experiences of more than 9,000 socially advantaged and disadvantaged young people are compared. The study shows that socioeconomic adversity is a significant risk factor for educational failure and that it influences consequent adjustment in work and healthrelated outcomes. Various social-psychological factors can counterbalance such adversity. In particular, parental educational aspirations for their child are significantly associated with educational resilience among less privileged individuals. The study confirms the long-term stability of secondary school adjustment. It is concluded that the factors and processes that modify the impact of adversity are context specific and that their influences have to be studied in the context in which they operate.

Predicting parental involvement in children's schooling within an economically disadvantaged African American sample

Predictors of parental school involvement were examined within a sample of 159 economically disadvantaged, African American parents living in an urban setting. School involvement was defined in terms of parent activity within the school. Parent demographics, attitudes about education, and community engagement behaviors as well as parent perceptions of school receptivity to parental involvement were evaluated as predictors of school involvement. Predictors of school involvement were examined separately for parents of elementary school students and for parents of middle and high school students. Results indicated that school receptivity was the strongest predictor of parental school involvement within both groups of parents. In addition, parental educational aspirations for the child and community engagement behaviors were significant predictors for both groups of parents. Parent level of employment was a significant predictor of school involvement only for parents of middle/high school students. Implications for school psychologists based on the findings are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 101–111, 2005.