Despite a powerful social norm that parents should treat offspring equally, beginning in early childhood and continuing through adulthood, parents often differentiate among their children in such domains as closeness, support, and control. We review research on how parent–child relationships differ within families, focusing on issues of parental favoritism and differential treatment of children. We begin by examining within-family differences in childhood and adolescence and then explore differentiation by older parents among adult children. Overall, we find considerable similarities across the life course in the prevalence, predictors, and consequences of parents' differentiation among their offspring.

Data were collected from 708 adult children nested within 274 later-life families from the WithinFamily Differences Study to explore the role of perceived maternal favoritism in the quality of sibling relations in midlife. Mixed-model analyses revealed that regardless of which sibling was favored, perceptions of current favoritism and recollections of favoritism in childhood reduced closeness among siblings. Recollections of maternal favoritism in childhood were more important than perceptions of current favoritism in predicting tension among adult siblings, regardless of age. Taken together, the findings from this investigation are consistent with childhood studies showing that siblings have better relationships when they believe that they are treated equitably by their parents. KeywordsAdult siblings < Sibling Relations; Mother-child relations < Parenting < Parenting and Parenthood; Parental favoritism; Within-family design < Method Literature, history, and popular culture abound with stories of siblings vying for their parents' favor, from the Biblical account of jealousy among Jacob's sons to the rivalry * Please direct all correspondence to J. Jill Suitor, Department of Sociology/Center on Aging and the Life Course, Purdue University, 700 Stone Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (jsuitor@purdue.edu). Phone: 765-496-1718; FAX: 765-496-1476 between Ray Romano and his brother Robert in the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond." Such rivalry is fueled by a concern that some children receive an unfair share of their parents' emotional or instrumental resources. Parents' differential treatment of their offspring in childhood and its effects have received substantial attention by scholars across an array of disciplines (for a review see Suitor, Sechrist, Plikuhn, Pardo, & Pillemer, 2008). In contrast, there has been a dearth of attention to within-family differences in parents' relationships with their children during adulthood.In the present paper, we extend the study of within-family differences by examining the consequences of perceived parental favoritism on sibling relations in adulthood. Specifically, we investigate whether siblings' closeness and conflict are affected by adult children's perceptions of mothers' current favoritism or their recollections of favoritism in childhood. To address these questions, we use data collected from 708 adult children nested within 274 later-life families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. The Role of Parental Favoritism in Sibling RelationsThe literature on within-family differences in childhood has demonstrated convincingly that parental favoritism has consequences for children's lives. For example, consistent with classic arguments by Freud (1961) and Adler (1956) empirical evidence has shown that being the disfavored child in the family is associated with decreased well-being, whereas being the favored child is associated with increased well-being under some circumstances (Suitor et al., 2008). Favored children are also more likely to gar...

This study draws on interviews with 26 individuals who attained an advanced degree and whose parents did not attend university and who reported having at least one older sibling. Participants were asked about independent reading practices in their youth and the reading practices of their older siblings. Participants reported many memories of their own independent reading development and ways in which their older sibling (s) mediated or influenced their out-of-school reading practices. From an analysis of these interviews and related research literature, this study draws on Gee's theory of Discourses to suggest that family interactions around reading may have not only improved participants' reading abilities but also allowed participants to form dispositions or identities that included habits of recreational reading. Authors suggest ways educators and parents might encourage shared family and sibling out-of-school literacy practices as well as new directions for literacy research.What is already known about this topic • Independent or recreational reading habits can affect academic longevity.• Census data reports that 77.9% of U.S. children have at least one sibling.• Research on the influence of siblings on literacy development, and especially on at-home reading, is scarce. • Extant studies on literacy development and sibling relationships suggest that siblings can greatly affect the literacy development of one another. • Reading is often misunderstood as a solitary practice, rather than a practice that often includes social interactions around reading materials and the mobilisation of identities (Discourses), which may affect the motivation for individuals to read. What this paper adds• Interview participants, all of whom were first-generation university graduates with at least one older sibling, were asked about independent reading practices in their youth and the reading practices of their older siblings. • Interview participants reported that they formed strong habits of at-home reading in their youth. • 96% of interview participants reported that their older siblings played a role in their literacy development.

Parents' educational attainment is generally completed before offspring are born. Thus, there is little opportunity to study the ways in which children's observation of their parents' pursuit of education may augment the effects of structural factors on intergenerational transmission processes. In this article, the authors use qualitative and quantitative data collected from thirty-five women across a decade following their return to school to examine the effects of children's observations of their mothers' educational achievements on the children's educational aspirations and achievements in adulthood. The return to school was consequential only when mothers completed their degrees; when they did not, their enrollment appears to have had little or no effect on children's educational achievements. Mothers' completion of college was found to be the most important for children's educational outcomes when fathers were less educated and opposed to mothers' enrollment and when the return to school was fueled by personal and psychological, rather than career, motivations.

Studies suggest that individuals with a parent who attended college or a university are more likely to attend themselves. Scholars have also argued that academic success at the highest levels requires the acquisition of a large vocabulary and fluency in multiple discourses, and that forming habits of reading various kinds of texts outside of school may be necessary. Using interviews with 40 individuals who completed advanced degrees and whose parents did not attend college, this study examined factors that may have influenced their independent reading habits. We found that each of our participants developed strong habits of recreational reading and was motivated at least in part due to relationships with various sponsors of literacy, including parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, neighbors, librarians, teachers, and church members. Social challenges to recreational reading were also noted by participants, including the challenge of learning to code switch with family members and others. Keywords motivation/engagement, family/home-school connections, interview, attitudes/beliefs Investigation into why some people attend and succeed in an institution of higher learning beyond high school, whereas others do not, has been a persistent topic in sociological and educational research. Research into variations in educational achievement began more than 50 years ago, such as with the work of Sewell and colleagues