Increased educational attainment among U.S. mothers and their children’s academic expectations

Abstract

Existing research provides strong evidence that children with more educated parents have higher academic expectations for themselves, but has yet to consider how an increase in the education of lower educated mothers might alter the expectations of their children. In light of the historic increase in U.S. mothers’ pursuit of additional education, this study investigates this timely question using data from a nationally representative, intergenerational sample of U.S. children and mothers participating in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (nmothers = 3,265; nchildren = 8,027). Combining random and fixed effects procedures, the findings revealed that that an increase in mothers’ educational attainment is linked to an increase in their children’s expectations to earn a Bachelor’s degree. Increased maternal education did not, however, buffer against the risk that children will downgrade these expectations upon approaching the end of high school. These results have theoretical importance to traditional models of status attainment, which typically view parental education as a stable feature of family background; extend a small but burgeoning literature that explores whether and why increased maternal education improves the mobility prospects of their children; and speak to current two-generation policy approaches that aim to leverage trends in mothers education to reduce inequality for future generations.

The positive effects of parents’ education level on children’s mental health in Indonesia: a result of longitudinal survey

“…The results imply that the higher level of education attained by the mother is associated with a higher level of depressive symptoms for the son and a lower level of depressive symptoms for the daughter. A possible explanation for these dynamics is that higher education increases a mother’s expectations of her children [ 73 ]. Moreover, mothers have different expectations for their sons and daughters [ 74 ].…”

Does generational status matter in college? Expectations and academic performance among second-generation college students in the US

“…Additional covariates/controls. We also included a dichotomous predictor for gender (DiPrete and Buchmann, 2013; Jacobs, 1996), a continuous measure of age at Wave 1 (Calcagno et al., 2007; Jacobs and King, 2002; Taniguchi and Kaufman, 2005), a categorical predictor of race/ethnicity (Desimone, 1999), a categorical measure of parental education level (capturing the highest attained by either parent) (Augustine, 2017; Dubow et al., 2009), a categorical measure of household income 7 (Desimone, 1999; Kim and Sherraden, 2011), and dummy variables capturing parental marital status (selected as a proxy, albeit imprecise, for single-parenthood) (Krein and Beller, 1988), sibling college going (whether or not students reported that they had a sibling in college at Wave 1) (Sewell et al., 1969; Sewell and Shah, 1968), parental financial assistance (Kim and Sherraden, 2011), and whether a student’s first institution was four year, or two year or less. Models 2B and 2D also include a dichotomous predictor of student expectations at Wave 1.…”

Black-White Achievement Gap: Role of Race, School Urbanity, and Parental Education

“…Family SES is also among the major determinants of students’ school achievement. 9 Among SES indicators, parental education is among the most stable aspects of family SES background, 15 which influence the quality of home learning settings 16 and higher levels of parental engagement in children’s schooling. 16 , 17 Children of low-educated parents more so than students with highly educated parents tend to demonstrate lower educational achievement.…”