Effects of parental support deficiency on child development

Parental Support & Children

Carbonaro, William. (2005). Tracking, Students' Effort, and Academic Achievement.

Sociology of Education, 78(1), 27-49.

This article discusses what factors have played important roles in research that involves student achievement - including the "systemic organizational and institution" characteristics of various schools, and the quality of curricula available (curricular tracking). The article goes on to suggest that there has not been enough study of what the author calls "human agency" (which is how seriously a student approaches the learning process) (Carbonaro, 27). One of the main points that Carbonaro discusses is "effort" - the three kinds of effort are "rule-oriented" effort, "procedural" effort, and "intellectual" effort.

Those levels of effort are self-explanatory but the author suggests that a student's "engagement" goes a step beyond the three aspects of effort; engagement, Carbonaro writes on page 28-29, relates to the psychological component of "enthusiasm" for school. One can easily and mechanically perform the three levels of effort, just to get by. But the good learner who is enthusiastic about putting forth effort, Carbonaro writes. And his research (which he asserts has not been conducted fully previously) is into whether or not effort varies across different curricular tracks, what that variance means, and does effort mean more in some tracks than in others?

Among Carbonaro's findings is the fact that students from minority cultures (including "oppositional cultures") lead to "antischool norms" which "sap" the desire of the student to learn. In addition, students from higher socioeconomic groups "and females" are "more likely" to exert effort than male students and those on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. Students who do not believe "academic success is likely or even possible" will not put forth effort, Carbonaro's research determined, because they see putting out strong effort will not result in any gain for them in the long run.

So the bottom line for Carbonaro is that researchers and teachers "need to consider how to create classroom environments that encourage all students to try hard," regardless of their ethnicity, their socioeconomic background, or their place in the "tracking" categories.

Machida, Sandra, Taylor, Angela R., & Kim, Juhu. (2002). The Role of Maternal Beliefs

In Predicting Home Learning Activities in Head Start Families. Family Relations, sample of 306 Head Start mothers (and their children) were involved in this research to determine the various influences in the home that have an impact on how well a child does in preschool learning environments. The authors state that not enough research has been done on "the factors that contribute to differences in parents' involvement in home learning activities with their children" (Machida, et al., 176). The research presented by the authors shows that the greater the level of parental self-efficacy (the belief by a parent that he or she has the skills required to handle child-rearing challenges; a lot of self-efficacy is confidence in one's ability) the better the chances for the child to be eager and able to learn (Machida 182).

The results of this study show several things: one, the child's temperament regarding willingness to learn at home is "mediated" by his or her mother's level of self-efficacy; two, stress in the family impacts the child's home learning because of stress's effect on mother's self-efficacy; three, low income parents have economic and ethnic hurdles to overcome in order to reach a point of self-efficacy, but those parents that can overcome those challenges have been demonstrated to show "...some sense of competency or confidence" (e.g., self-efficacy) to be able to facilitate a quality home-learning environment that truly can prepare the child for learning in school. Interventions that help parenting skills are important, the authors assert, because self-efficacy may be "a critical characteristic of healthy families who provide stimulating and nurturing contexts for young children" (Machida 183)

Fantuzzo, John, McWayne, Christine, & Perry, Marlo A. (2004). Multiple Dimensions of Family Involvement and Their Relations to Behavioral and Learning Competencies

For Urban, Low-Income Children. School Psychology Review, 33(4), 467-480.

A survey involving 144 city-based Head Start children sought to determine which of several aspects of family involvement in early education had the greatest impact on children's learning abilities. The outcome showed that "Home-Based family involvement emerged as the strongest predictor of child outcomes" in school (McWayne, et al., 467). There is no doubt that families living in a poverty environment struggle with more issues than those in higher socioeconomic classes. And this study purports that not enough research has gone into the linkage between low-income parental involved and their preschool children's outcomes academically.