NCJ Number
227991
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 38 Issue: 8 Dated: September 2009 Pages: 1140-1152
Date Published
September 2009
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study examined parental aspirations for their children's educational attainment in relation to ethnicity, parental education, children's academic performance, and parental perceptions of the quality and climate of their children's school.
Abstract
Findings indicate that all parents had relatively high educational aspirations for their children, and within each ethnic subgroup, parental education and children's academic performance were significantly and positively related to parental aspirations. However, data indicated that Caucasian parents with lower levels of education had significantly lower educational aspirations for their children than did parents of other ethnicities with similar low levels of education. Data revealed significant differences by ethnicity, with Asian-American parents having significantly higher aspirations than all other ethnic groups. Parental aspirations increased as a function of parental education and higher levels of children's academic performance. School climate variables did not account for much additional variance after controlling for other study variables. Data were collected from parents of middle and high school students from a large public school system within a culturally diverse county in a mid-Atlantic State using a questionnaire entitled the Parent Satisfaction Survey. Tables and references