As a result of the abrupt closures of daycare centers in Germany due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents’ ability to provide learning opportunities at home became all the more important. Building on the family stress model, the study investigates how parental stress affected changes in parents’ provision of home learning activities (HLA) during the lockdown, compared to before the lockdown. In addition, the study considers parental self-efficacy and perceived social support as protective factors that may play important roles in disrupting the negative effects of stress. Data stems from a nation-wide survey of 7,837 German parents of children ages 1–6 years, which was conducted in Spring 2020 during the first wave of COVID-19 infections and at a time of strict restrictions in Germany. Results revealed that parental stress was negatively related to changes in the provision of HLA. Parental self-efficacy and an intact social support system were protective of parental stress during the lockdown. Additionally, parental self-efficacy and – to a larger extend – perceived social support interacted with parental stress in the relation to changes in the provision of HLA. Specifically, self-efficacy and perceived social support acted as protective factors that buffered the negative influence of stress on parents’ ability to provide educational activities for their children at home. These results have important implications for supporting families with young children during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the temporary closure of daycare centers.

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Young children, ages 5-6 years, develop

This longitudinal person-centered study aimed to identify profiles of subjective task values and ability self-concepts of adolescents in the domain of mathematics, English, biology, and physics in Grades 10 and 12. We were interested in gendered changes of profile membership, and in relations between profile membership and educational and occupational outcomes in adulthood. Data were drawn from the Michigan Study of Adolescent and Adult Life Transitions. We focused on students who participated in the data collection in Grades 10 and 12 (N = 911; 56.1% female; M age = 16.49, SD = .63; 91.2% European American, 4.6% African American, and 2.1% other ethnic groups such as Hispanic, Asian, Native American). Data on subsequent college majors were assessed 2, 6, and 10 years after finishing high school and data on occupational outcomes was assessed up to 22 years after high school. Using Latent Profile Analyses, our findings revealed five profiles in grade 10 and four profiles in grade 12, which were meaningfully related to student gender. Latent Transition Analyses showed that motivational beliefs became more hierarchical over time. Gendered changes in profile membership occurred, with boys experiencing a process of specialization into mathematics domains. We were also able to show that gender-specific intraindividual hierarchies of motivational beliefs were related to gender-specific specialization processes in adolescence and to subsequent gendered choices throughout the life course.