Brian V. Carolan

Does Parenting Style Matter? Concerted Cultivation, Educational Expectations, and the Transmission of Educational Advantage

Recent work on the transmission of educational advantage has shifted empirical attention toward the active role of parents and their parenting style. Drawing from cultural capital theory and using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) (N = 512), this study examines how a specific style of parenting, concerted cultivation, and educational expectations relate to adolescents’ academic achievement. Results from a recursive structural equation model (SEM) confirm a direct relationship between educational expectations and achievement, but not for concerted cultivation. However, subsequent analyses indicate that educational expectations also mediate the relationship between a child’s social background and academic achievement. These results provide insights into the family’s role in the transmission of educational advantage and contribute to the larger public and scholarly debate regarding explanations for the stratification of educational outcomes.

Which Middle School Model Works Best? Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.

There are few areas of school organization that reflect more dissatisfaction than how to structure the education of adolescents in the middle grades. This study uses multilevel models on nationally representative data provided by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to investigate the relationship between schools’ middle-level grade span and students’ math achievement. Classroom quality was considered as an explanation for any relationships between grade span and achievement. Also examined was whether gender and family structure moderated this relationship. Results indicate that there is no generalizable relationship between grade span configuration and math achievement, but that measures of classroom quality predicted math achievement. The results should give reflective pause to reformers considering whole-scale changes to the ways in which grade spans are organized and sharpen the policy focus on classroom quality.

School Transitions and Students’ Achievement in the Fifth Grade

ABSTRACT Although separate schools that attend to the specific needs of students are generally considered to be beneficial, the school-to-school transitions they necessitate are often harmful. Drawing on cumulative stress theory, the author examined the relationship between school transitions and students’ Grade 5 achievement. Propensity score matching methods are used on data from 2 panel-waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to test the hypothesis that these transitions result in adverse academic outcomes. Estimates from matched samples indicate that transitions between Grades 3 and 5 are not significantly associated with decreases in mathematics, reading, or science achievement. The results of this study directly challenge extant research and demonstrate a critical methodological perspective on the relationship between school transitions and students’ achievement.

Unequal Academic Achievement in High School: The Mediating Roles of Concerted Cultivation and Close Friends.

Building from the classic Wisconsin model of status attainment, this study examines whether a specific style of parenting, concerted cultivation, and a close friend’s school-related attitudes and behaviors mediate the relationship between a family’s socioeconomic status and their child’s academic achievement in the United States. Using a recursive path model on nationally representative panel data of high school students (N = 10,350), the results confirm a direct association between socioeconomic status and concerted cultivation. In addition, concerted cultivation and close friends are shown to mediate the relationship between a family’s socioeconomic status and their child’s academic achievement.

Adolescents’ Friends, Parental Social Closure, and Educational Outcomes

ABSTRACT There is a growing recognition of the importance of the social resources accessed through friends on adolescents’ educational outcomes. However, the research on the influence of these social resources remains inconclusive, due primarily to the different ways in which social resources have been conceptualized and measured. Using panel data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, we estimate the association between two measures of adolescents’ social resources in the Educational Longitudinal Study base-year, their high school grade point average in the first follow-up, and the likelihood of attaining a four-year college degree by the third follow-up. Grounded in the literature on social capital, our findings show that friendships that provide access to high social closure parental networks are favorably associated with grade point average and college completion. We discuss results in terms of their implications on school reform efforts intended to manufacture adolescents’ access to norm-reinforcing networks.

Friends’ plans for college and adolescents’ educational expectations: an instrumental variable approach

Abstract Friends are an important influence on adolescents’ educational outcomes. However, because of their similarity on numerous attributes, it is difficult to estimate whether friends influence each other, or whether they select friends who are similar to them. To address this endogeneity, this study uses instrumental variable estimation on panel data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to estimate the effect of friends’ plans for college on adolescents’ educational expectations. Results from two-stage least squares models indicate that friends’ plans for college has a significant effect on educational expectations. This effect does not significantly vary by gender. Results suggest the need for policies that focus on ways to diversify adolescent peer networks in order to provide greater access to resource-rich peers.