– All three factors, math achievement, perceived math ability, and parental occupation in a science field, are found to be significant predictors of the probability of majoring in science in college.
– Having a parent working in a science related field is associated with a better performance in math but not necessarily higher levels of perceived math ability, given math performance.
– Most of the observed positive effects of having a parent in a science related occupation seem to be concentrated among females.
– Estimated effects of higher levels of math achievement are about double for boys than for girls. Estimates of perceived math ability are also slightly larger for boys.
Current Selections
ClearGender Gaps in Math Performance, Perceived Mathematical Ability and College STEM Education: The Role of Parental Occupation
Public Understanding of Science and K-12 STEM Education Outcomes: Effects of Idaho Parents' Orientation Toward Science on Students' Attitudes Toward Science
The authors focus on the potential effects of parents’ attitudes toward science on their children’s STEM learning outcomes.
Expectancy-Value and Children’s Science Achievement: Parents Matter
– Teachers’ expectancy for children’s success in science did not significantly predict students’ fifth grade science achievement.
– Parents’ expectancy did predict students’ fifth grade science achievement.
– Children’s science self-efficacy significantly influenced science achievement scores. This was a weaker influence than the direct effect of parents’ expectancy of children’s success in science.
– None of the dependent variables showed significant difference between genders.
– The influence of parent expectancy on child self-efficacy for science and science achievement is equally strong for both boys and girls.
The Role of Mothers’ Communication in Promoting Motivation for Math and Science Course-Taking in High School
– There was a significant effect of the experimental intervention on course-taking, such that adolescents whose parents received the intervention took more MS in 12th grade, compared with controls.
– There was an indirect effect of personal connections on STEM course-taking through adolescent’s interest.- More years of mother’s education were associated with higher perceptions of adolescents’ math ability.
– Neither mothers’ years of education nor mothers’ perception of adolescents’ math ability predicted number of conversations between mothers and adolescents or personal connections articulated in the interviews.
– Mothers with more years of education generated more elaborated responses in their interview.
– There was a significant interaction between number of conversations and elaboration, such that the highest level of interest occurred with high elaboration and few conversations.
– Adolescents whose parents received the intervention reported more UV in 10th grade than those whose parents were in the control group.
– Higher levels of interest in 10th grade predicted more STEM courses taken in 12th grade.
– There was a significant interaction between elaboration and number of conversations such that the highest levels of course-taking were achieved either with the combination of high elaboration and fewer conversations, or less elaboration but more conversations.
School Substance Use Norms and Racial Composition Moderate Parental and Peer Influences on Adolescent Substance Use
Examine the effects of school substance use norms and school racial composition in predicting adolescent substance use and in moderating parental and peer influences on adolescent substance use.
Parental Support and High School Students’ Motivation in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics: Understanding Differences Among Latino and Caucasian Boys and Girls
The authors examine if a variety of parental behaviors predict students’ ability self-concepts in and value they place on biology, chemistry, and physics.
Science Aspirations, Capital, and Family Habitus: How Families Shape Children's Engagement and Identification With Science
How and why is science a more ‘‘thinkable”
aspiration in some families and not others?
Does Moving to Better Neighborhoods Lead to Better Schooling Opportunities? Parental School Choice in an Experimental Housing Voucher Program
Understand why the children of families who participated in the Baltimore MTO program did not experience larger gains in achievement.
The Social Cost of Open Enrollment as a School Choice Policy
Evaluates the effects of three San Diego, California school choice programs on integration by race, student achievement and parental education levels.
School Choice and Segregation: Evidence from an Admission Reform
Evaluates the effects of school choice on segregation using data from an admission reform in the Stockholm upper secondary schools.
The Role of Schools, Families, and Psychological Variables on Math Achievement of Black High School Students
- What is the impact of school-, family-, and person-level affective or social psychological variables on math achievement for a nationally representative sample of Black high school students?
Does Gender Composition of the Classroom Matter? A Comparison of Students' Academic and Social Outcomes in Single-Gender and Coed High School Classrooms
How gender composition affects students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes?
Individual and School Structural Effects on African American High School Students' Academic Achievement
Examined the extent to which individual-level and school structural variables predict academic achievement among a sample of 10th grade African American students abstracted from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) database.
Lessons Learned from School Desegregation
Theories about why desegregation should improve black achievement.
When Opting Out is not a Choice: Implications for NCLB's Transfer Option from Charlotte, North Carolina
Examines the implementation and early outcomes of No Child Left Behind’s voluntary transfer option for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School after end of court-mandated desegregation.
Peer Effects on Student Achievement: Evidence from Chile
Estimates of peer effects on student achievement, using a 1997 census of eight-grade achievement in Chile.
What Do Parents Want from Schools? Evidence from the Internet
The aspects of schools parents prefer and how these preferences will affect the socioeconomic and racial composition of schools.
Relation of Parental Involvement, Empowerment, and School Traits to Student Academic Performance
What is the relation of parental involvement in education to student academic performance? What is the relation of parent perceptions of involvement and empowerment and school structural characteristics to student academic performance?