Life-course changes in the mediation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for parental effects on children’s academic achievement

Hsin, Amy; Xie, Yu

doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.09.012

Cited by 33 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The findings suggested an important divergence in non-cognitive skills based on family income that accumulated over time. Compared with cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills were more sensitive to changes in parental SES [23].…”

Section: Family Background and Non-cognitive Skillsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Analysis on the Influence of Family Background and Cultural Capital on the Non-cognitive Skills of Children

Luo¹

2017

EDU

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Abstract:The non-cognitive skills of children in family reproduction have been concerned more and more. Based on the survey of junior middle school student, we used principal component analysis to obtain the value of the index of non-cognitive skills, and further adopted the OLS method analyzing the determinants of the non-cognitive skills. It is shown that family income, parental occupations and education, participating in parent-child cultural activities, family collection of books, the grade of child, and the quality of teaching have significant and positive effect on non-cognitive skills, but taking part in an interest-oriented class and a child's gender haven't significant effect. So, the family background and the cultural capital significantly promote children's non-cognitive skills.

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Section: Family Background and Non-cognitive Skillsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Analysis on the Influence of Family Background and Cultural Capital on the Non-cognitive Skills of Children

Luo¹

2017

EDU

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“…Another probable reason for its persistence is the fact that it has only partially been subjected to empirical testing. The claim that the effect of individuals’ parental background on their educational attainment is largely mediated by individuals’ cognitive ability has been called into question by evidence from different national contexts demonstrating that, while cognitive ability mediates part of the association between individuals’ social backgrounds and their educational attainment, half or more of this association is mediated by factors other than cognitive ability (see Bourne, Bukodi, Betthäuser, & Goldthorpe, ; Bukodi, Bourne, & Betthäuser, ; Erikson, ; Hsin & Xie, ; Mood, Jonsson, & Bihagen, ) . However, while the extent to which cognitive ability mediates the association between parental background and individuals’ educational attainment has now been widely investigated, there has been little empirical work examining the role of cognitive ability in mediating the association between parental background and individuals’ labor market positions , over and above its effect on educational attainment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If it was then the case that—contrary to the claims made by Murray () and Marks ()—most of the effect of individuals’ parental class on their educational attainment and labor market position is not accounted for by individuals’ cognitive ability, the question arises what other individual‐level characteristics could account for this effect. Of relevance here is the emerging body of literature which highlights the role of non‐cognitive attributes in shaping individuals’ educational attainment and their labor market positions (see, e.g., Cheng & Furnham, ; Heckman, Stixrud, & Urzua, ; Hsin & Xie, ; Jackson, ). This literature finds that it is individuals’ locus of control , that is, the extent to which people believe that they can influence the events and outcomes of their own lives, that is particularly strongly associated both with their social background and their educational and labor market outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the mobility chances of children from working‐class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control?

Betthäuser

Bourne

Bukodi

2020

British Journal of Sociology

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Research in social stratification has shown that children from working‐class backgrounds tend to obtain substantially lower levels of educational attainment and lower labor market positions than children from higher social class backgrounds. However, we still know relatively little about the micro‐level processes that account for this empirical regularity. Our study examines the roles of two individual‐level characteristics—cognitive ability and locus of control—in mediating the effect of individuals’ parental class background on their educational attainment and social class position in Britain. We find that cognitive ability mediates only about 35% of the total parental class effect on educational attainment and only about 20% of the total parental class effect on respondents’ social class position, net of their educational attainment. These findings contradict existing claims that differences in the life chances of children from different social class backgrounds are largely due to differences in cognitive ability. Moreover, we find that although individuals’ locus of control plays some role in mediating the parental class effect, its role is substantially smaller than the mediating role of cognitive ability. We measure individuals’ social class positions at different points in their careers—at labor market entry and at occupational maturity—and find that the mediating roles of cognitive ability and locus of control are remarkably stable across individuals’ working lives.

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“…4 We thus expect condition (1) to be satisfied for psychosocial skills. Regarding condition (2), scholars increasingly recognize the critical role of psychosocial skills in children's academic achievement and educational attainment (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998;Cunha and Heckman 2009;DiPrete and Jennings 2012;Duckworth and Seligman 2005;Duncan and Magnuson 2011;Farkas et al 1990;Hsin and Xie 2016;Jackson 2006;Lleras 2008;Rosenbaum 2001;Wolfe and Johnson 1995), even among individuals who share the same family background and cognitive abilities (Heckman and Rubinstein 2001;Heckman, Stixrud, and Urzua 2006). Given evidence in support of both conditions (1) and (2), we hypothesize that psychosocial skills, more than cognitive skills, mediate the effect of parental divorce on children's education.…”

Section: Mediating Effects Of Parental Divorce On Children's Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…In contrast to cognitive skills, psychosocial skills evolve and change from early childhood through adulthood. Children's family environments can thus play a significant role in shaping psychosocial skills (Hsin and Xie 2016;Roberts, Walton, and Viechtbauer 2006;Roberts, Wood and Caspi 2008). 4 We thus expect condition (1) to be satisfied for psychosocial skills.…”

Section: Mediating Effects Of Parental Divorce On Children's Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unequal Families, Unequal Effects: How Parental Divorce Differentially Impacts Children's Educational Attainment

Brand¹,

Moore²,

Song³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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A substantial literature suggests that family disruption leads to lower educational attainment among children. We focus on how the effects of parental divorce on children's education differ across families with varying likelihoods of disruption. Using U.S. panel data, with careful attention to the assumptions and methods needed to estimate total and mediating causal effects, we find a significant effect of parental divorce on educational attainment among children whose parents were unlikely to divorce, for whom divorce was thus a relative shock. We find no effect among children whose parents were likely to divorce and for whom divorce was one of many disadvantages, and thus less economically and socially disruptive. We also find that the observed effect of divorce on children's education is strongly mediated by post-divorce family income. Children's psychosocial skills also explain a portion of the effect among children with a low propensity for parental divorce, while cognitive skills play no role in explaining the negative association between divorce and children's education. Our results suggest that family disruption does not uniformly disrupt children's attainment. UNEQUAL FAMILIES, UNEQUAL EFFECTS:HOW PARENTAL DIVORCE DIFFERENTIALLY IMPACTS CHILDREN'S EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT Family disruption has long been implicated as a critical event impacting the lives of children.Parental divorce negatively affects a variety of children's outcomes, including psychological wellbeing and academic achievement (see McLanahan, Tach, and Schneider [2013] for a review).Highly-cited research has shown that divorce is negative for children's educational attainment Prior research has also largely overlooked how the predisposition to experience parental divorce may condition the mechanisms by which parental divorce impacts children's education.We assess the degree to which decreased educational attainment among children in response to parental divorce is mediated by three factors: post-divorce family instability, family economic resources, and children's skills. Our study is thus motivated by two central aims. First, we assess how the effects of parental divorce vary across families with varying likelihoods, or propensities, of disruption. We hypothesize that family "disruption" is not uniformly disruptive. For some, such events require no more than a modicum of social-psychological and behavioral response. For others, such events are 3 unexpected shocks and necessitate considerable adjustment. The degree of disruption varies by the likelihood and corresponding expectation that such events will occur. Through examining heterogeneity in the effects of divorce by the observed likelihood that children experience a parental divorce, we shed new light on subpopulations for whom the causal effects of divorce may be considerable, modest, or even absent. Second, once we establish how total effects vary across families, we assess several key mediating effects, or mechanisms through which parental divorce affects children's educatio...

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Life-course changes in the mediation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for parental effects on children’s academic achievement

Cited by 33 publications

References 33 publications

Analysis on the Influence of Family Background and Cultural Capital on the Non-cognitive Skills of Children

Analysis on the Influence of Family Background and Cultural Capital on the Non-cognitive Skills of Children

Understanding the mobility chances of children from working‐class backgrounds in Britain: How important are cognitive ability and locus of control?

Unequal Families, Unequal Effects: How Parental Divorce Differentially Impacts Children's Educational Attainment

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