Jennifer Augustine University of Texas at Austin
This dissertation is a mixed methods investigation of how mothers' educational histories shape their parenting philosophies and behaviors and, through these intergenerational relationships, their children?s achievement during the transition to elementary school. Such an investigation is informed by social capital theory and developmental research linking mothers' and children's educational trajectories through various parental investment behaviors and strategies. Expanding upon this research base, this study will tease out whether mothers? employment and relationships moderate linkages among maternal education, parenting, and children?s achievement. Prior research is unclear on whether employment or marital stability enhances parental investments more for higher educated mothers or for less educated mothers, and in turn, magnifies or narrows socioeconomic differences in children?s early achievement. Therefore, drawing on data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, (a national birth cohort study of 1,364 children) quantitative analyses will examine a series of competing hypotheses regarding such linkages using path analysis and growth curve modeling techniques. In-depth interviews will subsequently highlight the precise mechanisms related to marriage and employment underlying the associations identified in the quantitative analyses. This portion of the study will use in-depth interview data collected from 30 mothers of various educational backgrounds who have elementary school-aged children. Answering these questions has broad significance for sociological theory on the intergenerational transmission of advantage as well as for public policy. In particular, this study highlights the role of maternal education and parenting in the social class matrix, complementing a rich tradition of stratification research that has focused principally on the role of fathers or the economic returns to education. Moreover, this study shifts the focus of this intergenerational process to early childhood, as opposed to during adolescence or early adulthood, when socioeconomic differences in children's learning first emerge. Finally, this study examines the confluence of family factors (education, employment, and marriage) that shape parental investments in children?s learning, rather than considering these factors in isolation.
Broader Impacts
This research refines conceptual understanding of how advantage is transmitted from one generation to the next while providing important insights for policy makers evaluating the relative importance of family policies, work programs, and human capital investments to socioeconomic disparities in children?s early development. These contributions to social scientific theory and public policy will be realized by presenting the findings from this study at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journals that reach a multidisciplinary, applied and academic, audience.
In sum, the findings presented in this study boil down to four key findings. First, maternal education is strongly associated with the range of parental investment behaviors that promote children’s learning. Second, maternal education substituted for a lack of resources associated with family structure instability, non two-biological parent married households, low-status work and full-time work, and buffered against any disruptions associated with such family structure and work circumstances. Third, maternal education minimized the positive significance of part-time work and high prestige work and marriage to the biological father, which, among less educated women, helped narrow socioeconomic differences in parental investment and children’s early achievement. Fourth, these processes had the greatest implications for mothers’ parenting during the period leading up to the start of formal schooling. All-in-all, these findings represent the first steps toward building a body of work that provides a more refined and contemporary understanding of how advantage is transmitted from one generation to the next. However, they also represent a step toward developing a body of work that has implications for public policy. First, by focusing on the early stages of children’s development, this research hones in on a time when socioeconomic disparities in children’s learning begin to diverge, but also a time when investments in children and families can potentially have the greatest long-run implications for reducing inequality in the next generation. As such, this research speaks to an approach to policy that is gaining traction (early investments in children) and finding favor among the public and policy makers. Secondly, this study spotlights the importance of human capital investments, particularly among women—a debate that has reawakened over the past few years but is not the public policy priority that it is in other countries. Yet increasingly, scholars, particularly in the field of public health, are emphasizing the importance of educational investments for narrowing socioeconomic disparities in individual health, an emphasis that comes, in part, from the fact that the returns to education are life-long. In the case of children and families, these returns can be exceptionally pervasive and have the potential to reduce socioeconomic inequality for both them and for their children. This research aims to provide insights for policy makers evaluating the relative importance of human capital investments compared to other approaches to reducing socioeconomic disparities in children achievement and wellbeing overall. Although this study research represents only one study, and as such, carries a very soft voice, it is the first step in building a body of knowledge on the subject of women’s human capital that will help to come closer toward achieving such policy progress.
