April 12, 2012
By Dan Berrett
One
young person in four failed to reach his or her parents' level of postsecondary
education, according to a study of American youth in 2007, and the phenomenon
is one form of "downward mobility."
While
researchers have traditionally seen class, race, aptitude, and the level of
parental education as the chief explanations for academic success (or lack
thereof), a new study being presented at the American Educational Research
Association's annual meeting in Vancouver this weekend suggests paying
attention to a powerful influence that is less examined: the tone and substance
of family relationships.
"It
appears families may be able to 'guard' against downward mobility by engaging
in certain kinds of interactions with their children," Elizabeth Dayton, a
doctoral student in sociology at the Johns Hopkins University, writes in her
paper, "Falling Short of College." These interactions include family
conversations about educational goals, supportive and engaged parenting, and
involvement in young people's academic and social lives.
While
acknowledging that parental education and family income can predict educational
attainment, Ms. Dayton sought to answer why children of college-educated
parents fall short of their parents' level of education. One-third of young people
have parents who earned baccalaureate degrees, she writes, and the share of
young people from this group who achieved the same or higher level of education
as their parents narrowly exceeded those who did not.
Among
the 18 percent of young people whose parents attended college but did not earn
a bachelor's degree, half went to college, while the other half ended their
education at high school, if not earlier.
Her
point was not, she writes, that everyone must go to college. Instead, she
argues, it is useful to understand why so many young people are following
"seemingly surprising downwardly mobile educational paths,"
especially amid larger efforts to create a more educated citizenry.
Looking
at 'Social Capital'
To
analyze the dynamics of educational achievement among parents and their
children, Ms. Dayton focused on the notion of "social capital." As
articulated by the late sociologist James S. Coleman, social capital describes
the assets that accrue to young people as a result of warm and trusting relationships,
as distinct from strictly financial and demographic advantages.
Ms.
Dayton analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. In 1997,
researchers from the U.S. Department of Labor began following nearly 9,000
people between the ages of 12 and 16, and they have continued to interview
their subjects every year, mostly in-person.
Several
questions in the survey are designed to identify the tone and substance of
family relationships, or the presence or absence of social capital in young people's
lives. For example, young people are asked whether they feel supported by their
parents and how often their parents help them do things they feel are
important, or whether parents cancel plans for no good reasons and blame their
children for their problems. The young people are also asked how involved their
parents are with their lives, as revealed by whether parents know the
children's friends, the friends' parents, teachers, and whereabouts after
school.
The
result, Ms. Dayton found, is that frequent conversations about young people's
education and goals reduced by about one-third the odds that a young person
would fall short of his or her parents' education. Engaged parenting, described
as both strict and responsive, as opposed to permissive, lowered by more than
half the odds that a child of parents who attended some college would not reach
the same level of education. The presence of two parents in the home also had a
major effect.
The
significant influence of family relationships on college-going also held true
when controlling for the young person's aptitude, as measured on the Armed
Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.
"While
background characteristics and aptitude are widely analyzed as fundamental
influences on youth outcomes, family relationships are far more often missing
from analyses," Ms. Dayton writes.
And,
when parents place too much focus on providing material benefits to their
children, it can have a negative effect, Ms. Dayton writes, referring to
previous research. "While income is generally beneficial for educational
attainment, if it comes at the cost of shared family time, attainment may be
harmed."
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