No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The Usefullness of Social Capital Theory to Understand Academic Improvement in Young Children: The Impact of Family Structure
Abstract
This study explored the extent to which differences in social capital among family structures predicted academic improvement in young children using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, (ECLS) Kindergarten class of 1998-1999, which is administered by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). For all children included in the analyses, parent social and resource capital explained 13% of the variance in reading change scores from kindergarten to fifth grade and 15% of the variance in math change scores from kindergarten to fifth grade. In addition, parent social and resource capital explained 34% of children’s reading change scores in stepparent family structures. In light of these findings, implications for policymakers, parents, and scholars are discussed.
... Social capital theory states that human capital provides parents with the resources that create a positive learning environment (Coleman, 1988). Considerable research has established associations between social capital and children's academic performance, particularly math and reading achievement (Shriner, 2008;Schlee, 2007;Mullis, Rathge, Mullis, 2003;Hampden-Thompson & Pong, 2005;Parcel & Dufur, 2001;Pong, 1997). The focus of this study, however, examined the role of parent social capital in relation to reading gains, of young children. ...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between African American parental involvement, parental social capital and gains in children’s reading achievement. Research has examined the link between reading achievement and academic achievement and has found that children’s reading gains and reading achievement are positively correlated with overall academic achievement and success. The study utilized the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, (ECLS) Kindergarten class of 1998-1999 which is administered by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). Ten variables representing parental school involvement, parental educational expectations for their children, home and community resources, and household structure served as predictors of reading gain from Kindergarten through fifth grade. Results from this study found that parental educational expectations, that is, parents’ expectations of the highest level of education their children will attain, accounted for most of the relationship with reading gain. Additionally, this study showed that there are differences in family structure and family functioning in that the structure of the family is less important than how the family functions. Finally, this study also discusses the findings in relation to implications parents, teachers, researches and policymakers.
This article is concerned with exploring how children develop and utilize stocks of social capital. It draws on two research projects illustrating children's family, peer and community networks. In the burgeoning literature on social capital, children's accounts remain under-researched. Indeed most of the literature operates with a simplistic view of adults passing social capital assets on to children without a sub-sequent consideration of how children perceive and make use of existing net-works and create and manage additional networks. The article will examine the limited treatment of children and childhood in the conceptualization of social cap-ital put forward by Putnam, Coleman and Bourdieu. One of the most important attributes of social capital is its supposed ability to be converted into other forms of capital. A focus on children's networks calls into question the ease with which social capital can be transformed into other types of capital.
We used six waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Data (1986-1996) to assess the relative impact of adverse birth outcomes vis-à-vis social risk factors on children's developmental outcomes. Using the Peabody Individual Achievement Tests of Mathematics and Reading Recognition as our outcome variables, we also evaluated the dynamic nature of biological and social risk factors from ages 6 to 14. We found the following: (1) birth weight is significantly related to developmental outcomes, net of important social and economic controls; (2) the effect associated with adverse birth outcomes is significantly more pronounced at very low birth weights (< 1,500 grams) than at moderately low birth weights (1,500-2,499 grams); (3) whereas the relative effect of very low-birth-weight status is large, the effect of moderately low weight status, when compared with race/ethnicity and mother's education, is small; and (4) the observed differentials between moderately low-birth-weight and normal-birth-weight children are substantially smaller among older children in comparison with younger children.
This investigation addressed 3 questions about the long-term effects of early school experiences: (a) Is participation in small classes in the early grades (K–3) related to high school graduation? (b) Is academic achievement in K–3 related to high school graduation? (c) If class size is related to graduation, is the relationship explained by the effect of participation in small classes on students' academic achievement? The study included 4,948 participants in Tennessee's class-size experiment, Project STAR. Analyses showed that graduating was related to K–3 achievement and that attending small classes for 3 or more years increased the likelihood of graduating from high school, especially among students eligible for free lunch. Policy and research implications are discussed. The purpose of this investigation was to address three questions about the long-term effects of early school experiences: (a) Is participation in small classes in the early grades (K–3) related to the likelihood that a student will graduate from high school? (b) Is academic achievement in the early grades related to high school graduation? (c) If class size in K–3 is related to high school graduation, is the relationship attributable to the effect of small classes on students' academic achievement and the subsequent effect of achievement on graduation? This study is unique in several ways. Although the relationship of class size with achievement and behavior has been documented elsewhere, no formal examination of early class sizes and gradu-ating or dropping out 6 to 9 years later has been published previously. Also, the study was based on an extraordinary data-base—a large sample of students followed for 13 years, 1 with norm-referenced and criterion-referenced achievement tests ad-ministered annually and graduation/dropout information collected from official school and state records.
This article first provides an overview of the part that secondary data analysis plays in the field of family studies in the early 21st century. It addresses changes over time in the use of existing omnibus data sets and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. The second part of the article focuses on the elements that make a study a “family” study. It describes sources of existing data and the process of selecting a data set. The third part presents special issues and concerns in using existing data, and the fourth part addresses the future of secondary data analysis in the field of family research.
Growing up in a family that lacks a biological father is correlated with a number of poor outcomes for youths. This study uses the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988 to examine the extent to which differences in income or in parental involvement measurement error in income from single-parent homes affects the results in a large way because of the variability in income earned over a youth's teen years. Overall, we find that both lower income and lower parental involvement explain most of the disadvantages of youth in single-parent homes, but neither explains the disadvantages of families with stepfathers.