DIFFERENTIAL MODELS FOR MATH ANXIETY IN MALE AND FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENTS

The relative importance of several predictors of math anxiety were examined in multiple regression models. The predictors were test anxiety, ACT math scores, student perceptions of high-school math teachers' teaching ability (PHAM), student perceptions of college math teachers' teaching ability (PCAM), parental support for math skills (PSM), the length of time since completing high-school, number of college math classes taken, perceived math ability (PMA), and gender. No significant difference was found between the genders for amount of math anxiety. However, when separate analyses were conducted for males and females, different factors were significant for each gender. Specifically, males' math anxiety was most strongly related to general test anxiety and ACT math scores. Predictably, males' math anxiety increased as ACT math scores declined and test anxiety increased. In contrast, females' math anxiety was most strongly affected by students' PMA, PHAM, ACT, and general test anxiety. Females' math anxiety increased as PMA and PHAM declined. General test anxiety was positively related to math anxiety. Surprisingly, females' math anxiety increased as ACT math scores increased in the model. Explanations for the latter finding and recommendations for reducing math anxiety are discussed.     

Does greater household wealth make young children perform better? The case of Vietnam

Our study examines factors affecting children's cognitive ability in Vietnam for the period 2006–2016. We find that conditional wealth has a positive association with the cognitive capacity of 15-year-old children, manifested in all three methods of measurement: vocabulary points, math scores and reading comprehension scores in Vietnamese. Notably, the finding implies that improving household wealth after the children's first 1,000 days still plays an important role in the cognitive development of 5–12-year-olds. Also, it suggests that using conditional wealth enables us to capture the impact of economic shocks, thereby having a significant effect on the cognitive ability of children.     

Is there a (transracial) adoption achievement gap?: A national longitudinal analysis of adopted children's educational performance

In one of the first longitudinal population-based studies examining adopted children's educational achievement, we analyze whether there is a test-score gap between children in adoptive families and children in biological families. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, we find in aggregate adopted children have lower reading and math scores than their counterparts living in biological families. Yet there is significant variation among adoptive families by their race and health status. On one hand adoptive parents tend to be White and have more economic capital than their non-adoptive counterparts potentially contributing to educational advantages. However adopted children are also more likely to have special educational needs, contributing to greater educational disadvantages. Untangling these variables through a multivariate regression analysis, we find that transracially adopted children have similar test scores to White children living with biological parents. We point to the interaction between race, family resources and children's health status and how these characteristics differentially shape achievement outcomes for adopted children.     

Math Achievement and Children’s Savings: Implications for Child Development Accounts

In this study, we propose that children who have a savings account may be more likely to have higher math scores than children without a savings account. We find that children’s savings accounts are positively associated with math scores. Children with savings accounts on average score almost nine percent higher in math than children without a savings account. Further, results suggest that children’s savings accounts fully mediate the relationship between household wealth and children’s math scores. However, household wealth moderates the mediating relationship. We find math scores of low-wealth children increase by 2.13, middle-wealth children’s increase by 4.36, while high-wealth children’s increase by 6.59 points. Policy implications are discussed.     

Child,Mother, Father,and Teacher Beliefs About Child Academic Competence: Predicting Math and Reading Performance in European American Adolescents

Beliefs about child competence in math and reading have important implications for academic performance in adolescence. However, it is unclear whether children's own beliefs are the most important predictor of their academic performance or whether parents’ and teachers’ beliefs about child competence influence child academic performance. We assessed mothers’, fathers’, teachers’, and children's beliefs about European American children's (N = 189) competence in math and reading at age 10 and children's math and language performance at ages 10, 13, and 18 years. Confirmatory factor models demonstrated that children's and teachers’ beliefs had lower loadings on a latent variable of child competence in math and reading than mothers’ beliefs. Children's self‐competence beliefs in math and reading were not significantly correlated, suggesting children may use dimensional comparisons when assessing their own competence. Mothers’, fathers’, and teachers’ assessments of child competence in math were strongly correlated with their assessments of child competence in reading. Controlling for stability in academic performance, family socioeconomic status, and other reporters, mothers and fathers who rated their children's math competence higher had adolescents who performed better in math, and fathers who rated their children's reading competence higher had adolescents who performed better in language tasks. However, children who rated their own competence higher in math and reading had lower math and language (for girls only) performance in adolescence. European American children may use dimensional comparisons that render them poorer judges of their math and reading competence than parents.     

The Differential Effects of Racially Homophilous Sponsorship Ties on Job Opportunities in an Elite Labor Market: The Case of NCAA Basketball Coaching

We examine how an assistant coach's race and the race of his supervisor (the head coach) interact to affect future job quality. While past research argues that homophily is beneficial to job mobility, we find differential effects based on the race. OLS and OLR regression analyses on the quality of one's first head coaching job in NCAA men's basketball indicate that black assistant coaches working under black head coaches (black homophily) are significantly disadvantaged compared to all other racial combinations: white assistants with white supervisors (white homophily), white assistants with black supervisors (white heterophily), and black assistants with white supervisors (black heterophily). In contrast, there is no significant difference in job quality among the latter three groups: white homophily, white heterophily, and black heterophily. This indicates that while homophily is neither advantageous nor disadvantageous for whites, it is disadvantageous for black job candidates. This racially based disadvantage makes it difficult for minority job candidates to break through the glass ceiling and has real‐world financial implications.     

The moderating effect between strengths and placement on children's needs in out-of-home care: A follow-up study

The negative impact of childhood maltreatment, which can often extend well into adulthood, consistently appears to be ameliorated if victimized children possess several resiliencies or strengths. However, little is known about how vulnerable children's outcomes are affected by different levels of strengths across different out-of-home placement settings. Hence, this study examined the association of two factors — children's strengths and placement type, with outcomes at two time-points during out-of-home care. The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) tool was used to assess the outcomes of 285 children placed in residential homes or foster care in Singapore. Multiple regressions were conducted on CANS domain scores to evaluate whether level of baseline strengths and placement type predicted outcomes at two time-points after controlling for race, prior placements, age, gender, interpersonal trauma, and baseline needs scores. Results indicate that relative to residential care, foster care children are reported to be younger, with lower baseline needs, more prior placements, fewer baseline strengths and suffered fewer types of interpersonal trauma. After controlling for covariates, higher baseline strengths significantly predicted lower baseline needs of children across 3 of 4 CANS domains, regardless of placement settings. However, at reassessment 1 year later, there were significant interactions between strengths and placement type, whereby baseline strengths significantly predicted lower life functioning needs only in foster care. To conclude, in both residential and foster care, the protective effects of high strengths against child maltreatment were similarly apparent at baseline, despite clear differences in children's profiles across placement types. Over time, these initial benefits appeared to persist somewhat for children in foster care but seemed to diminish in more restrictive, residential settings and this warrants further investigation on children with more similar profiles. Nonetheless, it is clear that the continual development of children's strengths should be prioritized in case planning.     

Variations in Family Structure and School-Age Children's Academic Achievement: A Social and Resource Capital Perspective

Data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS–K) involving more than 300 children who continuously resided in different variations of families from kindergarten through fifth grade were used to test the usefulness of social capital theory for understanding the academic improvement of school-age children over two points in time. Social capital theory was found to be a useful framework for explaining academic achievement for single-parent, stepparent, and biological family forms. Analyses revealed that children's change scores in reading and math differed across the three variations in family type. Children in single-parent households scored significantly lower than children from both biological and married stepparent households.     

Decomposing the Black-White Wealth Gap: The Role of Parental Resources, Inheritance, and Investment Dynamics

Much research has shown that even after controlling for income, African Americans suffer from drastically lower net worths than their white counterparts; these differences in net worth have important implications for the overall well‐being of blacks and whites. If not directly from labor market disadvantages–i.e., income differentials–then from what does this racial gap in wealth arise? The current study assesses two complementary accounts of this race difference in asset holdings. The first, the historical legacy thesis, suggests that net wealth differences in the current generation are largely a result of discrimination in past generations; that is, they can be traced to the “head start” that whites have enjoyed in accumulating assets and passing them on. The second theory, the contemporary dynamics thesis, holds that current dynamics of institutional racism in the housing and credit markets are more responsible for the gap. The current study tests the relative impact of multi‐generational forces and contemporary property and credit dynamics by using two‐generational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. It finds that parental wealth and income levels and inheritance all have a significant impact on the wealth levels of the current generation net of respondent socioeconomic characteristics; however, parental wealth and inheritance fail to explain the black‐white gap. Further, this study shows that even predicting net worth from that same family's net worth five years prior (also controlling for savings during the interim), there remains a significantly negative effect of African American race. However, breaking out initial net worth into asset types shows that it may be different investment types and returns that explain the difference in asset accumulation over a five‐year period.     

Socioeconomic Resource Environments in Biological and Alternative Family Care and Children's Cognitive Performance*

We examined social and economic resources in the environments of children involved with child protective services and their associations with children's cognitive performance. We used a national dataset of child protection investigations (children aged 6–16 at Wave 1). Using latent class analysis, we constructed profiles of the financial resources, parental education and employment, and family structure and size. We then examined within‐ and across‐time associations between resource environment profiles and children's math and reading scores and tested whether associations differed by family care type. Our latent class analysis identified four distinct family resource environments: educated middle class, single earner, large working class, and severely disadvantaged. Family resource environment profiles predicted current cognitive performance and changes in performance over time, but associations were more consistent for children in biological family care. Children who remain in home following maltreatment allegations may benefit from services that target social as well as economic resources.     

Upgraded to Bad Jobs: Low‐Wage Black Women's Relative Status since 1970

Labor market changes complicate the analysis of black women's status relative to white women because education, occupational attainment, and race–gender are now less predictive of earnings. Low‐wage black women's relative status has improved somewhat from 1970 to 2000, contrary to the well‐documented decrease in relative status reported for all black women wage earners since 1980, but their dramatic occupational upgrading was not responsible for the trend. White‐collar occupational positions formerly responsible for white women's relative earnings advantage no longer deliver that reward, as restructuring has produced a proliferation of bad jobs across occupational groups. This study argues that increasing exposure to precarious work is crucial to understanding changes in low‐wage black women's relative economic status since 1970.     

Mother’s,Father’s,or Both? Parental Gender and Parent‐Child Interactions in the Racial Classification of Adolescents1

Research on racial identification in interracial families shows that children are more likely to be labeled as minority if the father is of minority race. Yet, prior studies have not sufficiently considered the role of parent‐child relationships in shaping children’s identification with either mother’s or father’s race. We address this limitation using data on 706 adolescents in interracial families from Wave 1 of Add Health. We examine whether adolescents identify with their mother’s race or with their father’s race, as opposed to selecting a multiracial identity, within specific combinations of parents’ races. We also explore whether indicators of parental involvement (i.e., quantity and quality of involvement, educational involvement, and social control) explain any gender effects. Contrary to prior studies, we find that the tendency to match father’s race is only true in black/white households, particularly if he is white, while adolescents in Asian/white families tend to match mothers regardless of her race. Moreover, while father’s involvement, particularly educational involvement, was more likely than mother’s to influence racial classification, adjusting for involvement does not explain gender patterns. This study shows that the well‐known gender influences on parenting have little to do with the complex ways parent‐child relationships impact racial classification.     

The Age of Independence,Revisited: Parents and Interracial Union Formation Across the Life Course

Romantic relationships that cross racial lines have grown since anti‐miscegenation laws were deemed unconstitutional. In The Age of Independence, Rosenfeld argued that parental influence over children's mate selection processes had waned. Rosenfeld, however, was not able to test this supposition directly because of his reliance on cross‐sectional census data. Using Waves I and III of Add Health for a cohort of individuals from 1994 to 2002, we examine whether parents matter in shaping their offspring's romantic attachments, by exploring whether adolescent reports of maternal closeness and parental control are associated with youth's likelihood of being in an interracial relationship in emerging adulthood. We find that parental factors do influence emerging adults’ romantic relationships; these associations vary by race, ethnicity, and gender. Among white men, maternal closeness in adolescence reduces the likelihood of being in an interracial relationship in emerging adulthood. Parental control elevates the odds of being in an interracial relationship among black and Hispanic women. We also find that parental decisions on where families live shape offspring's choices, as relative exogamous group size in adolescence is associated with interracial union formation in later life. Our findings suggest that parental influence remains salient in the partner choices made by emerging adults.     

Parenting Practices,Child Adjustment,and Family Diversity

The authors used data from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to test the generality of the links between parenting practices and child outcomes for children in two age groups: 5–11 and 12–18. Parents' reports of support, monitoring, and harsh punishment were associated in the expected direction with parents' reports of children's adjustment, school grades, and behavior problems in Wave 1 and with children's reports of self‐esteem, grades, and deviance in Wave 2. With a few exceptions, parenting practices did not interact with parents' race, ethnicity, family structure, education, income, or gender in predicting child outcomes. A core of common parenting practices appears to be linked with positive outcomes for children across diverse family contexts.     

The effects of economic instability on children's educational outcomes

Welfare Based on Assets, a Way to Smooth Out Economic Instability and Develop Children's Human Capital is a four-part series of papers that focuses on the relationship between economic instability (i.e., income shocks, asset shocks, home loss, and asset poverty) and children's human capital development. Collectively, these reports build on the compelling observation that the pattern low-income families walk into is a present time oriented or consumption based pattern of behavior; in contrast, the pattern higher income families walk into is future oriented or asset based. In the third paper we find in most cases income shocks and asset shocks do not appear to be harmful to children's educational outcomes. However, children living in liquid and net worth asset poor families have lower academic achievement scores, high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, and college graduation rates than children living in families that are asset sufficient. Overall, findings can be interpreted as suggesting that a bifurcated welfare system, with income-based programs for poor families and asset-based programs for higher income families, may provide higher income families with an educational advantage over low-income families and might ultimately help exacerbate educational inequalities in America.     

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: THE EFFECTS OF PARTICIPATION ON ACHIEVEMENT AND TEACHERS' EVALUATIONS

ABSTRACT

I use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to examine both the number and the types of extracurricular activities in which elementary school students participate and find significant differences in participation patterns by gender, race, and class. The number of activities in which students participate during kindergarten and first grade affects their gains in reading achievement test scores between first and third grade and third grade teachers' evaluations of mathematics skills, but does not affect gains in math achievement test scores or teachers' evaluations of language arts skills. Dance lessons, athletic activities, and art lessons, in particular, affect one or more of the dependent variables. With one exception, interactions of extracurricular activities with socioeconomic status show that less-privileged children benefit more from participation in activities than do more-privileged children, providing evidence against Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital and social reproduction.     

Behavior problems and children's academic achievement: A test of growth-curve models with gender and racial differences

The aim of this study was to examine the longitudinal association between externalizing and internalizing behavior and children's academic achievement, particularly in terms of whether these variables varied as a function of gender and race. Data pertaining to externalizing and internalizing behavior, academic achievement, gender, and race from three waves of the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (N = 2028) were used. Results indicate that behavior problems had a negative relationship with academic performance and some of these associations endured over time. Externalizing behavior impacted reading scores more negatively for females compared to males at baseline, but the impact of externalizing behavior on long-term reading outcomes did not vary by gender. Externalizing behavior impacted reading scores more negatively for Black children than White children at multiple points in time. Differences between males, females, Black, and White children concerning behavior and achievement are explained. Implications, limitations, and ideas for future research are also presented.     

Neighborhood Poverty and Children's Academic Skills and Behavior in Early Elementary School

Neighborhoods provide resources that may affect children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. However, it is unclear to what degree associations between neighborhood disadvantage and outcomes persist into elementary school and whether neighborhood disadvantage interacts with household disadvantage. Using data from the 2010–2011 Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Kindergarten Cohort (N = 15,100 children) merged with census data from the American Community Survey, this study examines associations between neighborhood poverty and children's math, reading, and behavioral outcomes at kindergarten and first and second grades. Findings indicate that as tract‐level poverty increases, children's achievement worsens after controlling for child and family characteristics. These associations persist into second grade and are stronger for children in poor versus nonpoor households. Findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage may contribute to poorer achievement scores, particularly among children with few household resources, but that household disadvantage and other characteristics largely explain behavioral outcomes. Research and policy implications are discussed.     

Wealth, race/ethnicity, and children's educational outcomes

We examine the extent to which disparities in wealth by race/ethnicity are related to gaps in children's educational outcomes, and find that family socio-demographics and parental resources account for a substantial proportion of black/white and Hispanic/white disparities in children's participation in gifted programs, extracurricular activities and grade retention. Black children, however, continue to face high risk of expulsion or suspension from school relative to white children even in models that control for a rich set of socio-demographic and economic characteristics. The adjusted risk of expulsion and suspension faced by Hispanic children is found to be lower than that for white children. Indicators of wealth, after controlling for all other factors, had statistically significant associations with all outcomes except a child's suspension or expulsion from school. Having a checking or savings account was independently associated with participation in gifted programs and extracurricular activities.     

Agenda Setting and African American Women in State Legislatures

SUMMARY

Political scientists have, in recent years, uncovered substantial evidence that political representation in the United States is influenced by gender and race, yet generally examine the effects of gender entirely separate from the effects of race. In this article, we explore the agenda-setting behavior of African American female state legislators. We find that African American women do respond to both women's interests and black interests. We also find that while the sponsorship of black interest measures by African American women (or other legislators) is not influenced by the proportion of African Americans within the chamber, African American women are less likely to sponsor women's interest measures in legislatures with a relatively high proportion of women present. We conclude that because of their focus on multiple groups, black women occupy a unique place in representation, and that their choices are influenced by the institutional context in which they work.