ii

The dissertation of Emily Pressler was reviewed and approved* by the following:

Scott Gest Associate Professor of Human Development Dissertation Co-Advisor Co-Chair of Committee Daphne C. Hernandez Assistant Professor of Health and Human Performance Dissertation Co-Advisor Co-Chair of Committee

Eric Loken Research Associate Professor of Human Development

Marianne Hillemeir Professor of Health Policy and Administration and Demography Eva S. Lefkowitz Associate Professor of Human Development Graduate Professor-in-Charge, Human Development and Family Studies

*Signatures are on file in the Graduate School

iii

ABSTRACT

Literature exploring the development of adolescent educational aspirations, and the

impacts these educational aspirations have on youth educational attainment has largely ignored

the developmental foundations of parents’ educational orientations. Specifically most research

exploring parental impacts on youth educational aspirations and attainment have measured

parental influence primarily in adulthood, post-fertility. To address this gap, the current two

studies examined a potential intergenerational transmission of adolescent educational aspirations,

as well as the impacts this transfer has on youth educational attainment in a multi-generational

sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and linked Child and Young Adult

Files.

The first study examined whether the educational aspirations women reported during

adolescence and adulthood predict the educational aspirations of their offspring above and

beyond a host of child and maternal characteristics in a sample of 1,851 mothers and their 3,198

children. Further the potential intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations was

explored separately by level of maternal educational attainment at the child’s birth as

demographic trends suggest greater increases in youth aspirations have occurred for children born

to less educated women. Findings indicate that higher maternal aspirations for children predict the

high educational aspirations of their offspring above and beyond youth and parental

characteristics. Yet, in one case this relationship varied by maternal educational attainment,

suggesting that an intergenerational transmission of adolescent aspirations between women and

their children may exist. Specifically, among a sample of youth with the highest educated

mothers, maternal aspirations for children and women’s aspirations during adolescence predicted

her offspring’s aspiration to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more.

iv

The second study explored whether multiple measures of educational aspirations relate to

youth educational attainment and whether these relationships vary by youth race/ethnicity in a

sample of 1,191 mothers and their 1,660 children. In addition, the study explored whether youth

engagement (i.e. hours spent on homework a week) and disengagement (i.e. truancy) mediated

the associated between educational aspirations and the likelihood youth earned their high school

credentials on time. Findings indicate that youth and maternal educational aspirations for her

child were associated with increases in the odds that youth would earn their high school

credentials on time, enroll in college and earn a Bachelor’s degree or more. While maternal and

youth aspirations were significant predictors of the educational attainment of white youth, youth

aspirations were primarily predictive of the educational attainment of black and Hispanic youth.

Further, analyses revealed that neither the time youth spend on homework nor their reports of

truancy in high school mediate the associations between measures of educational aspirations and

the timeliness of their high school credential attainment for all race/ethnicities.

Taken together, findings from this dissertation suggest that the educational aspirations

women have for their children are important determinants for the aspirations their offspring will

have as adolescents. Further, both maternal and youth educational aspirations are important

predictors of later youth educational attainment, and when explored by maternal educational

attainment and race/ethnicity more similarities than differences occur. In sum, this dissertation

suggests that theories of racial and ethnic deficits, or group supported counter-cultural norms,

should be put to rest as positive generational shifts have occurred increasing the educational

aspirations of all youth. Future interventions and education policies should focus on increasing

familial and youth information about higher education through resources and assistance to

increase the educational attainment of all youth.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. vii

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... ix

Chapter 1 Background ............................................................................................................. 1

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Paradoxes in educational attainment and aspirations ............................................... 2

Rising tide of youth aspirations ........................................................................ 2 Attitude-achievement paradox ......................................................................... 2

Determinants of youth educational aspirations ........................................................ 4 Focus of dissertation ................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 2 Do as I Say Not as I Did: Youth Educational Aspirations Across Generations .... 6

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 6 Parent educational aspirations and experiences in childhood ................................. 8 Youth aspirations and maternal educational attainment .......................................... 9

Current study ................................................................................................................... 10 Method ............................................................................................................................ 12

Data .......................................................................................................................... 12 Analytic sample ....................................................................................................... 13 Measures .................................................................................................................. 14

Youth educational aspirations ......................................................................... 14 Maternal educational aspirations for child ...................................................... 15 Maternal educational at birth ........................................................................... 15 Covariates ........................................................................................................ 15

Analytic plan ........................................................................................................... 16 Results ............................................................................................................................. 17

Descriptive statistics ................................................................................................ 17 Multivariate logistic regressions .............................................................................. 18 Sensitivity models ................................................................................................... 20

Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 21 Demographic shifts in educational aspirations ......................................................... 21 Differential impacts of aspirations .......................................................................... 22 Limitations and future directions ............................................................................. 24 Conclusions and implications for the educational pipeline ..................................... 24

Chapter 3 The Power of Positive Thinking: Exploring Educational Attainment, Aspiraitons, Engagement and Race ................................................................................. 27

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 27 Attitude-achievement paradox .................................................................................. 28

vi

Familial and intergenerational threads of youth aspirations .................................... 29 Engagement-achievement paradox .......................................................................... 31

Current study .................................................................................................................... 33 Method ............................................................................................................................. 36

Data .......................................................................................................................... 36 Analytic sample ....................................................................................................... 37 Measures .................................................................................................................. 38

Youth educational attainment .......................................................................... 38 Youth educational aspiraitons ......................................................................... 38 Maternal educational aspiraitons during adolescence ..................................... 39 Maternal educational aspiraitons for child ...................................................... 39 Youth school engagement ............................................................................... 40 Youth school disengagement ........................................................................... 40 Race/ethnicity .................................................................................................. 40 Covariates ........................................................................................................ 40

Analytic plan ........................................................................................................... 41 Results ............................................................................................................................. 43

Descriptive statistics ................................................................................................ 43 Multivariate logistic regressions .............................................................................. 44

Aspirations and attainment .............................................................................. 44 Aspirations and attainment by race/ethnicity ................................................... 44 School engagement/disengagement ................................................................. 45 Sensitivity analyses ........................................................................................... 47

Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 48 Differential reports of risk by race/ethnicity ........................................................... 49 Uniformity of youth educational aspirations ........................................................... 51 Educational aspirations and youth attainment ......................................................... 52 Educational aspirations, engagement/disengagement and attainment ..................... 55 Limitations and future directions ............................................................................. 56 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 57

Chapter 4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 58

Summary of findings paper 1 .......................................................................................... 58 Summary of findings paper 2 .......................................................................................... 61 Conclusions and implications for youth attainment ........................................................ 64

References ............................................................................................................................... 67

Appendix: Tables and Figures ................................................................................................ 75

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Educational aspirations by generation . .................................................................... 75

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2-1: Analytic sample descriptive statistics . ................................................................... 76

Table 2-2: Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [95% CI] of intergenerational trasmission of educational aspiraitons in full sample . ..................................................... 78

Table 2-3: Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [95% CI] of intergenerational trasmission of educational aspiraitons by maternal educational attainment .................... 81

Table 3-1: Descriptive statistics of dependent, independent and mediating variables for full sample and by race/ethnicity ..................................................................................... 83

Table 3-2: Descriptive statistics of all covariates in full analytic sample and by race/ethnicity .................................................................................................................... 85

Table 3-3: Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [95% CI] predicting youth educational attainment with educational aspirations ................................................................................. 88

Table 3-4: Testing mediation for high school engagement and disengagement in white sample ....... 89

Table 3-5: Testing mediation for high school engagement and disengagement in black sample ....... 91

Table 3-6: Testing mediation for high school engagement and disengagement in Hispanic sample .. 96

ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge, my husband John Batterton, my parents, my friends, my

family, my cohort and Daphne for their continued support.

1

Chapter 1 Background

Introduction

In 2013 the National Center for Education Statistics estimated that almost 90% of youth

age 18- 24 would earn their high school diploma or GED. Even though the United States

currently enjoys higher rates of high school graduation compared to decades prior, leaks do exist

in the educational pipeline, so that at each increasing level of educational attainment fewer youth

either enroll in, or graduate from such educational programs (Bureau of Labor Statistics; BLS,

2013a). Unfortunately, these leaks in the educational pipeline do not occur equally across groups

of students, but rather success in the educational pipeline often is correlated with their socio-

economic status or race/ethnicity (NCES, 2013). Although the race/ethnic gap appears to be

narrowing over time (Tienda, 2013), it still has a stubborn hold over youth educational

attainment. This persistent gap is worrisome as generations of students are being blocked from

their full academic potential.

This gap places great risk at the United States economy financially, as well as the well-

being of the United States labor market, as gaps in educational attainment are linked to disparities

in adult participation in the labor market and earnings (BLS, 2103b), as well as disparities across

many domains of adult and child well-being (Davis- Kean, 2005; Ellickson, Saner, & McGuigan,

1997; McCarty et al., 2008; Jemal et al., 2008; Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997). Further,

as the diversity of the racial and ethnic composition of the United States continues to increase

over time (see Perez & Hirschman, 2009; U.S. Census, 2012), the United States’ ability to

succeed in a global labor market will undoubtedly hinge upon the training and success of all its

citizens. Therefore the goal of this dissertation is to explore one potential avenue that can be

exploited to increase the educational attainment of all youth: the intergenerational link between

2

youth educational aspirations and attainment. To do so, I will examine whether intergenerational

links drive two well-documented phenomena: increases in youth aspirations over time and the

attitude-achievement paradox.

Paradoxes in educational attainment and aspirations

Rising tide of youth aspirations

At the same time gaps continue in the educational attainment of United States’ youth and

young adults, the overall tide of youth educational aspirations appears to be increasing. For

example, in her study of three nationally representative cohorts of high school sophomores,

Goyette (2008) found that over time youth educational aspirations have increased. Specifically, in

1980 43% of high school sophomores aspired to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more, while this

number increased to almost 85% of high school sophomores in 2010. Further, the greatest

increases in youth aspirations occurred in adolescents with the least educated parents. This

phenomenon is thought to be driven by a national discourse supporting ‘college for all,’ rather

than parallel increases in youth occupational aspirations, demands set by the labor market, or

increasing levels of parental educational attainment (see, Schneider and Stevenson 1999;

Rosenbaum 2001; for discussions).

Attitude-achievement paradox

The second related phenomena explored in this dissertation is the attitude-achievement

paradox (Mickelson, 1990), or when under-performing (and often under-resourced) youth report

higher, or equally high, educational aspirations compared to their higher achieving (and higher-

3

resourced) counterparts. Research exposing the attitude-achievement paradox largely stemmed

from empirical explorations that sought to validate, or invalidate, the Oppositional Culture

Framework (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1981). Developed to highlight the potential logical

behavior of inner-city urban youth who engaged in illegal activities as employment, rather than

invest in the education system, the Oppositional Cultural Framework suggests that the counter-

educational behavior of young urban black youth was driven through group pressures that

discouraged education as a viable opportunity. Rather, minority youth with histories of

oppression were thought to reject the valued institutions of the majority, as these biased

institutions would provide few benefits or opportunities for minority member advancement.

Yet, when the educational aspirations of black, Hispanic and Asian students were

gathered, rather than support theories such as the Oppositional Culture Framework, the attitude-

achievement paradox was discovered. Minority and under-performing youth consistently reported

high educational aspirations, despite the considerable barriers they face, and in some cases even

higher than their more skilled or privileged counterparts (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998;

Blau, Moller, & Jones, 2004; Downey, Ainsworth & Qian, 2009). Further through these studies,

the importance of familial history and educational narratives was suggested to both: (a) alter the

process through which youth chose their comparison groups and also (b) maintain youth

optimism or persistence even in the face of considerable academic obstacles (e.g., Blau et al.,

2004; Moller, Stearns, Blau, & Land, 2006). Therefore this dissertation will also explore whether

the educational aspirations collected from (a) parents as adolescents, (b) mothers in regards to

their hopes for their children, and (c) youth during adolescence are differentially related to the

educational attainment of groups of students by race/ethnicity.

4

Determinants of youth educational aspirations

Historically, research exploring the processes through which youth create their

educational aspirations fall primarily into two camps: (1) research employing status attainment

models and (2) research employing models similar to Bayesian Learning Theories. Status

attainment models (e.g. Blau & Duncan, 1967; Haller & Portes, 1973) find that children largely

adopt the educational aspirations of their parents or ‘significant others’ (see, Andrew & Hauser,

2011; Kao & Tienda, 1998, for discussions). Educational aspirations are then hypothesized to

stabilize almost entirely by adolescence and regardless of current or future youth experiences,

achievements or challenges in school (Haller & Portes, 1973). Research modeled after Bayesian

Learning Theories (Morgan, 2005) posits that student educational aspirations may be subject to

change, as individuals may engage in complex processes to incorporate information regarding

their likelihood of achieving their desired education. Thus, when faced with accumulating

educational challenges, or experiences evoking strong negative stimuli related to school, students

may begin to downgrade their educational aspirations and attitudes.

To date little research has explored the underlying familial processes that serve as a

potential conduit for the transfer of parental educational aspirations to their children or that

support the educational attainment of youth later on. Further, beyond parental educational or

occupational statuses, parents are often cast as minor agents regarding the development of their

children’s educational values. When parents’ perceptions of education are acknowledged, often

they are included only insofar as how parents’ aspirations and attitudes for their child’s education

relate to various outcomes. The life course framework (Elder, 1998) suggests that not only will

children develop across the life course, so too may their parents. In addition, interactionist

perspectives on development (e.g., Bronfrenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Conger & Donnellan, 2007)

find individuals respond to and cause reciprocal reactions in their environment, thus

5

fundamentally changing the worlds they develop in, as well as the course of their own

development. Thus, by not involving parents’ earlier educational aspirations we may be ignoring

an important foundation for the development of their offspring’s educational values and

orientations.

Focus of dissertation

Previous research has not focused on the intergenerational determinants and processes

that may transfer educational aspirations from parents to adolescents. Therefore, this dissertation

addresses this gap by highlighting the potential links that may exist across generations in the

following two papers. The first study examines whether an intergenerational transmission of

youth educational aspirations exists between a sample of women and their adolescent offspring.

Specifically, the study includes a measure of mothers’ earlier educational aspirations when she

was an adolescent and women’s maternal aspirations for their children as forces driving the

formation of their child’s educational aspirations during adolescence. Further, these relationships

are explored separately by maternal educational attainment at the birth of the child as recent

research has found increases in youth aspirations have occurred at a higher rate in students with

lower-educated mothers (Goyette, 2008). In the second study of the dissertation, measures of

mothers’ earlier educational aspirations, mothers’ aspirations for their children, and their child’s

aspirations during adolescence are examined in relation to later youth educational attainment. In

addition, these relationships are explored separately by student race/ethnicity as potentially

intergenerational narratives of education may occur unequally across the sample and relate to

differential relationships between the measures of educational aspirations and youth attainment.

Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to current literature by pulling back the empirical lens

through which the determinants of youth educational aspirations and attainment are developed.

6

Chapter 2

Do as I Say, Not as I Did: Youth Educational Aspirations Across Generations

Introduction

Today there are multiple leaks in the United States’ educational pipeline, whereby most

youth earn their high school credentials, yet fewer enroll in, or graduate from, college. For

example, almost 90% of youth (age 18- 24) earned their high school diploma or GED in 2011

(National Center for Education Statistics, 2011). Yet, only 66% of recent high school graduates

went on to enroll in post-secondary education (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). Sadly, for an

increasing number of students just ‘making it’ to college does not correlate with eventual

completion, as ‘stopping out’ and dropping out are increasingly common among youth enrolled in

two- and four- year institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011; Symonds,

Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011). These gaps in enrollment and attainment have fueled an

increasingly contentious debate regarding whether it would be more beneficial to mend such

leaks, or instead to restrict or redirect the stream of students enrolling in post-secondary education

to begin with (Domina, Conley, & Farkas, 2011; Rosenbaum, 2011).

Ironically, at the same time leaks persist in the U.S. educational pipeline, youth

reported educational aspirations have largely increased. These contradictory phenomena suggest

that the country’s educational attainment problem may not be a result of a youth educational

aspiration problem. In other words, the country may not have a low educational aspirations

problem. Research has also found these trends are not fully explained by the proportions of

parents with high educational attainment, or entirely reflective of youth occupational aspirations

(Goyette, 2008). Rather, these population trends mimic processes uncovered through more

individual-level research such as the ‘attitude-achievement’ paradox (Mickelson, 1990), where

7

the greatest increases in youth aspirations over time have occurred in populations with the least

educated parents. Thus, adolescents who have fewer resources are found to have educational

aspirations just as high as their more privileged counterparts.

Current literature exploring the development of youth educational aspirations is largely

driven by the Status Attainment/Wisconsin Models, which argue that youth educational

aspirations are static across development (Blau & Duncan, 1967; Haller & Portes, 1973; Sewell,

Haller, & Portes, 1969). These models find that youth educational aspirations are largely adopted

from the influence of ‘significant others,’ (parents or peers) via a plethora of intervening

variables. For example, this literature has repeatedly documented that mothers’ educational

aspirations for their children, as well as parents’ eventual occupational and educational statuses,

are robust predictors of child educational aspirations and attainment (De Civita, Pagani, Vitaro, &

Tremblay, 2004; Fan & Chen, 2001; Taylor, Clayton, & Rowley, 2004). While these models have

built the foundation for empirical explorations documenting the processes through which youth

develop educational and occupational aspirations, I argue these models may not go far enough.

Frequently these models incorporate parental influence from constructs measured in adulthood,

post-fertility. Therefore these models implicitly ignore the events that occurred prior to parents

reaching adulthood. The question remains whether or not the aspirations parents held as youth

relate to their children’s educational aspirations.

In addition to extending the framework of the Status Attainment/Wisconsin Models, this

study employs two developmentally based frameworks to examine a potential intergenerational

transmission of educational aspirations in a sample of women and their adolescent offspring from

the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. First, this study employs the life course

framework (Elder, 1998), which suggests individuals continue to develop across their entire life

span. Thus, models employing current or retrospective reports of parental aspirations may

produce biased estimates of the true relationship between parent and child aspirations by only

8

capturing more current parental aspirations and ignoring the developmental foundations of

parents’ educational orientations. This study is also guided by an interactionist perspective on

development (e.g., Bronfrenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Conger & Donnellan, 2007), which argues

that individuals are active agents in their development, who will both react to, and alter, internal

as well as external stimuli. I argue an individuals’ educational aspirations are not developed in a

vacuum. Children’s educational aspirations should at least partially derive from the orientations

parents themselves had as adolescents, as well as the current educational aspirations parents have

for their children. As both the life course framework, and the interactionist perspective of

development would argue, parents’ current beliefs and values are, for better or for worse, the

result of events and processes set in motion years earlier. While these beliefs and characteristics

are likely to be strongly related across stages of development, as one stage directly and indirectly

impacts the next, these orientations are not likely to be equivalent. Thus, I will test the strength of

both sets of parental aspirations (past and current), and the importance of these orientations in the

development of their offspring’s own educational values.

Parental educational aspirations and experiences in childhood

Literature exploring parents’ own educational orientations, experiences, and attitudes, has

traditionally relied on either retrospective information gained from parents as adults, or on

measures of current parent educational aspirations for their children. While the relevance of

parents’ past experiences on their current behavior is often discussed in ethnographic and

qualitative research (e.g., Lareau, 2003), little quantitative research has explored the relationships

between parents’ attitudes toward school as students themselves, and the attitudes they have

toward their offspring’s education (see, Taylor et al. 2004, for discussions). One similar study did

find parents might relive their childhood social experiences when rearing children, and guide their

9

offspring through similar transitions based on these ‘re-activated’ emotions (Putallaz, Costanzo,

& Smith, 1991). Thus it is possible that parents will engage in similar processes when shaping the

educational orientations of their offspring, based on their own past experiences and thoughts as

students. Yet, the relevance of parents’ earlier experiences compared to their current adult

perceptions remains questionable as this literature is largely based upon retrospective information

that may be biased by parents’ current emotions, recent experiences, and memory recall.

In the only study the I could find where school experiences were collected prospectively

from parents (Kaplan, Liu, & Kaplan, 2000), the negative school experiences of mothers when

they were 7th graders directly predicted the negative experiences of their children at the same age.

Further, maternal negative school experiences resulted in decreased maternal involvement in their

child’s education, as well as decreased maternal encouragement for child education, even after

controlling for later maternal educational attainment. Currently little research employs

prospective reports of parents’ school aspirations while parents (as adolescents) were enrolled in

school. Further, the only study I could find which employed prospective measures of parental

school orientations (Kaplan et al., 2000) focused primarily on emotionally salient negative school

experiences (i.e., conflict with teachers, getting expelled from school), rather than a more global

measure of educational aspirations. Thus, it remains to be seen whether parents’ educational

aspirations during adolescence may serve as a foundation for their children’s later aspirations.

Youth aspirations and maternal educational attainment

Across development, youth frequently report high educational aspirations (Kao &

Thompson, 2003). Yet, recent literature has uncovered that educational aspirations reported by

cohorts of high school sophomores today are significantly higher compared to previous cohorts of

high school sophomores (Goyette, 2008). Discussions regarding the sources of these aspirational

10

trends have focused upon three likely phenomena: (a) the proportion of students with highly

educated parents, (b) the increasing educational demands of the labor market, and (c) a national

discourse supporting a ‘college for all’ viewpoint (see, Schneider and Stevenson 1999;

Rosenbaum 2001; for discussions). Undoubtedly, maternal educational attainment is a driving

force of child educational aspirations, as high maternal education is directly and positively related

to family SES (Mau & Bikos, 2000; Sewell & Shah, 1968), as well as indirectly via the type and

quality of investments parents make in their child’s educational or cognitive development (Davis-

Kean, 2005; Deslandes & Bertrand, 2005; Hoover- Dempsey et al., 2005; Kohl, Lengua, &

McMahon, 2000).

However, Goyette (2008) found that the increases in national rates of parental

educational attainment, and the demands of the labor force, do not fully account for the high

aspirations of recent cohorts of high school sophomores. Instead, she found the greatest increases

in youth educational aspirations occurred in youth with the least educated parents, similar to the

well documented ‘attitude-achievement paradox,’ whereby lesser skilled youth report as high, or

higher aspirations as their more advanced counterparts (Crosnoe, 2001). Thus, high youth

educational aspirations persist even when students may lack the institutional (e.g., from

communities or schools) as well as personal (e.g., from family or individually) resources

necessary to be successful. And this paradox may be further compounded in the ‘college for all’

context thus supporting the higher goals of all students, rather than perhaps more realistic goals,

or varying needs of students.

Current study

The current study examines the intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations

using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and linked supporting child files. By

11

applying the life-course and interactionist perspectives this study will determine whether

prospective maternal educational aspirations (generation 1; G1) at two different time points: as

adolescents and adults shape the educational aspirations of their adolescent offspring (generation

2, G2) in a large multi-generational sample. I hypothesize that the educational aspirations women

hold as adolescents for themselves and as adults for their children will be positively predictive of

the aspirations their adolescent offspring hold at a similar age, above and beyond more proximal

characteristics of mothers and their children. This study will also examine whether the

intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations is specific to a particular level of

maternal educational attainment as previous research has found the greatest increases in

educational aspirations occur among youth with the least educated parents (Goyette 2008).

Therefore, I hypothesize that the adolescent educational aspirations of the offspring of the least

educated women are driven by the aspirations their mother reported during adolescence.

This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this is one of a few studies

to incorporate prospective reports of maternal educational aspirations while mothers were

adolescents and adults to examine whether these values are transmitted from mothers to their

children. By not relying on retrospective reports of maternal aspirations, findings from this study

are less likely to be impacted by biases related to mothers’ current emotional state, more recent

adult experiences, and memory recall. Second, the longitudinal nature of the NLSY data provide

this study the unique opportunity to match respondent’s age when reporting educational

aspirations across two generations. This allows for a more nuanced comparison of the educational

aspirations of mothers and their children when they are likely experiencing similar developmental

and educational challenges. Related, the NLSY data provides the opportunity to include a host of

multi-generational (e.g., maternal and youth characteristics) and longitudinally constructed

characteristics (e.g., proportion of childhood exposed to poverty) to obtain more precise estimates

of the possible intergenerational transmission.

12

This study also dives deeper into the development of youth aspirations by incorporating

multiple comparisons of youth educational aspirations, rather than employing a single binary

measure of aspiring to ‘get past college’ or ‘earn a Bachelor’s degree’ (Bozick, Alexander,

Entwisle, Dauber, & Kerr, 2010; Goyette, 2008). Rosenbaum (2011) argues students who are

aware of, and aspire for specific types of degrees (e.g., Associates versus Bachelor’s versus

Masters’), are more likely to have received high quality information regarding college, and the

differences between such programs of study. This information is likely correlated with student

past and future achievement, as well as parent educational attainment, and household or school

resources. Therefore contrasts included in the current study may provide greater insight as to

whether youth interpret differing levels of educational aspirations uniformly across all levels of

maternal educational attainment (proxy for youth and family privilege, resources, and

information).

Method

Data

Data for this paper come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort

(NLSY79), and the linked Children and Young Adult files (CNSLY). NLSY data are sponsored

by the U.S. Department of Labor and have been compiled through the Ohio State University

Center for Human Resource Research. Beginning in 1979 the NLSY followed a nationally

representative sample of 6,403 men and 6,283 women who were 14 to 21 years old in 1978

(referred to as G1). Biennially starting in 1986, the NLSY79 was expanded to include mother

supplemental surveys, in which G1 women reported additional demographic, and developmental

information for their offspring (referred to as G2 from here on after). Further, beginning in 1988,

13

and biennially thereafter, G2 children who were 10 years or older directly reported information

related to their experiences and development. Across time the NLSY has achieved high rates of

participant retention, and the CNLSY files contain information on over 11,000 children born to

NLSY79 women as of the 2010 survey wave.

Analytic sample

The original G1 cohort is composed of 6,403 men and 6,283 women who were 14- 21 in

1978. However, all men were excluded from the analytic sample, as the NLSY did not collect

information regarding men’s offspring. As the primary goal of the study is to explore the

intergenerational transmission of youth educational aspirations, childless women were excluded

from the study (n = 1,353 cases excluded). Because this study explores the transmission of

adolescent educational aspirations, mothers who were young adults (i.e. 20 years old or older) at

the time they reported their educational aspirations were excluded from the analytic sample (n =

1,468 cases excluded).

In addition, 2,832 of the 8,129 G2 children with eligible G1 mothers were excluded

because youth were missing G2 educational aspirations (769 children where either too old or too

young to have valid educational aspirations in adolescence). Further, 258 G2 children were

excluded as their mother’s educational attainment was missing at the time of their birth, while an

additional 1,814 respondents were excluded for containing high levels of missing data across all

variables included in analyses (over 20% of the analytic data). Thus, the final analytic sample

consists of 1,851 G1 mothers and their 3,198 G2 children.

14

Measures

Youth educational aspirations

G1 educational aspirations were taken from the first NLSY data survey in 1979 where

women still enrolled in high school reported how far in school they expected to reach (i.e. what

year or grade of school) (mean age in years= 16.68). From this continuous measure, an ordinal

measure of G1’s aspirations during adolescence was created where 0= ‘less than high school

diploma/GED,’ 1= ‘high school diploma/GED,’ 2= ‘some college/other training,’ 3= ‘attain a

Bachelor’s degree or more.’ The developmental timing of this measure was chosen in efforts to

maximize the number of G1 women who were still adolescents, as well as reduce the likelihood

that academic milestones (e.g., graduated from high school) and adult experiences would impact

women’s educational aspirations.

Similar to their mothers, G2 youth reported how far in school they expected to reach

during adolescence (mean age in years= 14.90; average calendar year of assessment = 2001).

From these continuous measures, five binary variables were created to indicate which level of

education the youth aspired to complete (leave before high school graduation, graduate from high

school, complete some college or other training, get a Bachelor’s degree, and get more than a

Bachelor’s degree). The categories were then used to create three dichotomous dependent

variables in which the primary focus was to predict the higher level of educational aspirations: (a)

complete some college or more versus high school diploma or less; (b) complete a Bachelor’s

degree or more versus some college; and (c) attain more than a Bachelor’s degree versus a

Bachelor’s degree. The sample sizes in each regression model reflect the number of G2 youth

who reported aspiring each specific category of educational attainment; thus not all G2 youth may

be included in each model.

15

Maternal educational aspirations for child

From 1988- 2010, G1 women reported how far they thought their child would go in

school. To mirror the developmental timing of other key variables, mother’s responses were taken

from the calendar years when children were 12- 15 years old. To parallel the other measures of

educational aspirations, mother’s aspirations for their child’s education was recoded into an

ordinal variable where 0= ‘less than a high school diploma/GED,’ 1= ‘attain a high school

diploma/GED,’ 2= ‘complete some college/other training,’ and 3= ‘attain a Bachelor’s degree or

more.’

Maternal education at birth

Every survey year from 1979- 2010, G1 women reported the highest year or grade of

school they had completed. From this continuous measure, three binary indicator variables were

created to capture G1’s educational attainment at the time of G2’s birth: less than high school

diploma, high school diploma/GED, and completed some college or more.

Covariates

A host of G1 mother and G2 youth characteristics were included in models that are

correlated to youth educational aspirations. G2 youth characteristics include gender [female, male

(reference)], race/ethnicity [White (reference), Hispanic, Black], child’s total standard score on

the math subset of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test scale (PIAT; Dunn and Markwardt,

16

1970) when they were 8 to 9 years old, whether the child participated in a special education

program at school (1= yes, 0= no), whether the child experienced grade retention by 8th grade

(1= held back by 8th grade; 0 = not held back by 8th grade), number of siblings, the proportion of

years from birth to age 13 children were exposed to: poverty and maternal unemployment, and

the average percentile score of their household’s cognitive stimulation and emotional support

when children were 0 – 5 from the Home Observation Measure of the Environment- Short Form

(HOME-SF; Caldwell and Bradley 1984). G1 mother characteristics at child’s birth include age,

educational attainment (less than high school, High School Diploma/GED, some college or

more), marital status (1= not married, 0= married). A measure of maternal cognitive skills

administered in 1981 from the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was also included.

Analytic plan

Descriptive and multivariate regression analyses were performed using Stata SE 12.1

(Stata Corp LP, College Station, TX). Weighted descriptive statistics were obtained from non-

imputed data using the NLSY79 2010 youth population weight (Y2615900). The analytic sample

was stratified by G1 educational attainment at G2’s birth and mean differences were conducted

using analysis of variance for continuous variables and chi-square tests for dichotomous

variables. Prior to conducting multivariate logistic regression models, multiple imputation

techniques were used to impute missing data using the ice command for participants missing less

than 20% of overall data. Compared to listwise deletion, multiple imputation processes reduce

biases in parameter estimates and standard errors by maintaining a closer representation of this

sample to the population (Graham, 2009; Graham & Schaefer, 1999). Last, standard errors in all

regression models were adjusted to account for the lack of independence of observations as

children are clustered within families.

17

A series of multivariate logistic regressions were conducted to determine whether G1

adolescent educational aspirations are transmitted to G2 adolescent educational aspirations. In the

first set of regression models, G2 adolescent educational aspirations were regressed on G1

adolescent educational aspirations. In the second model of the series, G2 maternal educational

aspirations for her children, as well as all child and maternal covariates were included in

regression models. These additional models allow us to examine whether G1’s prior aspirations

as an adolescent are as important for the development of her child’s aspirations, compared to the

aspirations she has for her child as an adult. In addition, all models were conducted first on the

full analytic sample and then stratified by maternal educational attainment at the birth of the child

to explore whether this transmission varies by maternal educational attainment.

Results

Descriptive statistics

Figure 1 presents the differing levels of adolescent educational aspirations by generation

status (G1 mothers versus G2 youth, weighted statistics). Generally, a larger portion of G2 youth

reported aspiring to reach higher levels of education than G1 mothers. The majority of G2 youth

aspired to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more (a combined 68%), compared to 33% of G1

mothers. Further, a large portion of G1 mothers aspired to obtain a high school diploma (41%)

compared to only 20% of G2 youth. The largest percent change in youth aspirations occurred in

the percent of youth aspiring to obtain more than a Bachelor’s degree. Comparing G1 and G2

aspirations over time, there was a 225% change among youth aspiring to complete more than a

Bachelor’s degree.

Table 1 presents the weighted descriptive statistics for the full analytic sample (nG1=

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1,851, nG2= 3,198). The analytic sample was predominantly White (77%), followed by Black

(16%) and then Hispanic (7%), with 13% of G2 youth reported being held back a grade by the

time they were in 8th grade. G2 youth had on average just fewer than two siblings (M= 1.86, SD=

1.32) and lived in households under the federal poverty line (FPL) about 22% of the years from

birth to age 13 (approximately 3 years). At the time of G2’s birth, G1 mothers were

approximately 25 years old (M= 25.00, SD= 3.65), the majority had their high school diploma

(50%) or some college or more education (34%), and were married (75%). On average G1

mothers were unemployed for just under 5 years from the time G2 was born to the time G2 turned

13 (M= 0.38, SD= 0.31).

Compared to G2 youth born to a G1 mother with some college education or more, G2

youth born to a G1 mother with less than a high school diploma were less likely to aspire to attain

a Bachelor’s degree or more. G2 youth born to a G1 mother with less than a high school

education were more likely to be Hispanic, be held back, reside with more siblings, exposed to

greater amounts of poverty, and born to a single mother compared to youth born to G1 mothers

with some college education or more.

Multivariate logistic regressions

Table 2 presents the multivariate logistic regression results in which the intergenerational

transmission of adolescent educational aspirations was explored in the full analytic sample.

Higher G1 adolescent educational aspirations related to a 55% increase in the odds G2 youth

aspired to complete some college or more versus a high school education or less (Model 1).

Further, higher G1 adolescent educational aspirations related to a 32% and 17% increase in the

odds G2 youth aspired to complete a Bachelor’s degree or more versus some college, and more

than a Bachelor’s versus a Bachelor’s degree respectively (Model 1). Once G1 and G2 covariates

19

were included in the analyses these relationships were reduced to non-significance (Model 2).

However, higher G1 maternal aspirations for her child were related to a 67% increase in the odds

G2 youth aspired to complete some college or more versus a high school education or less (Model

2). Higher G1 maternal aspirations for her child were related to a 50% and 30% increase in the

odds G2 youth aspired to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more versus some college, and more than

a Bachelor’s versus a Bachelor’s degree, respectively, even with controls included in models

(Model 2).

Table 3 presents the multivariate logistic regression results that examines whether the

transmission of adolescent educational aspirations is specific to a particular level of maternal

educational attainment. Among a sample of G2 youth whose G1 mothers had less than a high

school education at the time of their birth (Panel A), G1 adolescent educational aspirations were

not significantly related to G2’s youth educational aspirations either before (Models 1) or after

covariates were included in the models (Models 2). However, higher G1 maternal aspirations for

her child were related to a 43% increase in the odds G2 youth aspired to complete some college

or more versus a high school education or less (Model 2).

Next, the relationship between G1 and G2 educational aspirations was explored among a

sample of youth whose mothers had a high school diploma/GED at the time of their birth (Panel

B). Higher G1 adolescent educational aspirations were related to a 17% increase in the odds G2

youth aspired to complete some college or more versus a high school education or less (Model 1).

Again this relationship was reduced to non-significance when G1 maternal aspirations for her

child and other covariates were included in the model (Model 2). However, higher G1 maternal

aspirations for her child were significantly related to the odds G2 youth aspired to complete some

college or more versus a high school education or less (74% increase), a Bachelor’s degree or

more versus some college (61% increase), as well as more than a Bachelor’s degree versus a

Bachelor’s degree (33% increase) (Models 2).

20

Finally, the relationship between G1 and G2 educational aspirations was explored among

a sample of G2 youth whose G1 mothers’ had some college education or more at the time of their

birth (Panel C). Higher G1 adolescent educational aspirations were significantly related to a 58%

increase in the odds G2 youth aspired to compare a Bachelor’s degree or more versus some

college (Model 1). Once child and maternal covariates were entered in the model, G1 adolescent

educational aspirations were significantly related to a 47% increase in the odds G2 youth aspired

to complete a Bachelor’s degree or more versus some college (Model 2). Further, higher G1

maternal aspirations’ for her child related to a two fold increase in the odds G2 youth aspired

some college or more versus high school education or less and a Bachelor’s degree or more

versus some college, and a 41% increase in the odds G2 youth aspired more than a Bachelor’s

degree versus a Bachelor’s degree (Model 2).

Sensitivity models

Two additional sets of sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the robustness of

the main findings and potential threshold effects (available upon request). First, two binary

indicator variables were included in models in which a value of 1 signified (1) G1 as an

adolescent aspired to complete some college or more, and (2) G1 aspired for her child to

complete some college or more. Multivariate logistic regression models with these versions of G1

aspirations support the main findings presented in Table 2 as well as Table 3. Next, binary

indicators were included in models in which a value of 1 indicated (1) G1 as an adolescent

aspired to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more, and (2) G1 aspired for her child to attain a

Bachelor’s degree or more. Multivariate logistic regression results paralleled the main findings

with one exception, G1’s aspirations as an adolescent to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more was

related to a 77% and 40% increase in the odds G2 aspired to complete a Bachelor’s degree or

21

more, as well as more than a Bachelor’s degree, above and beyond other covariates.

Discussion

This study explored the intergenerational transmission of youth educational aspirations

by employing measures of prospective educational aspirations during adolescence for a sample of

mothers and their offspring, as well as a measure of mothers’ maternal educational aspiration for

her child. When the full set of maternal and child covariates were included in regression models,

G1 maternal aspirations for G2 youth were found to be a significant predictor of G2 youth

aspirations across all three levels of child aspired educational attainment. Women’s own

aspirations reported during adolescence were not significantly related to their offspring’s

aspirations. Thus, women’s maternal aspirations for her child are a strong indicator of a child’s

own aspirations during adolescence. Parallel to the Status Attainment/Wisconsin models, these

results suggest that children largely aspire to “do as their mothers say, not as they did.” However,

the relationships between women’s adolescent aspirations, women’s maternal aspirations, and

their offspring’s aspirations, vary by maternal educational attainment. Below the differential

relationships are described in terms of recent demographic shifts in youth educational aspirations.

Demographic shifts in educational aspirations

Parallel with literature examining the generational shifts among cohorts of high school

students’ educational aspirations (e.g., Goyette 2008), descriptive analyses reveal the educational

aspirations of G2 youth (on average born in 1987) are much higher than the educational

aspirations of G1 mothers (on average born in 1962). Specifically, G2 youth were less likely to

aspire to attend ‘some college/other training’ compared to their G1 mothers. Instead, G2 youth

22

are more likely to aspire to achieve a Bachelor’s degree or more. G2’s high aspirations may not

be surprising as the majority of their G1 mothers also aspired for their children to attain a

Bachelor’s degree or more. Empirical research suggests these increases in youth educational

aspirations are driven primarily by a national discourse supporting all youth to attend college (see

Goyette 2008; Rosenbaum 2001). As the nation supports the high educational aspirations of

youth, students are increasingly less often presented with viable career or educational programs

outside of a traditional 4-year institution at home, as well as school. Therefore, it is not surprising

that G2 youth were more likely to aspire to reach higher educational attainment levels than their

G1 mothers. The concern is that the discourse may present more risks to student educational

attainment if students’ are not also provided high quality information and student support.

Differential impacts of aspirations

Parallel to existing literature (see, Fan and Chen 2001; Taylor et al. 2004, for reviews),

this study finds in the full analytic sample, the maternal aspirations women report for their

children in adulthood, and not the aspirations they held for themselves as adolescents, are

strongly related to the educational aspirations children report for themselves. The positive

relationship between women’s maternal aspirations and their child’s own aspirations remained

statistically significant even when other important maternal and child covariates were included in

models.

However, when the sample was stratified by women’s educational attainment, a slightly

different story emerged. Mirroring discussions of recent demographic trends (i.e. Goyette, 2008),

the high aspirations of children born to the least educated women, do not appear to be driven by

their mother’s aspirations as an adolescent, nor the aspirations their mother holds for them as an

adult. For example, among samples of adolescents with the least educated mothers, the

23

aspirations women held during adolescence were not predictive of their children’s own adolescent

aspirations, and the maternal aspirations women held for their children were only related to

increases in the odds their children aspired to complete some college or more versus high school

or less. Yet, descriptively, 45% of the children born to women without a high school degree

aspired to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more, and 55% of these children aspired to complete

some college/other training or more. Therefore it appears other sources, not those stemming from

their mothers, are driving the increase in these children’s educational aspirations. In order to

dismantle the attitude-achievement paradox, adolescents with fewer resources must be given the

proper career guidance, along with emotional and financial support. For example, more guidance

and information from school staff related to the educational requirements and qualifications of

specific occupational and career goals adolescents report in late high school. Thus, allowing

youth to design their educational aspirations to more closely mirror their occupational goals,

rather than maintain loose or vague educational aspirations that may or may not help youth

achieve their occupational goals.

On the other hand, among adolescents with the highest educated mothers (i.e. mothers

who completed some college or more), the high educational aspirations women held as

adolescents are significantly related to the odds their offspring will aspire to attain a Bachelor’s

degree or more versus some college, above and beyond her maternal aspirations and other

maternal and child covariates. Taken together, these findings suggest that children of higher

educated women may adopt the high educational aspirations their mothers have for them. These

processes may be set into motion even decades prior when their mothers were adolescents

themselves. Thus, there is an intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations that

appears to be driven by parental discourse and resources among families where mothers aspired

and attained higher education.

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Limitations and future directions

While the current study contributes greatly to understanding the intergenerational

transmission of educational aspirations, several limitations of should be acknowledged. First, this

study explored the aspirations of youth when both generations were close to the same age (when

possible); yet recent research finds youth aspirations may begin to crystallize as early as 4th grade

and have important implications for youth educational attainment (Bozick et al., 2010). Further,

the stability or volatility of youth educational aspirations may have important implications for

students’ abilities to reach their desired level of educational attainment. Thus, an exciting

extension of this study, which is beyond the scope of the current paper, would be to examine

whether an intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations relates to the stability or

volatility of youth and maternal educational aspirations.

Finally, due to the NLSY study design, the impacts fathers have on youth educational

aspirations was completely ignored. Unfortunately the fathers of NLSY children, as well as the

children of the original cohort of NLSY79 men were not interviewed. Thus, the role of both

parents’ educational aspirations on the formation of their offspring’s aspirations cannot be

accounted for, and the possible differing perspective and impacts G1 fathers have on their

children is not included. Future empirical explorations should include the perspectives and

impacts both parents have on the development of youth educational aspirations, as one half of this

relationship was left uncovered in the current study.

Conclusions and implications for the educational pipeline

Taken together, results from this study suggest that while the United States may have an

educational attainment problem, the country may not have a low aspirations problem. Yet it is

25

also important to remember the political and fiscal context in which such high youth aspirations

occur today. For example, many school systems face drastic cuts in budgets, and often these

budget cuts are first felt in reduced student services, increased class sizes, and less individual

attention. Thus, at a time when many students, aspire to attend college, the resources these

students may depend upon to navigate these complicated pathways, or connect students to support

(i.e. financial or academic) are being undermined. Therefore the gap between students’

educational attainment and aspirations may be related to the limited resources available to schools

and students, and especially those students who depend upon resources at school because they

lack these supports elsewhere.

Currently exciting avenues attempting to increase the college enrollment and attendance

of high school graduates facing risk focus upon reducing inconsistent information and increasing

student support. In one example, researchers randomized varying levels of information regarding

the cost of local universities and supported completing the Free Application for Federal Student

Aid (FAFSA) form when participants came to an H&R block to fill out their 2008 tax returns

(see, Bettinger, Long, Oreopoulos, & Sanbonmatsu, 2012, for details). Results from this study

demonstrate that increases in information and support to families can increase rates of college

enrollment, attendance, and persistence, as well as receipt of financial aid, and submissions of the

FAFSA. However, conditions of increased information without additional support did not result

in improved outcomes, suggesting that in order to patch leaks in the attainment pipeline,

increased information paired with support may be necessary.

By taking advantage of the multi-generational nature of the NLSY79, this study was able

to empirically determine that the educational aspirations mothers hold for their children are

perhaps more important for the educational aspirations of their children above and beyond child

and maternal characteristics. Further, for the children of higher educated women, a transmission

of youth aspirations may exist, suggesting that the positive orientations women held as youth

26

continue through to their future children even decades later. This study points to the importance

of providing more support to students who may be first-generation high school graduates or the

first in their families to pursue a post-secondary education. Thus, as more generations of youth

look to further their educational attainment beyond high school, and attain more complex

programs of study, communities, parents and schools should be aware of the differing needs each

student may possess in order to increase the likelihood students will reach their educational

aspirations.

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Chapter 3

The Power of Positive Thinking: Exploring Educational Attainment, Aspirations, Engagement and Race

Introduction

Currently on average about 90% of youth earn their high school credentials; yet

compared to about 95% of white students, only 89% of black and 75% of Hispanic students attain

their high school diploma or GED (National Center for Education Statistics; NCES, 2013a).

These educational inequalities persist, and even expand across the educational pipeline so that

40% of white students earned their Bachelors in 2012 compared to only 23% of black and 15% of

Hispanic students (NCES, 2013a). In essence, compared to their white peers, black and Hispanic

students face a heightened risk of prematurely ending their educational programs prior to

completion, and this risk only increases with each level of educational attainment. One promising

avenue of research finds that on the whole all students report high educational aspirations (see,

Kao & Thompson, 2003, for review). Unlike many other educational outcomes, as the

educational disadvantage of a student increases, the aspirations reported by youth also increases,

or are reported to be just as high as their more advantaged peers (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey,

1998). Therefore unpacking the race and ethnic differences related to the association between

educational aspirations and attainment may help to further our understanding of the gaps in the

educational pipeline.

28

Attitude-achievement paradox

The ‘attitude-achievement’ paradox (Mickelson, 1990), describes a phenomenon in

which black and Hispanic students’ school achievement, success and setbacks, are inversely

related to their educational aspirations (Blau, Moller, & Jones, 2004; Mau & Bikos, 2000; Moller,

Stearns, Blau, & Land, 2006; Stearns, Moller, Blau, & Potochnick, 2012). Often this paradox is

incorporated into discussions of the racial/ethnic achievement gaps, or that black and Hispanic

students may be underperforming but are not necessarily less inspired, than their white peers. For

example, Crosnoe (2001) found a decline in student educational aspirations across high school

was attributed to higher achieving white, rather than lower achieving black and Hispanic youth.

In addition, Blau and colleagues find black students are less likely to drop out after grade

retention (Moller et al., 2006), and more likely to attend college despite low-test scores (Blau et

al., 2004), compared to their their white peers. These researchers argue that perhaps due to

cultural differences, and differential exposures to bias, white students may interpret low-test

scores or grade retention as true indicators of their academic potential, while black students may

attribute these events to systematic discrimination and bias (see Moller et al., 2006, for

discussions). These differences in interpretation may explain why some students may downgrade

their aspirations in the face of academic setbacks, while others may not. Taken together these

findings contradict the Oppositional Culture Explanation (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Gibson &

Ogbus, 1991; Ogbu, 1981), as the racial and ethnic related gaps in student educational attainment

do not appear to be driven by low student aspirations or negative school orientations.

29

Familial and intergenerational threads of youth aspirations

Students’ with racial/ethnic identities in which historical oppression and bias are present

often hold very high aspirations and view education as an important pathway for upward mobility

(Blau et al., 2004; Spera, Wentzel, & Matto, 2009). In their comprehensive review Fredricks and

colleagues’ (2004) found students who reported experiencing discrimination, yet felt they had the

support to deal with these experiences were more likely to be engaged in school. Perhaps then it

is through these intergenerational narratives, and parental support that students who face

considerable obstacles in education still value education and remain engaged at school. Research

has found that the decision to drop out of at least high school often begins with the increased

likelihood students partake in other disengaged behaviors such as truancy and that familial and

household characteristics can play an important part in pushing students to stay in, rather than

drop out of, school (see, Tyler & Lofstrom, 2009, for discusions). Therefore this paper explores

the educational aspirations mothers reported for themselves as adolescents, as well as the

aspirations they report for their children, as both measures may (1) support her adolescent

offspring’s aspirations and (2) encourage her offspring to move further in education against all

odds.

Regardless of family race/ethnicity, or SES, research has found most parents report high

educational aspirations for their children (Spera et al., 2009). However, research has

demonstrated parental encouragement and involvement in youth education does vary in

combination with an individual’s race/ethnicity as well as the overall ability of students. For

example, Crosnoe (2001) found black parents were more involved in their child’s education

across all levels of student ability (measured by academic ‘tracks,’) than white parents, and this

difference was especially pronounced for students in lower tracts. He argues that this involvement

is likely driven by the importance parents ascribe to their child’s education, as well as the

30

educational aspirations parents may hold for their children, regardless of their child’s current

abilities. These findings coupled with the previously discussed academic perseverance and

resilience of minority students over their low-test scores or grade retention (as described in Blau

et al., 2004; Moller et al., 2006) calls to attention the lasting impacts that parental aspirations for

children may have when helping some children overcome risk. Further, as black and Hispanic

parents are likely to have their own experiences with racism or bias as an adolescent, these

parents’ aspirations during adolescence could be an indicator of the support and the importance

their parents, and generations before them, placed on education, and the importance of

overcoming obstacles against all odds.

Explorations of similar relationships within Hispanic families are more limited than

empirical explorations contrasting the aspirations of black and white parents, and the differential

impacts these parental aspirations may have on youth attainment. Further, the studies that do

explore the relationships between parental investment and support of youth academics in

Hispanic families are often confounded with issues of acculturation or immigration. In one study

which employed qualitative interviews of Hispanic parents and their children who recently

immigrated to the United States, Behnke and colleagues (2004) found a remarkable degree of

continuity in the educational aspirations reported across generations. However, some youth did

not share their parents’ optimism and reported lower educational aspirations than the aspirations

their parents reported for them. These interviews also underscored the importance of parental

support for education and parent led strategies for overcoming discrimination as adolescents

frequently reported racism and bias as barriers that would keep them from reaching their

academic goals. Other literature exploring important mechanisms driving the academic

attainment of Hispanic youth focus on the importance of the family when shaping youth

outcomes. For example, another study exploring the relationships among Mexican women across

three generations found that each generation named their mother as a significant source of support

31

for their educational attainment, and across generations aspirations mothers held for their

daughters increased (Hernandez, Vargas-Lew, & Martinez, 1994). Yet in literatures discussed

here, the majority of each study’s sample recently immigrated to the United States, while the

current study includes a sample of Hispanic participants in which both parents and their offspring

were born in the United States. Therefore this study also fills gaps in the current literature by

exploring the importance multiple generational measures of educational aspirations among a

sample of Hispanic-American families have on youth educational attainment. Further, by

extension this study can begin to uncover whether or not parental focus and support of youth

education has as important an impact on youth attainment in American born Hispanic families as

they do in immigrant families (see, Behnke et al, 2004; Kao, 2004, for discussions).

Engagement-achievement paradox

In an attempt to explain the ‘attitude-achievement’ paradox, researchers began

investigating the school engagement of minority youth, as doing well in school requires more

from a student than positive thinking alone. Researchers began to question whether black and

Hispanic youth engaged in counter-productive and risky school behaviors, and if it was due to

these behaviors that racial and ethnically based attainment gaps persist. Students with higher

academic achievement are more likely to be engaged in coursework by completing class

assignments, putting more effort into homework, participating in class discussions, or arriving to

class on time (Finn, 1993; 2006). On the other hand, students who disengage from school by

engaging in truancy, missing class, or not completing homework, are more likely to experience

grade retention and lower levels of attainment (Allensworth & Easton, 2005; Fredricks,

Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Hickman et al., 2008). Further these disengaged behaviors often

32

disrupt classroom procedures, and risk the relationships students have with their classroom

teachers (Klem & Connell, 2004; Skinner & Belmont, 1993; Vallerand, Forier, & Guay, 1997).

Some literature exploring the classroom behavior of minority youth has pointed to an

‘engagement-achievement’ paradox (Shernoff & Schmidt, 2008) whereby the lower achievement

of black students compared to white students is not explained through corresponding gaps in

student engagement. For example, when compared to white and Hispanic students, research has

found black students were more likely to report being engaged in school, hold positive school

attitudes, and were less likely to endorse ‘cheating’ or ‘breaking the rules’ as acceptable

(Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998; Johnson, Crosnoe, & Elder, 2001). Therefore it is possible

that the high aspirations of black students may result in higher levels of classroom engagement,

which one would expect to correspond to higher levels of attainment. Yet in one study when the

relationships between engagement and youth achievement were explored, the engagement of

black students was not associated with equally high returns to academic achievement as their

White and Asian peers (Shernoff & Schmidt, 2008). Rather, school engagement was negatively

associated with the GPA of black students (Shernoff & Schmidt, 2008). Potentially one link

explaining the pro-school behavior yet lower achievement of black youth are the perceptions and

biases of students’ teachers, as teachers (especially non-black teachers) were found to report that

their black students engage in more problem (and distracting) classroom behaviors than their

white peers (Downey & Pribesh, 2004).

While the educational engagement of black student and the impacts their school behavior

may have on their academic achievement is complex, the literature exploring the school behavior

of Hispanic youth is more straightforward. For example one study found Hispanic students were

more attached to school, compared to their black and white peers, while black and white students

reported equal levels of school attachment (Johnson et al., 2001). However, the organization of

the classroom may make a difference in student engagement as well as the type of activity or

33

instructional method applied in each lesson: another study found that Hispanic students were

more engaged during group work and class discussions than other peers, while black students are

highly engaged across all activities (Uekawa, Borman, & Lee, 2007). However, the question

remains what impacts the aspirations parents have for their children as well as the aspirations

parents had during adolescence themselves may have on youth engagement. Further, it is possible

that consistent and positive aspirations collected across multiple stages of parental development

(e.g., adolescence and adulthood) as well as between multiple members of families (e.g. mothers

and youth) may both propel students into positive behavior, as well as higher levels of

educational attainment. Therefore in an attempt to contribute to current literature exploring the

engagement-achievement paradox, this paper explores if the race/ethnic differences in

relationships between intergenerational and youth educational aspirations and attainment are

mediated by the engagement and disengagement behaviors of youth in high school.

Current study

The overarching goal of this paper is to unpack the racial and ethnic related differences in

multiple measures of educational aspirations and student behavior that may drive the

race/ethnicity gaps in youth educational attainment. Specifically, the first aim is to descriptively

explore profiles of youth and their mothers and how these profiles of educational aspirations,

behaviors, and demographic characteristics, may vary by student race/ethnicity. The second aim

of this study is to determine whether youth educational aspirations (G2 youth aspirations),

mother’s educational aspirations reported during adolescence (G1 youth aspirations), and the

maternal aspirations women report for their children (G1 maternal aspirations) predict youth

educational attainment. I hypothesize that in the full sample all three measures of educational

aspirations will be positively associated with all three measures of youth educational attainment.

34

The third aim is to determine whether the relationships between the three measures of

educational aspirations and youth educational attainment vary by student race/ethnicity. I

previously found in the first paper of my dissertation (see Panel C of Table 3, pg. 36) that G1

aspirations during adolescence were significantly related to the educational aspirations of G2

youth born to higher educated women. As white students are more likely to have higher educated

parents than their black and Hispanic peers (NCES, 2010), and as the status attainment models

find youth and maternal aspirations for children are predictive of youth educational attainment

(Spera, Wentzel, & Motta, 2009), I hypothesize all three measures of aspirations will predict G2

youth attainment among white students.

Research links intergenerational narratives of social mobility, as well as parental support

for education as important potential mechanisms for the academic achievement of black youth

(see, Blau et al., 2004). Therefore, I hypothesize that similar to their white peers the educational

attainment of black students will be predicted by all three measures of educational aspirations.

However, these relationships may occur through intergenerational narratives of the value of

education and overcoming structural and racially based obstacles to social mobility, rather than

the accumulation of advantage across generations of white families.

The development of my hypotheses for Hispanic students is slightly more complex. On

the one hand, research finds that some Hispanic youth may have lower educational aspirations

compared to the aspirations their parents report for them (Behnke et al., 2004). These lower

aspirations may be driven by concerns students have for the financial burdens college may place

on their families, or reflective of less clear occupational goals or little information Hispanic

students may have about college in general (Kao & Tienda, 1998). However, other literature finds

that the familial links and parental support for higher educational attainment are especially salient

for Hispanic youth (see, Kao, 2004; Hernandez et al., 1994, for discussions). Similarly parental

led strategies for overcoming racial barriers in school are just as important for the educational

35

success of Hispanic students as they are for black students (Behnke et al., 2004; Fredricks et al.,

2004). Taken together, I hypothesize the educational aspirations Hispanic G2 youth hold for

themselves will be more predictive of their educational attainment than either G1 adolescent or

G1 maternal aspirations. As in this case, youth may hold more realistic educational goals than

their mothers, or potentially only aspire to higher levels of education if their family has the plans

in place, or financial means, to allow for such dreams.

Finally, this paper will explore whether student engagement and disengagement in high

school mediates the relationship between educational aspirations and the likelihood the student

will earn their high school diploma/GED ‘on time’ (aim 4). Explorations of student engagement

and disengagement by race/ethnicity present a complex story between the relationships of student

race/ethnicity, school behavior, and the returns these behaviors may bring to their educational

attainment (see Fredricks et al., 2004, for discussions). Therefore mediation models will be

conducted for each race/ethnicity separately. In efforts to streamline these complex relationships,

only the educational aspirations that significantly predict the likelihood G2 youth earned their

high school credentials on time in aim 3 will be included in models.

For this aim I hypothesize that the high school engagement and disengagement of white

and Hispanic students will at least partially mediate the association between aspirations and

educational attainment. However, I hypothesize that the relationship between educational

aspirations and the odds black students earn their high school credentials on time will not be

mediated by the time they spend on homework or whether or not they engage in truancy in high

school. I do not doubt that the time youth spend on homework or whether they skip school (or

not) will impact their odds for earning their high school degree on time. Rather, I hypothesize the

consequences of high school disengagement, or the payoffs of high school engagement, are not

going to explain, nor alter the aspirations of black youth. Instead I hypothesize, beyond potential

consequences or payoffs to students’ engagement/disengagement, black students’ aspirations and

36

attainment will be strongly linked. This link is likely to stem from an intergenerational narrative

or parental supports for education that may not be closely aligned with youth ability or obstacles

in school (see, Crosnoe, 2001).

The current study extends literature exploring educational inequalities, youth behavior

and youth aspirations in multiple ways. First, literature has suggested for some students their

cultural and historical backgrounds may provide an important support network for their values in

education and persistence to achieve higher levels of attainment (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey,

1998; Blau et al., 2004). This study is one of the first to incorporate measures of educational

aspirations across two generations to explore whether the positive orientations women had during

adolescence, as well as the aspirations women hold for their children, and youth hold for

themselves may work together when predicting G2 youth’s final educational attainment. Further,

although the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States continues to increase (Perez &

Hirschman, 2009; U.S. Census, 2012), the empirical explorations of these relationships for

Hispanic students has occurred relatively less often than for white youth, or between white and

black youth alone. Therefore the expansion of this study to explore these relationships for white,

black and Hispanic students can present a broader picture of the sources and mechanisms driving

youth attainment in three of the largest racial/ethnic groups in the United States.

Method

Data

Data for this paper come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort

(NLSY79), and the linked Children and Young Adult files (CNSLY). NLSY data are sponsored

by the U.S. Department of Labor and have been complied through the Ohio State University

37

Center for Human Resource Research. Beginning in 1979 the NLSY followed a nationally

representative sample of 6,403 men and 6,283 women who were 14 to 21 years old in 1978

(referred to as G1 from here on after). Biennially starting in 1986 the NLSY79 was expanded to

include mother supplemental surveys, in which G1 women reported additional demographic, and

developmental information for their offspring (referred to as G2 from here on after). Beginning in

1988, and biennially thereafter, G2 children who were 10 or older directly reported information

related to their experiences and development. Across time the NLSY has achieved high rates of

participant retention, and the CNLSY files contain information on over 11,000 children born to

NLSY79 women as of the 2010 survey wave.

Analytic sample

Between 1970 and 2010 11,503 children were born to 4,924 NLSY79 mothers. The

sample was first restricted to youth who were at least 22 years old by 2010 as younger

participants would be less likely to have the opportunity to achieve the high levels of youth

educational attainment explored in the paper (3,868 cases excluded). In addition the sample was

restricted to cases with valid data across all three measures of youth educational attainment

(2,295 cases excluded). Next, cases were excluded if their mothers were older than 19 during the

time they reported their own educational aspirations (1,721 cases excluded), and if cases were

missing values on any measure of the three educational aspirations (1,112 cases excluded). An

additional 837 cases were excluded for missing valid information on their engagement and

disengagement behaviors during high school, and 10 cases were excluded for missing high levels

of information across all variables (missing 20% or more data on analytic variables). Thus the

final analytic sample consists of 1,660 youth and their 1,191 mothers.

38

Measures

Youth educational attainment

Beginning in 1994, youth who were turning 15 (or older) reported biennially at each

survey wave whether they had earned their high school diploma/ GED, the date they earned their

high school credentials, whether they were enrolled in college (and whether they were enrolled

part-time or full time), and the highest grade or year of school they had completed. From these

measures of educational attainment and the timeliness of these achievements three dichotomous

dependent variables were created in which the primary focus was to predict: (1) whether the

youth earned their high school credentials ‘on-time’ (prior to their 19th birthday), (2) whether the

youth ever enrolled in college, and (3) whether the youth earned a Bachelor’s degree or more.

These measures were created to mirror similar measures developed by NCES and the Department

of Education that capture national rates of the timeliness of high school graduation, persistence in

college enrollment and overall educational attainment levels (NCES, 2013b).


Biennially from 1986 to 2010, when G2 youth were at least 10 years old, children

reported how far in school they thought they would reach. From this continuous measure, an

ordinal measure of G1’s aspirations during adolescence was created where 0= ‘less than high

school diploma/GED,’ 1= ‘high school diploma/GED,’ 2= ‘some college/other training,’ 3=

‘attain a Bachelor’s degree,’ and 4= ‘attain more than a Bachelor’s degree.’ To decrease the

likelihood youth would increase or decrease their aspirations as they were closer to each

educational attainment milestone, or consequently alter their school engagement and

39

disengagement G2 measures of youth educational aspirations were taken from the survey in

which youth were 14 to 15 years old.

Mother educational aspirations during adolescence

G1 educational aspirations were taken from the first NLSY data survey in 1979 where

women still enrolled in high school reported how far in school they expected to reach (i.e. what

year or grade of school) (mean age in years= 16.78). Similar to their offspring’s’ educational

aspirations, G1’s aspirations during adolescence was recoded into an ordinal measure where 0=

‘less than high school diploma/GED,’ 1= ‘high school diploma/GED,’ 2= ‘some college/other

training,’ 3= ‘attain a Bachelor’s degree,’ and 4= ‘attain more than a Bachelor’s degree.’ The

developmental timing of this measure was chosen in efforts to maximize the number of G1

women who were still adolescents, as well as reduce the likelihood that academic milestones

(e.g., graduated from high school) and adult experiences would impact women’s educational

aspirations.

Maternal educational aspirations for child

From 1988- 2010, G1 women reported how far they thought their child would go in

school. To mirror the developmental timing of other key variables, mother’s responses were taken

from the calendar years when children were 12- 15 years old. To parallel the other measures of

educational aspirations, mother’s aspirations for their child’s education was recoded into an

ordinal variable where 0= ‘less than a high school diploma/GED,’ 1= ‘attain a high school

diploma/GED,’ 2= ‘complete some college/other training,’ 3= ‘attain a Bachelor’s degree’ and 4=

‘attain more than a Bachelor’s degree.’

40

Youth school engagement

Youth school engagement is captured by youth report on how many hours per week they

worked on their homework (a) inside and (b) outside of school. These two measures were

aggregated and averaged across surveys when youth were 16 to 18 years old, thus indicating the

average hours per week youth reported spending on homework.

Youth school disengagement

Youth school disengagement is represented by youth reports of ‘skipping school or

classes without permission,’ when they were 16- 18 years old. Youth are given a value of ‘1’

indicating they engaged in truancy if they positively reported skipping school during this time.

Race/ethnicity

In 1979 NLSY79 participants reported their race/ethnicity. Children were then assigned

the same race/ethnicity as their mothers: white (reference), black and Hispanic.

Covariates

Models include child, maternal, and household characteristics that are correlated to

educational aspirations, student engagement/disengagement, and youth educational attainment.

G2 youth characteristics include gender [female, male (reference)], race/ethnicity [White

(reference), Hispanic, Black], child’s total standard score on the math subset of the Peabody

Individual Achievement Test scale (PIAT; Dunn and Markwardt, 1970) when they were 8 or 9

years old, whether the child participated in a special education program at school (1= yes, 0= no),

41

whether the child experienced grade retention by 8th grade (1= held back by 8th grade; 0 = not

held back by 8th grade), and number of siblings. Child affirmative responses to five items

indicating negative peer groups (e.g., my friends pressure me to ‘try cigarettes,’ ‘try alcohol,’

‘commit violence or crime,’) when youth were 12 to 13 years old were also included in models.

Items were averaged and higher scores indicate higher levels of negative peer pressures. The

proportion of years from birth to age 13 children were exposed to: poverty and maternal

unemployment, and the average percentile score of their household’s cognitive stimulation and

emotional support when children were 0 – 5 from the Home Observation Measure of the

Environment- Short Form (HOME-SF; Caldwell and Bradley 1984) were also included in

models. G1 mother characteristics at child’s birth include: age, educational attainment [less than

high school, High School Diploma/GED (reference), some college or more], marital status (1=

not married, 0= married) were included in models. Further, a measure of maternal cognitive skills

administered in 1981 from the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was also included in

models.

Analytic plan

To address aim 1, descriptive and multivariate regression analyses were performed using

Stata SE 12.1 (Stata Corp LP, College Station, TX). Weighted descriptive statistics were obtained

from non-imputed data using the NLSY79 2010 youth population weight (Y2615900). The

analytic sample was stratified by participant race/ethnicity and mean differences were conducted

using analysis of variance for continuous variables and chi-square tests for dichotomous

variables. Prior to conducting multivariate logistic regression models, multiple imputation

techniques were used to impute missing data using the ice command for participants missing less

than 20% of overall data. Compared to listwise deletion, multiple imputation processes reduce

42

biases in parameter estimates and standard errors by maintaining a closer representation of this

sample to the population (Graham, 2009; Graham & Schaefer, 1999). Last, standard errors in all

regression models were adjusted to account for the lack of independence of observations as

children are clustered within families.

For aim 2, a series of multivariate logistic regressions were conducted to explore the

relationships between multiple measures of educational aspirations across generations and

offspring educational attainment. For aim 3, the sample was then stratified by race/ethnicity to

explore whether the relationships between the three measures of educational aspirations and G2

educational attainment vary by race/ethnicity. For aim 4, methods described in Barron and Kenny

(1986) were followed to explore whether student high school engagement and disengagement

mediated the relationship between measures of educational aspirations and youth educational

attainment separately for each race/ethnicity. First, multivariate logistic regressions were

conducted to explore whether measures of educational aspirations predict the odds G2 youth

would earn their high school diploma/GED ‘on time.’ Next, OLS and logistic regressions were

conducted to explore whether the measures of educational aspirations were significantly

associated with youth engagement (i.e. hours spent on homework a week) and youth

disengagement (i.e. truancy) in high school when G2 youth were 16 – 18 years old. Multivariate

logistic regressions were then conducted to determine whether measures of youth engagement

and disengagement in high school were related to the odds G2 youth earned their high school

credentials ‘on time.’ Finally measures of youth engagement and disengagement in high school

were included in a model where educational aspirations predict youth educational attainment, and

the significance of potential mediating effects were tested following Sobel (1982). In all models

the full set of child and maternal characteristics were included.

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Results

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 and Table 2 present the weighted descriptive statistics for the full analytic sample

(nG1= 1,191, nG2= 1,660). The majority of G2 youth earned their high school diploma/GED ‘on

time,’ (79%), 58% of the analytic sample enrolled in college, and 19% of the analytic sample

earned a Bachelor’s degree or more. Almost 70% of G2 youth aspired to attain a Bachelor’s

degree, compared to only 26% of their G1 mothers. However, G1 reported high aspirations for

their children as 60% of G1 women aspired for their children to attain a Bachelor’s degree or

more. Thirty-three percent of G2 youth reported reporting skipping school when they were 16- 18

years old, and during the same time spent on average just less than 8 hours (M= 7.81, SD= 7.53) a

week on homework. White G2 youth were more likely to earn their high school credentials ‘on

time,’ enroll in college and earn a Bachelor’s degree or more compared to their black and

Hispanic counter parts. Black G2 youth reported spending the fewest hours a week on homework

and were also less likely to report skipping school than their white and Hispanic peers.

The analytic sample was predominantly White (76%), followed by Black (17%) and then

Hispanic (7%), with 6% of G2 youth participating in special education and 13% reported being

held back a grade by the time they were in 8th grade (Table 2). G2 youth had on average just

fewer than two siblings (M= 1.82, SD= 1.23) and lived in households under the federal poverty

line (FPL) about 26% of the years from birth to age 13 (a little more than 3 years). At the time of

G2’s birth, G1 mothers were approximately 23 years old (M= 22.68, SD= 2.95), the majority had

their high school diploma (57%) or some college or more education (23%), and were married

(70%). On average G1 mothers were unemployed for just under 5 years from the time G2 was

born to the time G2 turned 13 (M= 0.41, SD= 0.30). Black G2 youth spent more time under the

44

poverty line from birth to 13, and in households with lower ratings of emotional support from

birth to 5 than their white and Hispanic peers. G2 white youth were born more often to higher

educated women who had higher cognitive scores than black and Hispanic youth in the sample.

Multivariate logistic regressions

Aspirations and attainment

Table 3 presents the multivariate logistic regression results in which the associations

between the three measures of educational aspirations and G2 youth educational attainment were

explored. Higher G2 youth educational aspirations were associated with a 34% increase in the

odds G2 youth would attain their high school diploma/GED ‘on time’ (Panel A). Further, higher

G2 youth educational aspirations were associated with a 39% increase in the odds G2 youth

would enroll in college as well as attain a Bachelor’s degree or more (Panel A). Higher G1 youth

educational aspirations were not significantly related to the odds G2 youth would attain their high

school diploma/GED ‘on time,’ enroll in college, or attain a Bachelor’s degree or more. However,

higher G1 aspirations for her child were related to a 19% increase in the odds G2 youth would

attain a high school diploma/GED ‘on time,’ a 32% increase in the odds G2 youth would enroll in

college, and a 56% increase in the odds G2 youth would attain a Bachelor’s degree or more.

Aspirations and attainment by race/ethnicity

Panel B of Table 3 presents the multivariate logistic regression results where the

associations between three measures of educational aspirations and G2 youth educational

attainment were explored in the white sub-sample. For white youth, higher G2 youth aspirations

45

were associated with a 36%, a 47%, and a 44% increase in the odds G2 youth would attain a high

school diploma/GED ‘on time,’ enroll in college, and attain a Bachelor’s degree or more

(respectively). Higher G1 aspirations for her child, in the white sample were associated with a

36%, a 50% and a 55% increase in the odds G2 youth would attain their high school

diploma/GED ‘on time,’ enroll in college, and attain a Bachelor’s degree or more (respectively).

Higher G1 youth educational aspirations were not significantly associated with any measure of

G2 educational attainment in the white sample.

Panel C and Panel D of Table 3 present the multivariate logistic regression results for the

black (Panel C) and Hispanic (Panel D) samples where the associations between three measures

of educational aspirations and G2 youth educational attainment were explored. In the black

sample, higher G2 youth aspirations were related to a 28% and 36% increase in the odds G2

youth would attain a high school diploma/GED ‘on time,’ and enroll in college. Higher G1

educational aspirations for her child is associated with a two fold increase in the odds black G2

youth would attain a Bachelor’s degree or more; however G1 youth educational aspirations were

not significantly related to the educational attainment of G2 black youth. Finally, in the Hispanic

subsample, higher G2 youth educational aspirations were associated with a 39%, 32%, and 75%

increase in the odds Hispanic G2 youth would attain a high school diploma/GED ‘on time,’ enroll

in college, and attain a Bachelor’s degree or more (respectively). G1 maternal aspirations and G1

youth aspirations were not significantly associated with any measure of Hispanic G2 youth

educational attainment.

School engagement/disengagement

Table 4 presents the multivariate regression results in which the mediating mechanisms

of youth high school engagement (Panel A) and disengagement (Panel B) on the relationship

46

between G2 youth aspirations, G1 maternal aspirations and the likelihood G2 would earn their

high school diploma/GED ‘on time’ were explored for white youth. In Panel A, G2 youth

aspirations and G1 maternal aspirations were associated with a respectively 35% and a 34%

increase in the odds G2 white youth would attain their high school credentials on time controlling

for child and maternal covariates as well as youth school disengagement (Model 1). Further, G2

youth aspirations and G1 maternal aspirations were positively and significantly associated with

the time G2 white youth reported spending on homework (Model 2). However, the school

engagement of white youth (measured by hours/week on homework) was not significantly

associated with the odds of G2 earning their high school credentials on time; therefore mediation

was not established (Model 3). In panel B, higher G2 youth aspirations and higher G1 maternal

aspirations was related to a 37% and 35% increase in the odds that G2 earned a high school

diploma/GED ‘on time’ (Model 1). However, G2 disengagement in high school (measured by

truancy) was determined not to mediate the relationship between G1 maternal and G2 youth

educational aspirations and attainment of a high school diploma/GED on time, as neither G2

youth educational nor G1 maternal educational aspirations significantly predict G2

disengagement (Model 2).

Table 5 present the multivariate regression results where the mediation of youth

engagement and disengagement from high school was explored in the black sample. Although G2

youth educational aspirations were associated with a 30% increase in the odds black youth would

earn their high school credentials on time (Model 4, Panel A and Panel B), G2 youth aspirations

were not significantly associated with G2 engagement (Model 2, Panel A) nor disengagement

(Model 2, Panel B). Therefore, the engagement and disengagement of black students in high

school did not mediate the relationships between G2 youth aspirations and the likelihood G2

would earn their high school credentials on time.

47

Table 6 presents the multivariate regression results where the mediation of youth

engagement and disengagement from high school on the relationship between G2 youth

aspirations and G2 earning their high school credentials on time was explored in the Hispanic

sample. The regression results reveal that the aspirations of G2 Hispanic youth were positively

and significantly associated with the hours/week students spent on homework (Model 2, Panel

A). Further the school engagement of Hispanic students was associated with a 6% increase in the

odds students would earn their high school credentials on time (Model 3, Panel A). Last, the

relationship between G2 youth educational aspirations and the likelihood G2 would earn their

high school credentials on time decreased, albeit slightly, with the inclusion of youth school

engagement in the model (Model 1, OR= 1.36, p<.05, to Model 4, OR = 1.32 p<.05). However,

the Sobel test determined the mediating effect did not reflect a statistically significant change.

Finally, the disengagement of Hispanic youth in high school does not mediate the relationship

between G2 youth aspirations and G2 attainment of a high school diploma/GED on time. G2

youth aspirations were not significantly associated with high school disengagement (Model 2,

Panel B).

Sensitivity analyses

Two additional sets of sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the robustness of the

main findings. Multivariate logistic regressions were conducted to determine whether the

relationships between the three measures of educational aspirations and G2 youth educational

attainment varied by (1) maternal educational attainment and (2) G2 exposure to poverty.

Findings were consistent with the main findings presented (results available upon request). Next,

mediating models were tested similar to those presented in Tables 4- 6 yet where only the

relationship between truancy or hours spent on homework were included in models. Again, these

48

results again supported the main findings presented (available upon request). Finally, additional

mediation models were explored with a transformed version of the hours youth spent on

homework (by taking the log of the square root to adjust for the non-normal distribution of the

variable). Results from models including this transformed variable support the main findings

discussed (available upon request).

Discussion

This study explored racial and ethnic differences in the relationships between youth

educational attainment and measures of youth and maternal educational aspirations across

multiple generations. Multivariate logistic regressions conducted with the full sample revealed

that G2 youth educational aspirations and G1 maternal educational aspirations for her child were

predictive of the likelihood G2 youth would (a) earn their high school credentials ‘on time,’ (b)

enroll in college and, (c) earn a Bachelor’s degree or more. However, when the sample was

stratified by student race/ethnicity, the above findings appear to be driven largely by white youth

and their families. On the other hand, the educational aspirations of black and Hispanic G2 youth

appeared to be more consistent predictors of youth educational attainment than the aspirations

their mother’s hold for them, or the aspirations their mothers had as adolescents. Further, this

study explored whether the relationships between the intergenerational and familial measures of

educational aspirations and the timeliness of youth high school educational attainment were

explained by the engaged and disengaged behaviors of youth in high school separately for white,

black and Hispanic families. Overall findings indicate that the hours youth reported spending on

homework, and their reported truancy in high school, do not mediate the positive relationships

between measures of educational aspirations and youth high school attainment. This did not vary

by student race or ethnicity. Below the racial and ethnic variations in relationships between G2

49

youth, G1 youth and G1 maternal educational aspirations and G2 youth attainment, as well as

possible explanations for why measures of youth engagement and disengagement in high school

did not mediate these associations across all race/ethnicities are discussed.

Differential reports of risk by race/ethnicity

Consistent with the well documented racial and ethnic gaps in youth educational

attainment (e.g. NCES, 2013; Tienda, 2013), descriptive statistics revealed higher percentages of

white G2 youth in the analytic sample earned their high school credentials on time, enrolled in

college, and earned a Bachelor’s degree or more, compared to their black or Hispanic peers.

Therefore while trends in youth educational attainment suggest more racial and ethnic minorities

are enrolling in and graduating from college (Tienda, 2013), descriptive findings from this study

indicate that black and Hispanic students still lag behind their white peers in reaching higher

levels of educational attainment. Further, when groups of students are collapsed across cohorts

these racial and ethnic gaps in educational attainment are striking.

Yet, descriptive statistics also suggest a slightly different story in regards to patterns of

student engagement (hours per week spent on homework on average) and disengagement

(skipped a day of school without permission) by race/ethnicity. While black students reported

spending the least time on their homework (compared to their white and Hispanic peers) they

were also the least likely to report engaging in truancy during high school. Parallel with other

literature, these findings suggest that it may be necessary to explore the relationships between

student race/ethnicity and student engagement and disengagement via multiple constructs, as

when only explored by student engagement or student disengagement, an incomplete portrait of

student behavior may emerge (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998). However, more work is

needed to explore both student reports of engagement and disengagement behaviors with more

50

measures spanning the three domains of engagement (see Fredricks et al, 2004, for discussion) as

well as engaging reports of student behavior from administrators, teachers, or peers, as other

literature finds contradictory trends emerge when student versus teacher or peer reports of student

classroom behavior are explored (Downey & Pribesh, 2004).

Additionally, half of the Hispanic students in this sample reported skipping school during

high school. At the same time while these students were engaging in high rates of truancy, they

were also spending significantly less time on average on their homework than their white peers.

Therefore descriptive statistics from this study highlight the need for more literature to explore

the engaged and disengaged behaviors of Hispanic students, as the current literature surrounding

the engagement and disengagement of diverse samples of youth are often limited, or when

applied to Hispanic youth focus more upon special issues related to immigrant families and their

youth (e.g., Behnke et al., 2004; Hernandez et al., 1994; Kao, 2004; Kao & Tienda, 1998). Thus,

understanding more about the processes that lead Hispanic students to disengage in school and

instead engage in risky school behaviors (such as truancy) compared to their peers may have

exciting implications for educators and policy makers looking to increase the academic success of

this growing population of youth.

Mirroring the racial/ethnic differences in the rates of educational attainment, and most

likely contributing to them were striking differences in the profiles of youth educational and

environmental adversity. More than twice the numbers of black and Hispanic students, compared

to white students in this sample were held back by 8th grade and reported participating in their

schools’ special education program. Likely one source contributing to the racial/ethnic

differences in grade retention and special education placement was the nearly 10 point difference

in students’ scores on the math section of the PIAT (Dunn and Markwardt, 1970) when black and

Hispanic (compared to white) students were 9 or 10 years old. This finding is particularly

worrisome as recent literature finds student math skills are an important indicator of later student

51

achievement in math as well as reading (Duncan et al., 2007). Further, the combined risk of low

math skills, grade retention and special education placement likely present serious implications

for students’ later adolescent and adult outcomes, as other research find persistent academic and

behavior problems are highly and negatively associated with lower rates of graduation and

college enrollment (Duncan and Magnuson, 2011).

The varied experiences of students based on race and ethnicity are not just limited to the

school context, since descriptive statistics found black and Hispanic students were exposed both

to higher levels of household poverty and maternal unemployment than their white peers. Further,

the average emotional and cognitive quality of their household environments (as captured by the

HOME scales, Caldwell and Bradley 1984) was also lower in black and Hispanic households

from birth to age 5 compared to their white peers. Black and Hispanic children in the sample were

also less likely to have highly educated, or married mothers, perhaps contributing both to

economic and emotional strain mirrored throughout these measures.

Uniformity of youth educational aspirations

When exploring the educational aspirations of youth in the sample, especially in light of

the racial/ethnic related differences in youth educational attainment and exposure to adversity, the

overall consistency and high level of youth educational aspirations is all the more astounding.

The majority G2 youth in the sample aspired to at least attain a Bachelor’s degree when they were

14- 15 years old, and these high aspirations were consistent across groups of white, black and

Hispanic youth. This finding mirrors recent literature uncovering demographic trends of high

school sophomores in which increasingly the educational aspirations of youth are rising, and the

greatest increases in youth educational aspirations occur in youth with the least privileged

backgrounds (Goyette, 2008). The high aspirations of youth in this sample, despite their

52

economic or educational adversity parallel the battery of literature uncovering the attitude-

achievement paradox (e.g., Kao & Thompson, 2003). Further, similar to other literature (e.g.,

Spera et al., 2009), the majority of G1 women in the sample aspired for their children to at least

attain a Bachelor’s degree. This was true across all race/ethnicities, and the aspirations were at

much higher rates than the aspirations they held for themselves decades earlier.

Educational aspirations and youth attainment

The second aim of this study was to explore the role G2 youth educational aspirations,

G1 youth educational aspirations and G1 maternal aspirations for her child have when predicting

the likelihood G2 would earn their high school credentials on time, enroll in college and attain a

Bachelor’s degree or more. In the full sample, my hypothesis that all three measures of

educational aspirations would predict G2 youth educational attainment was partially supported.

Parallel to other literature (e.g., De Civita, Pagani, Vitaro, & Tremblay, 2004; Downey,

Ainsworth, & Qian, 2009; Spera, 2005) multivariate logistic regressions revealed that G2 youth

and G1 maternal educational aspirations were predictive of the likelihood G2 youth would attain

all three levels of educational attainment explored in the study. However, the educational

aspirations G1 women reported during adolescence were not predictive of any level of their

offspring’s educational attainment above and beyond the other two measures of educational

aspirations and a host of child and maternal characteristics. These findings provide at least

preliminary evidence of the arguments developed in Spera and colleagues’ (2009) study. They

found once other characteristics of households and parents were controlled for (i.e. parental

educational attainment, exposure to poverty, employment), the impacts mother’s earlier

aspirations have on youth attainment were reduced to non-significance. Thus, the results highlight

the importance that other family and household resources can have on later youth educational

53

attainment. At the same time, as G1 maternal and G2 educational aspirations were significantly

associated in the full sample with the odds G2 youth would earn all three levels of educational

attainment even after the inclusion of other characteristics, the power in which more recent

positive aspirations of parents and youth have for youth attainment is impressive.

Next, the sample was stratified by student race/ethnicity. This was done because the

literature suggests that the educational aspirations women hold for their children and the

aspirations youth hold for themselves may matter more for minority youth aspirations and

attainment than the aspirations and attainment of white students (e.g., Blau et al., 2004). Contrary

to my hypotheses, multivariate logistic regressions revealed that the educational aspirations of G2

youth and the maternal aspirations G1 women reported for their children were positively and

significantly associated with the odds white G2 youth would reach all three measures of youth

educational attainment. Whereas, overall the educational aspirations black and Hispanic G2 youth

reported were more consistently related to youth educational attainment. While G1 maternal

aspirations reported by black women were significantly associated with the odds their offspring

would attain a Bachelor’s degree or more, the G1 maternal aspirations of Hispanic women and

G1 youth aspirations of all women were not significantly associated with any measure of youth

attainment. Taken together these findings suggest that perhaps in order for gains to be seen in

youth educational attainment beyond those found in youth educational aspirations, high maternal

aspirations may need to be paired with equally high household or parental resources such as

education, income or earlier student educational skill.

As briefly discussed above, demographic trends suggest the educational aspirations of

youth over time appear to be increasing at unprecedented levels (Goyette, 2008). Therefore, these

youth-level forces may be washing out the influences of family or parental-level narratives

pushing youth educational attainment, as the aspirations of entire cohorts of youth may be rising.

Thus, the historical narratives of social mobility and overcoming racially charged obstacles or

54

prejudices may still be occurring; yet at the same time all youth regardless of their race/ethnicity

may simply aspire to go to college along with the rest of their peers. On the other hand, it is also

possible that the past aspirations women report for themselves simply do not matter as much as

the current aspirations they have for their children, or above and beyond the impacts other

parental and household resources have on their child’s education. However, it is also possible that

high G1 educational aspirations may relate to more stability in supports or investments parents

later make in the educational attainment of their children, and those were not able to be explored

in the current study. Thus, more work exploring the relationships between earlier measures of

parental educational aspirations and stability or change over time should be explored.

Taken together these findings suggest that the high educational aspirations youth report

as adolescents should not be discounted when predicting youth educational attainment, as

consistently these aspirations were highly predictive of youth attainment across all races and

ethnicities. Further, these findings suggest that the racial and ethnic-based leaks in the educational

pipeline do not appear to be driven by parallel racial/ethnic gaps in the educational orientations of

youth. Instead, all youth in this study reported high educational aspirations, and these aspirations

appear to be important for the later educational attainment of all students. Unfortunately, this

study did not find an intergenerational link between G1 youth aspirations and G2 youth

educational attainment, and this lack of a statistically significant relationship did not vary by

student race/ethnicity. Yet, maternal aspirations were robust predictors of the educational

attainment of white youth, and in one instance associated with increased educational attainment

for black youth. Consequently white students in this study were found to experience much less

economic and educational adversity leading up to high school. Therefore addressing racial/ethnic

variations in exposure to adversity and economic inequality are likely to serve as a better lever to

close the racial/ethnic gaps in youth educational attainment.

55

Educational aspirations, engagement/disengagement and attainment

The last aim of this study was to explore whether the hours youth spent on average per

week on homework and truancy in high school mediated the associations between measures of

educational aspirations and the likelihood G2 youth would graduate high school on time, by

student race/ethnicity. Across all groups of students reports of the time they spent on homework a

week, as well as their truant behavior, did not mediate the relationships between educational

aspirations and the likelihood G2 youth would earn their high school credentials on time. Further,

the break down of potential mediating relationships occurred at different points in the test of

mediation for white, black and Hispanic students. For example, high G2 youth aspirations were

not significantly predictive of the time black students spent on homework or their reports of

truancy thus suggesting that the relationship between G2 aspirations and G2 attainment simply

does not flow through these two measures of youth engagement/disengagement. While for white

and Hispanic students, G2 youth aspirations (and G1 maternal aspirations in the case of the white

sample) were predictive of the time youth spent on homework, the time they spent on homework

was either not associated with their attainment (for white students) or did not reduce the direct

effect from aspirations to attainment (for Hispanic students). As discussed in Fredrick and

colleagues’ (2004) review of youth engagement and disengagement, it is possible that the time

youth spend on homework is not correlated with deeper and more nuanced constructs of student

engagement that are also important for youth academic success, such as student effort, quality of

work, or interest. Further, these deeper constructs of emotional and cognitive engagement are

both harder to measure, yet potentially more relevant for youth academic success, than a simple

count measure of time spent on homework. In regards to youth truancy it is possible that this

measure was too far along the spectrum of behavioral disengagement. Future work could instead

explore measures of more ‘minor offenses’ of student disengagement that may ultimately

56

aggregate and lead to truancy or low educational attainment. Examples of minor offenses include

rates of attendance, participation in class discussion, or tardiness, all which are not currently

captured in the NLSY79.

Limitations and future directions

While the current study extends literature exploring the determinants of youth

educational attainment, as well as the variations in attainment, engagement/disengagement, and

multiple measures of educational aspirations by race/ethnicity several limitations of the study

should be acknowledged. First, reviews of studies exploring youth engagement and

disengagement in school find that youth behavior may be differentially interpreted and reported

by teachers, students and their peers. However, this study was only able to incorporate measures

of youth behavior as reported by youth directly, as teacher, parent or peer perceptions of youth

behavior in the sample was not collected by the NLSY79. Literature also suggest that youth

engagement and disengagement in education may be better captured through measures across

multiple domains, such as youth emotional engagement, youth cognitive engagement and youth

behavioral engagement in the classroom (see Fredricks et al., 2004; Kelly, 2008). Therefore, it is

possible that the measures included in this study may not be as related to the timeliness of youth

educational attainment compared to other measures of youth engagement. Thus, more work

exploring other constructs of youth engagement in education broadly, as well as more finitely in

the classroom should be explored. Last, the NLSY also does not include measures of youth

engagement/disengagement at higher levels of youth educational attainment, such as effort or

interest in college courses, continuous enrollment, and credits earned each semester. Therefore

examining youth and parent educational aspirations on the engagement/disengagement and

57

persistence of youth educational attainment at higher levels of educational attainment will be an

exciting avenue of research; however, this was out of the scope of this particular study.

Conclusions

This study finds that profiles of youth academic engagement/disengagement and

adversity vary by student race/ethnicity. While the educational aspirations of youth and the

educational aspirations that mothers have for their children are high for all students, white

students continue to complete higher levels of education. Both youth and maternal educational

aspirations for her child appear to be robustly and positively related to the likelihood that white

youth will earn their high school credentials on time, enroll in college and earn a Bachelor’s

degree or more. For black and Hispanic youth, the educational aspirations that they hold for

themselves, and not the aspirations that their mothers have for them, are related to their

educational attainment. Overall, youth’s positive educational aspirations may not be enough to

close the educational attainment gap. To improve the educational attainment of black and

Hispanic students, we must take advantage of the positive attitudes of black and Hispanic

individuals and strategically target these inequalities through focused education policies and

educational support systems.

58

Chapter 4

Conclusion

The overarching goal of this dissertation was to explore whether an intergenerational

transmission of educational aspirations (collected from two generations when both were

adolescent students) relates to (a) the formation of youth educational aspirations and (b) youth

later educational attainment, as well as the behavior of students in high school. In addition, both

papers explored the similarities and differences in these relationships by the educational

attainment mothers’ had at the birth of their child, and the race/ethnicity of families. Both

characteristics (i.e. race/ethnicity and maternal educational attainment) are linked to discrepancies

in our understanding of the formation of youth aspirations in recent cohorts of students (see

Goyette, 2008; Roderick, Coca, & Nagoka, 2011) as well as the link between aspirations and

youth attainment and achievement (see Mickelson, 1990). Further, these two characteristics are

also highly correlated with individual socio-economic status, and incidences of family and

student level adversity (e.g., Anderson, 2012; Fantuzzo, LeBoeuf, Rouse, & Chen, 2012; NCES,

2011; U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). Therefore examining the potential similarities or differences

that may emerge between these groups related to intergenerational forces shaping youth

aspirations, behavior, or attainment may potentially inform educational policies and institutions

that look to increase the educational success of students facing risk.

Summary of findings paper 1

Descriptive findings from the first study highlight the positive shift that has occurred over

time between the adolescent educational aspirations of a sample of women and the educational

59

aspirations of their adolescent offspring. Further, in the full sample, youth aspirations appear to

be positively associated with the maternal aspirations their mothers reported for them during

adulthood, not the aspirations their mothers reported for their own education as adolescents.

However, differences did emerge when the analytic sample was stratified by the level of maternal

educational attainment at the birth of the child. While, children of least educated women were

found to have higher educational aspirations during adolescence than their mothers at similar

ages, these aspirations were not associated with (a) the aspirations their mothers reported during

adolescence and (b) many times the aspirations their mothers held for their offspring. The

aspirations women reported for their children were only significantly associated with the

likelihood G2 youth would aspire to complete at least some college education compared to less

than high school or their high school diploma/GED. Contrasted to these findings, the maternal

aspirations women held for their children appear to be an important predictor of their offspring’s

adolescent educational aspirations in the sample of women who had a high school diploma/GED

at the time of their child’s birth and women who had at least some college education at the time

of their child’s birth. In addition, for children of the highest educated women, the educational

aspirations women held for their own education as adolescents was positively associated with

their offspring’s aspiration to attain a Bachelor’s degree or more, compared to some college.

Paper 1 was presented with a unique opportunity to explore how the aspirations women

held as adolescent students may be transferred to their offspring decades later when their

offspring were of similar ages. Further, the data employed by this study also included other

important characteristics of women and their children that may serve as mechanisms allowing for

or blocking this intergenerational transfer. For example, the high adolescent educational

aspirations of offspring born to women who did not have their high school credentials at the time

of their child’s birth appear not to be driven by the aspirations their mothers held as adolescents

or the aspirations their mothers have for their children. This may not be particularly surprising as

60

these mothers reported rather low aspirations as adolescents (34% aspired to leave prior to

completing high school, 52% aspired to attain their high school credentials). Further, these

mothers were often unable to attain their aspired level of education (i.e. completing high school).

Therefore, potentially the children of these women turned to other sources of influence such as

their peers or schools when developing their own aspirations and goals regarding their future

education or academic potential. Perhaps due to other characteristics of these women (that are

correlated both with their lower aspirations and lower educational attainment) their children view

them to be less useful or less important sources of information related to education specifically.

As a mother’s level of educational attainment increases it appears her influence on her

child’s aspirations increases as well. The maternal educational aspirations women reported for

their children who had a high school diploma/GED at the time of their child’s birth emerged as a

significant predictor of their child’s own aspirations as adolescents. Maternal educational

aspirations remained significant for children of the highest educated women (those with at least

some college experience or more at the time of their child’s birth), and in one case the educational

aspirations these women reported as adolescents was also predictive of her child’s own

aspirations decades later. Women who had their high school credentials at the time of their child’s

birth were for the most part able to attain the level of education they on average aspired to attain

as adolescents (their high school diploma/GED). Perhaps these women’s thoughts are more

influential on the formation of their child’s educational aspirations as they themselves navigated

the completion of at least one level of education. Potentially this milestone allowed these mothers

to better understand the obstacles their child would need to overcome in order to reach higher

levels of educational attainment.

Similarly, women who had at least some college experience by the birth of their child

likely have first-hand knowledge and experiences that can benefit their children when navigating

the complex pathways from high school to college, or high school to college completion. Further,

61

these women likely have wider networks containing valuable resources that families can draw

upon that may increase the likelihood their children will achieve their aspired educational

attainment, and are likely similar resources these women drew upon when they were also students

decades prior. Therefore it is possible an intergenerational transmission may be contributing to

the high aspirations of some youth today; however results from this study suggest that this

transmission only exists for families in which parents were able to at least complete the level of

education they aspired to complete as adolescents. This paper was unable to pinpoint what is

driving the aspirations of youth with lesser-educated women and will have to be explored in

future literature that may contain other information on important sources of influence beyond

mothers, such as children’s peers, siblings, fathers or schools.

Summary of findings paper 2

Findings from paper 2 highlight the similarities (rather than the differences) in the

relationships between youth educational aspirations and later attainment. Specifically in the full

analytic sample, the aspirations women reported during adolescence were not predictive of the

overall educational attainment of their offspring. This remained true when the sample was

stratified by student race/ethnicity. Rather, in the full analytic sample youth adolescent and

maternal educational aspirations were positively and significantly associated with youth

educational attainment. For white families, maternal aspirations women held for their children as

well as the youth’s own educational aspirations were predictive of youth educational attainment.

For black families youth educational aspirations were consistently predictive of their educational

attainment, and maternal educational aspirations were predictive of the odds their child would

attain a Bachelor’s degree or more. For Hispanic families, youth educational aspirations (not

maternal aspirations for her child) were predictive of youth educational attainment.

62

The exploration of student aspirations and student educational attainment in a sample of

black, Hispanic and white, native-born U.S. adolescents contributed to two areas in educational

literature. First, these findings contradict studies which question the validity of the aspirations

black youth report compared to their white peers, as black students are found to report higher or

equally high aspirations than their white peers yet have lower levels of academic achievement

(see Downey, Ainsworth, & Qian, 2009, for discussions). Further, this study also contributed to

literature by exploring the relationships between youth aspirations and attainment in a diverse

sample of adolescents who all were born in the United States. Currently, limited research exists

which explores these relationships in samples of American-born Hispanic students and their

families. Contrary to literature focusing on immigrant students and their families (e.g., Kao, 2007;

Kao & Tienda, 1998), this study found Hispanic students reported high educational aspirations,

and aspirations similar to their black and white peers. Thus suggesting researchers should pay

mind to the immigration status of their samples, particularly as youth aspirations and the returns

these aspirations bring to the educational attainment of Hispanic youth may vary depending upon

when their families immigrated to the United States.

In this study, whether explored in the full sample, or by student race/ethnicity youth

educational aspirations were positively linked to the overall educational attainment of students,

ranging from the odds they will earn their high school credentials ‘on time,’ to enroll in college,

or attain their Bachelor’s degree or more. Perhaps as youth educational aspirations are increasing

for recent cohorts of youth so too may the potential positive implications these aspirations may

have on youth educational attainment. Or perhaps, compared to students of the same

race/ethnicity, students with higher educational aspirations do indeed reach higher levels of

attainment compared to their peers with lower educational aspirations. Whatever the case, parallel

to Downey and colleagues’ (2009) study, the current study found that high educational aspirations

are associated with positive returns to educational attainment for black, white and Hispanic

63

students. Thus, this paper reinforces the importance a student’s own educational aspirations may

have for their later educational attainment, and this study casts doubt on the allegations that

returns to positive aspirations may not exist for all students.

In keeping with this study’s theme of racial/ethnic similarities rather than differences, this

study did not find evidence for an intergenerational narrative of educational aspirations driving

the educational attainment of black, Hispanic or white students. While the aspirations white

mother’s reported holding for their children were positively associated with the educational

attainment of their offspring, the maternal aspirations of black mothers reported were only

significantly related with the highest level of educational attainment for black youth. Further, the

educational aspirations women of all races reported, as adolescents did not emerge as a driving

factor for the educational attainment of their offspring. It is possible that an intergenerational

narrative does exist, and this narrative relates to increasing levels of youth educational attainment

across generations. Yet, through the measures employed in this paper, there does not appear to be

any significant association between the aspirations women held in adolescence prior to

motherhood and their child’s later academic success. While there is no evidence of a positive

association between women’s adolescent aspirations and their offspring’s later educational

attainment, we can at least feel relief that there is not a negative association potentially driving

racial or ethnic gaps in education for future generations.

The next set of analyses in the second study explored whether youth behavior, such as

time youth spent on homework or reports of truancy, explained (a) the associations between

measures of educational aspirations and youth educational attainment and (b) if these

relationships varied by student/race ethnicity, as racial/ethnic gaps in youth educational

attainment persist over time (Tienda, 2013). When I explored whether measures of youth

behavior explained the relationships between youth and maternal educational aspirations and

attainment for white students, and the youth aspirations of black and Hispanic students,

64

similarities rather than differences emerged. Specifically, in all samples neither measure of youth

behavior mediated the association between measures of educational aspirations and the odds the

youth earned their high school credentials ‘on time.’ The good news is that disparities in youth

educational attainment do not appear to be related to differential levels of the time youth spend on

homework or their reports of truancy. However, as we know these gaps in educational attainment

exist, more work will have to explore what is driving racial and ethnic gaps in education, as well

as what student behaviors serve as a mechanism between youth aspirations and attainment.

Conclusions and implications for youth attainment

Potentially the increasing levels of youth educational aspirations may have positive

implications for the educational attainment of students. Combining the findings from both papers,

I see (1) recent cohorts of students have high aspirations, even higher than the aspirations their

mother’s reported as adolescents and (2) higher youth aspirations are positively associated with

youth educational attainment, and this is consistent for white, black and Hispanic students. This is

great news as overall median earnings increase and unemployment levels decrease as an

individual’s level of educational attainment increases (BLS, 2013). Further, as individual’s

employment and income increases, their odds of living in poverty (and the risks associated with

poverty) decrease (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013), thus providing benefits to other domains of

individual and familial well-being. However, one substantial concern remains. Rates of youth

educational attainment and graduation are not the same for white, black and Hispanic students, or

students coming from lower and higher-SES households (maternal educational attainment is used

as a proxy for household SES in this paper).

While youth aspirations may be a potential lever for increasing the educational

enrollment and attainment of all groups of students, it is not likely the most efficient mechanism.

65

Intervention and other empirical literature suggest that the high aspirations students’ hold may not

be enough for them to achieve their goals. One intervention found the rates of misinformation

related to the costs of college as well as potential funding opportunities are remarkably high

among populations of low-income families and students (Bettinger, Long, Oreopoulos, &

Sanbonmatsu, 2012). Therfore many students who are qualified to apply for and enroll in college

may avoid doing so as they are unaware of current sources of financial aid that are available to

them. A study by Roderick and colleagues (2011) found that the school context also plays an

important role in the post-secondary educational attainment of graduating students. The authors

found qualities and characteirstics of the school environment (such as student services, guidance

and support) play a significant role in helping the students who had high aspirations and high

academic skills to apply for and attend college. Therefore, although their high aspirations may not

hurt their chances for reaching higher levels of educational attainment, in order for students in the

two studies of this dissertation to reach their goals, they would need more from their families and

schools than just positive orientations or encouragement.

Additionally other literature finds that many recent high school graduates are not

prepared for the coursework of their post-secondary education programs, and must spend the first

few semesters in remedial classes reinforcing concepts they should have mastered in high school

(see, Attewell, Lavin, Domina, & Levey, 2006). Likely these remedial courses ultimately increase

student frustration and the costs of college, as students spend more time away from coursework

they might find conceptually exciting, or necessary to complete their training. Thus it is

potentially no wonder that the dropout or ‘stop-out,’ rates of students enrolled in such background

coursework are higher than students who begin college with the necessary skills (Adelman 2004;

Deli-Amen & Rosenbaum 2002; Symonds, Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011). These studies point to

the importance that the quality, services, and resources of earlier learning contexts (such as in

grades K- 12) have for the later educational success of students.

66

In conclusion, the current dissertation suggests that despite the leaks that are currently

present in the U.S. educational pipeline, students today have high educational aspirations. These

high student aspirations are promising as additionally this dissertation found that high student

aspirations were met with positive returns to the educational attainment of white, black and

Hispanic students. Yet, in order to begin to close the race/ethnic or even socio-economic

educational attainment gaps, it is time that we begin to pair student aspirations with the

appropriate levels of educational and financial support. It may be that only by properly

reinforcing the high goals of low-income students, first-generation college-bound students, and

black and Hispanic students, with student services and higher quality educational experiences that

the educational attainment gap may become ‘mind over matter.’

67

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75

Appendix A

Tables and Figures

Figure 1. Educational aspirations by generation

6

41

20

25

8

3

20

9

42

26

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Less than High School

High School Diploma/

GED

Some College

Bachelor's Degree

More than a Bachelor's

Degree

Per

cent


Generation 1 mothers

Generation 2 youth

76

Table 2-1. Analytic sample descriptive statistics

Full analytic

sample

Maternal educational attainment at child’s birth

Less

than high school

High school

diploma/GED

Some

college or more

G2 adolescent aspirations

Less than high school 3% 5% 3% b 1% b

High school diploma/ GED 20% 40% 21% b 9% bc

Some college / other training 9% 10% 11% 7% bc

Attain Bachelor’s degree 42% 29% 41% b 48% bc

More than a Bachelor’s 26% 16% 24% b 35% bc

G1 adolescent aspirations

Less than high school 6% 34% 2% b 1% bc

High school diploma/ GED 41% 52% 59% 9% bc

Some college / other training 20% 7% 21% b 24% bc

Bachelor’s degree or more 33% 7% 18% b 66% bc

G1 aspirations for child

Less than high school 1% 4% 1% b 1% bc

High school diploma/GED 14% 36% 15% b 4% bc

Some college / other training 21% 22% 26% 13% bc

Bachelor’s degree or more 64% 38% 58% b 83% bc

G2 covariates

Gender (female) 49% 46% 50% 50%

Race/ethnicity

White a 77% 62% 78% b 83% bc

Black 16% 22% 15% 13% c

Hispanic 7% 16% 7% b 4% bc

PIAT math skills 103.04(13.21) 95.87 (12.81) 102.66 (12.40) 108.07 (12.63) c

Special education 7% 10% 7% 6%

Was held back by 8th grade 13% 27% 13% b 4% bc

Number of siblings 1.86 (1.32) 2.47 (1.81) 1.75 (1.18) b 1.73 (1.17) b

77

Proportion of years from child birth to 13

Poverty (< 100% FPL) 0.22 (0.32) 0.53 (0.36) 0.23 (0.32) 0.07 (0.18) bc

G1 unemployed 0.38 (0.31) 0.59 (0.28) 0.37 (0.29) 0.31 (0.32) b

HOME-SF percentile score

Cognitive stimulation 51.08 (23.33) 36.73 (25.63) 50.67 (22.84) 57.90 (19.84) bc

Emotional support 49.68 (24.32) 41.01 (25.12) 48.70 (24.25) 54.95 (22.77) b

G1 covariates at child’s

birth

Age 25.00 (3.65) 22.85 (3.65) 24.37 (3.47) 26.87 (3.03) bc

Educational attainment

Less than high school 15% 100% -- --

High school diploma/ GED a 50% -- 100% --

Some college or more 34% -- -- 100%

Marital status

Married a 75% 52% 73% b 87% bc

Not married 25% 48% 27% b 33% bc

G1 covariates

AFQT cognitive skills 43.17 (27.07) 18.22 (16.32) 37.79 (22.29) b 61.40 (25.12) bc

Unweighted nG2 3198 639 1591 968

Note. Weighted descriptives are presented using the population sampling weight Y2615900. G2= Generation 2, G1=

Generation 1, GED = General Educational Development, PIAT = Peabody Individual Achievement Test total standard score,

FPL = Federal Poverty Line, HOME-SF= Home Observation Measure of the Environment- Short Form, AFQT = Armed

Forces Qualification Test.

a Reference category in the multivariate regression models.

b Significantly different from less than high school group (p <.05).

c Significantly different from high school group (p< .05).

78 Table 2-2. Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [95% CI] of intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations in full sample

G2 aspires to complete some

college or more vs. high school/ <

high school

G2 aspires to attain a bachelor’s

degree or more vs. some college

G2 aspires to attain more than a

bachelor’s degree vs. a

bachelor’s degree

Model 1a Model 2 b Model 1a Model 2 Model 1a Model 2 b

G1 adolescent aspirations 1.55 (0.08) ***

[1.41, 1.71]

1.04 (0.06)

[0.93, 1.17]

1.32 (0.08) ***

[1.86, 1.18]

1.01 (0.08)

[0.86, 1.18]

1.17 (0.06)**

[1.06, 1.29]

1.09 (0.07)

[0.96, 1.23]

G1 aspirations for child --- 1.67 (0.10) ***

[1.48, 1.89]

--- 1.50 (0.13) ***

[1.27, 1.77]

--- 1.30 (0.10) **

[1.11, 1.52]

G2 covariates

Gender (female) --- 1.28 (0.12) **

[1.07, 1.54]

--- 1.16 (0.15)

[0.90, 1.50]

--- 1.45 (0.14) ***

[1.20, 1.75]

Race/ethnicity

White --- --- --- --- --- ---

Black --- 1.24 (0.17)

[0.94, 1.62]

--- 1.37 (0.27)

[0.93, 2.01]

--- 1.16 (0.17)

[0.86, 1.55]

Hispanic --- 1.31 (0.18) *

[1.00, 1.72]

--- 0.94 (0.16)

[0.67, 1.31]

--- 1.03 (0.15)

[0.77, 1.37]

PIAT math skills --- 1.03 (0.00) ***

[1.02, 1.03]

--- 1.01 (0.01)

[1.00 1.03]

--- 1.01 (0.00) *

[1.00, 1.02]

79

Special education --- 0.86 (0.14)

[0.63, 1.18]

--- 0.95 (0.24)

[0.57, 1.56]

--- 1.13 (0.24)

[0.74, 1.72]

Held back by 8th grade --- 0.65 (0.08) **

[0.51, 0.83]

--- 0.99 (0.20)

[0.67, 1.47]

--- 0.87 (0.15)

[0.62, 1.22]

Number of siblings --- 1.01 (0.04)

[0.94, 1.08]

--- 1.03 (0.05)

[0.93, 1.14]

--- 0.96 (0.04)

[0.88, 1.04]

Proportion of years birth to 13:

Poverty (< 100% FPL) --- 0.62 (0.13) *

[0.41, 0.93]

--- 0.70 (0.20)

[0.40, 1.23]

--- 1.46 (0.34)

[0.92, 2.31]

G1 unemployed --- 1.35 (0.27)

[0.91, 2.01]

--- 1.10 (0.27)

[0.68, 1.79]

--- 0.99 (0.19)

[0.67, 1.45]

HOME- SF score:

Cognitive stimulation --- 1.00 (0.00)

[0.99, 1.00]

--- 1.01 (0.00)

[1.00, 1.01]

--- 1.00 (0.00)

[0.99, 1.00]

Emotional support --- 1.00 (0.00)

[1.00, 1.00]

--- 1.00 (0.00)

[0.99, 1.00]

--- 1.00 (0.00) *

[1.00, 1.01]

G1 covariates at child’s birth

Age 1.03 (0.01) *

[1.01, 1.06]

1.02 (0.02)

[0.98, 1.06]

1.02 (0.01)

[0.99, 1.05]

Education:

80

Less than high school --- 0.69 (0.09) **

[0.54, 0.89]

--- 0.97 (0.18)

[0.68, 1.39]

--- 1.03 (0.1)

[0.74, 1.44]

High school diploma/ GED --- --- --- --- --- ---

Some college or more --- 1.18 (0.16)

[0.91, 1.54]

--- 1.41 (0.26)

[0.98, 2.02]

--- 1.05 (0.13)

[0.83, 1.34]

Marital status:

Married --- --- --- --- --- ---

Not married --- 1.02 (0.12)

[0.81, 1.29]

--- 0.78 (0.13)

[0.56, 1.09]

--- 1.06 (0.13)

[0.83, 1.36]

G1 covariate

AFQT cognitive skills --- 1.00 (0.00)

[1.00, 1.01]

1.00 (0.00)

[0.99, 1.00]

1.00 (0.00)

[1.00, 1.01]

Unweighted nG2 3,037 2,369 2,091

Note. * p< .05, ** p<. 01, *** p<.001.

CI = Confidence Interval, G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, GED = General Educational Development, PIAT = Peabody Individual Achievement Test total standard score,

FPL = Federal Poverty Line, HOME-SF= Home Observation Measure of the Environment- Short Form, AFQT = Armed Forces Qualification Test.

a Model 1: Regress G1 adolescent aspirations on G2 youth aspirations.

b Model 2: Model 1 + G1 aspirations for child + covariates on G2 youth aspirations.

81 Table 2-3. Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [95% CI] of intergenerational transmission of educational aspiration by maternal education attainment

G2 aspires to complete some college or

more

vs.

high school/ less than high school

G2 aspires to attain a Bachelor’s

degree or more

vs.

some college

G2 aspires to attain more than a

Bachelor’s degree

vs.

a Bachelor’s degree

Model 1a Model 2 b Model 1a Model 2 b Model 1a Model 2 b

Panel A: Mothers with less than a high school education

G1 youth aspirations 1.19 (0.13)

[0.96, 1.48]

1.17 (0.13)

[0.95, 1.45]

1.02 (0.15)

[0.76, 1.36]

0.92 (0.14)

[0.68, 1.26]

1.09 (0.18)

[0.79, 1.51]

1.05 (0.19)

[0.73, 1.50]

G1 aspirations for child 1.43 (0.15) **

[1.16, 1.77]

1.11 (0.18)

[0.82, 1.52]

1.07 (0.18)

[0.78, 1.48]

Unweighted nG2 639 349 227

Panel B: Mothers with high school diploma/ GED

G1 youth aspirations 1.17 (0.09) **

[1.01, 1.34]

1.03 (0.08)

[0.89, 1.21]

0.98 (0.09)

[0.81, 1.18]

0.90 (0.09)

[0.74, 1.10]

1.08 (0.09)

[0.92, 1.26]

1.09 (0.09)

0.92, 1.29]

G1 aspirations for child 1.74 (0.15) ***

[1.47, 2.07]

1.61 (0.16) ***

[1.32, 1.97]

1.33 (0.14) **

[1.08, 1.64]

Unweighted nG2 1,591 1,198 1,025

Panel C: Mothers who completed some college or more

G1 youth aspirations 1.09 (0.015) 0.88 (0.13) 1.58 (0.24) ** 1.47 (0.24) * 1.19 (0.13) 1.21 (0.14)

82

[0.83, 1.44] [0.65, 1.18] [1.18, 2.03] [1.06, 2.03] [0.96, 1.47] [0.97, 1.53]

G1 aspirations for child 2.04 (0.32) ***

[1.50, 2.78]

2.01 (0.46) **

[1.28, 3.16]

1.41 (0.30) *

[1.02, 2.24]

Unweighted nG2 968 838 769

Note. * p< .05, ** p<. 01, *** p<.001.

CI = Confidence Interval, G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, GED = General Educational Development.

a Model 1: Regress G1 youth aspirations on G2 youth aspirations.

b Model 2: Model 1 + G1 aspirations for child + covariates on G2 youth aspirations.

83

Table 3-1. Descriptive Statistics of dependent, independent and mediating variables for full sample and by race/ethnicity.

Full analytic

sample

Race/ Ethnicity

White Black Hispanic

G2 educational attainment

High school diploma/GED ‘on time’ 79% 83% 67% a 68% a

Enrolled in college 58% 61% 52% a 47% a

Earned bachelor’s degree or more 19% 22% 10% a 9% a

G2 youth aspirations

Less than high school 4% 3% 5% 4%

High school diploma/GED 17% 16% 22% a 18%

Some college/other training 10% 10% 10% 14%

Attain bachelor’s degree 42% 43% 37% 40% a

More than a bachelor’s 27% 28% 26% 25%

G1 youth aspirations

Less than high school 8% 8% 6% a, b 12%

84

High school diploma/GED 46% 46% 47% 48% a

Some college/other training 20% 20% 18% a, b 21%

Attain bachelor’s degree 21% 21% 21% b 16% a

More than a bachelor’s 5% 5% 8% a, b 3%

G1 aspirations for child

Less than high school 1% 1% 2% 2%

High school diploma/GED 17% 15% 23% a 24% a

Some college/other training 22% 23% 20% 24%

Attain bachelor’s degree 46% 47% 41% a 38% a

More than a bachelor’s 14% 14% 14% 12%

G2 high school engagement/disengagement (16 – 18 years)

G2 engaged in homework (hrs/week) 7.81 (7.53) 8.19 (7.65) 6.51 (6.81) a 6.89 (7.55) a

G2 skipped school 33% 33% 29% b 50% a

Unweighted nG2 1660 734 589 337

Note. Weighted descriptives are presented using the population sampling weight Y2615900. G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1

a Significantly different from white (p <.05).

b Significantly different from Hispanic (p< .05).

85

Table 3-2. Descriptive statistics of all covariates in full analytic sample and by race/ethnicity.

Full analytic

sample

Race/ Ethnicity

White Black Hispanic

G2 characteristics

G2 gender (female) 49% 49% 52% c 45%

G2 race/ethnicity

White a 76% 100% --- ---

Black 17% --- 100% ---

Hispanic 7% --- --- 100%

PIAT math skills 102.14 (12.93) 104.01 (12.32) 95.69 (12.64) b 97.30 (13.91) b

Special education 6% 5% 11% c 4%

Was held back by 8th grade 13% 10% 24% b 22% a

Number of siblings 1.82 (1.23) 1.71 (1.12) 2.15 (1.46) b 2.29 (1.50) b

Negative peer pressures at 0.14 (0.17) 0.13 (0.16) 0.15 (0.20) a, b 0.14 (0.17)

Proportion of years from child birth to 13 years

Poverty (< 100% FPL) 0.26 (0.33) 0.20 (0.29) 0.50 (0.37) b, c 0.36 (0.37) b

86

G1 unemployed 0.41 (0.30) 0.40 (0.29) 0.46 (0.32) b 0.46 (0.33) b

HOME-SF percentile score birth to 5 years

Cognitive stimulation 50.76 (23.95) 54.97 (22.12) 36.43 (24.51) b 37.34 (24.58) b

Emotional support 50.92 (24.57) 54.32 (23.80) 36.33 (22.38) b, c 46.43 (24.99) b

G1 characteristics

G1 age at child’s birth 22.68 (2.95) 22.88 (2.93) 21.88 (2.86) b, c 22.35 (3.06) b

G1 attainment at child’s birth

Less than high school 20% 18% 25% b 35% b

High school diploma/GED a 57% 59% 52% b 48% b

Some college or more 23% 24% 23% 17% b

G1 marital status at child’s birth

Married a 70% 79% 31% b, c 69% b

Not married 30% 21% 69% b, c 31% b

G1 AFQT cognitive skills 39.78 (25.83) 46.15 (25.01) 18.51 (14.95) b, c 22.36 (18.89) b

Unweighted nG2 1660 734 589 337

87

Note. Weighted descriptives are presented using the population sampling weight Y2615900. G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, GED = General Educational

Development, PIAT = Peabody Individual Achievement Test total standard score, FPL = Federal Poverty Line, HOME-SF= Home Observation Measure of the

Environment- Short Form, AFQT = Armed Forces Qualification Test.

a Reference category in the multivariate regression models.

b Significantly different from white (p <.05).

c Significantly different from Hispanic (p< .05).

88

Table 3-3. Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [95% CI] predicting youth educational attainment with educational aspirations.

G2 earned high school diploma/

GED ‘on time’

G2 enrolled in college G2 earned Bachelor’s degree or more

Odds Ratio (SE) 95% CI Odds Ratio (SE) 95% CI Odds Ratio (SE) 95% CI

Panel A: Full Sample (n= 1660)

G2 youth aspirations 1.34 (0.08) *** [1.19, 1.50] 1.39 (0.07) *** [1.26, 1.54] 1.39 (0.11) *** [1.19, 1.62]

G1 youth aspirations 0.92 (0.07) [0.79, 1.07] 1.08 (0.07) [0.94, 1.23] 0.92 (0.10) [0.75, 1.13]

G1 aspirations for child 1.19 (0.09) * [1.03, 1.37] 1.32 (0.09) *** [1.16, 1.50] 1.56 (0.17)*** [1.26, 1.94]

Panel B: White (n= 734)

G2 youth aspirations 1.36 (0.14) ** [1.12, 1.66] 1.47 (0.12) *** [1.25, 1.73] 1.44 (0.17) ** [1.15, 1.81]


G1 aspirations for child 1.36 (0.19) * [1.03, 1.78] 1.60 (0.19) *** [1.24, 1.98] 1.55 (0.24) ** [1.14, 2.08]

Panel C: Black (n= 589)

G2 youth aspirations 1.28 (0.12) ** [1.07, 1.53] 1.36 (0.11) *** [1.15, 1.60] 1.35 (0.22) [0.98, 1.85]


G1 aspirations for child 1.16 (0.14) [0.92, 1.47] 1.07 (0.11) [0.88, 1.31] 2.00 (0.49) ** [1.24, 3.21]

Panel D: Hispanic (n= 337)

G2 youth aspirations 1.39 (0.18) * [1.07, 1.80] 1.32 (0.16) * [1.04, 1.68] 1.75 (0.47) * [1.03, 2.97]


G1 aspirations for child 0.95 (0.14) [072, 1.26] 1.31 (0.18) [0.99, 1.72] 1.32 (0.36) [0.77, 2.24]

Note. * p< .05, ** p<. 01, *** p<.001, All models include all child and maternal covariates listed in Table 2.

G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, SE = Standard error. CI = Confidence Interval.

89

Table 3-4. Testing mediation for high school engagement and disengagement in white sample.

Panel A: Testing high school engagement as a mediator between aspirations and G2 earned a high school diploma/GED ‘on time’

G2 earned high school

diploma/GED ‘on time’

High school

engagement





Model 1 a Model 2 b Model 3 a Model 4 a

G2 youth aspirations 1.35 (0.14) ** [1.11, 1.64] 0.79 (0.24) ** [0.32, 1.25] --- --- 1.36 (0.14) ** [1.11, 1.65]

G1 aspirations for child 1.34 (0.19) * [1.02, 1.76] 1.06 (0.36) ** [0.35, 1.77] --- --- 1.35 (0.19) * [1.01, 1.75]

Engagement

Hours/ Week on H.W. --- --- --- --- 1.01 (0.02) [0.97, 1.04] 0.99 (0.02) [0.96, 1.03]

Disengagement

G2 skipped school 0.66 (0.16) [0.41, 1.05] -0.27 (0.58) [-1.40, 0.86] 0.62 (0.15) * [0.39, 0.98] 0.65 (0.16) [0.41, 1.04]

Panel B: Testing high school disengagement as a mediator between aspirations and G2 earned a high school diploma/GED ‘on time’



High school

disengagement





Model 1 a Model 2 a Model 3 a Model 4 a

G2 youth aspirations 1.37 (0.14) ** [1.12, 1.67] 0.94 (0.08) [0.79, 1.12] --- --- 1.36 (0.14) ** [1.12, 1.65]

G1 aspirations for child 1.35 (0.19) * [1.02, 1.78] 0.87 (0.10) [0.69, 1.08] --- --- 1.35 (0.19) * [1.02, 1.77]

Engagement

Hours/ Week on H.W. 0.99 (0.02) [0.96, 1.03] 0.99 (0.01) [0.97, 1.02] 1.01 (0.02) [0.97, 1.04] 0.99 (0.02) [0.96, 1.03]

Disengagement

G2 skipped school --- --- --- --- 0.62 (0.15) * [0.39, 0.98] 0.65 (0.16) [0.41, 1.04]

Note. * p< .05, ** p<. 01, *** p<.001, G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, GED = General Educational Development, H.W. = Homework.

90

a Adjusted odds ratios (standard error) [confidence interval]

b Unstandardized beta (standard error) [confidence interval]

Model 1: Educational attainment regressed on educational aspirations + covariates.

Model 2: Mediator regressed on educational aspirations + covariates.

Model 3: Educational attainment regressed on mediator + covariates.

Model 4: Educational attainment regressed on educational aspirations + mediator + covariates.

91 Table 3-5. Testing mediation for high school engagement and disengagement in black sample.

Panel A: Testing high school engagement as a mediator between aspirations and G2 earned a high school diploma/GED ‘on time’



High school

engagement






G2 youth aspirations 1.30 (0.12) ** [1.08, 1.55] 0.07 (0.25) [-0.40, 0.55] --- --- 1.29 (0.12) ** [1.08, 1.55]

Engagement

Hours/ Week on H.W. --- --- --- --- 1.02 (0.02) [0.99, 1.06] 1.02 (0.02) [0.99, 1.06]

Disengagement

G2 skipped school 0.63 (0.15) [0.39, 1.00] 0.72 (0.70) [-0.66, 2.10] 0.63 (0.15) [0.40, 0.99] 0.62 (0.15) * [0.39, 0.99]

Panel B: Testing high school disengagement as a mediator between aspirations and G2 earned a high school diploma/GED ‘on time’



High school

disengagement





Model 1 a Model 2 a Model 3 a Model 4 a

G2 youth aspirations 1.29 (0.12) ** [1.08, 1.53] 1.01 (0.08) [0.87, 1.18] --- --- 1.29 (0.12) ** [1.08, 1.55]

Engagement

Hours/ Week on H.W. 1.02 (0.02) [0.98, 1.06] 1.02 (0.01) [0.99, 1.04] 1.02 (0.02) [0.99, 1.06] 1.02 (0.02) [0.99, 1.06]

Disengagement

92

G2 skipped school --- --- --- --- 0.63 (0.15)* [0.40, 0.99] 0.62 (0.15) * [0.39, 0.99]

Note. * p< .05, ** p<. 01, *** p<.001, G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, GED = General Educational Development, H.W. = Homework.







93

Table 3-6. Testing mediation for high school engagement and disengagement in Hispanic sample.

Panel A: Testing high school engagement as a mediator between aspirations and G2 earned a high school diploma/GED ‘on time’ G2 earned high school

diploma/GED ‘on time’ High school engagement

G2 earned high school diploma/GED ‘on time’



G2 youth aspirations 1.36 (0.18) * [1.05, 1.76] 0.67 (0.32) * [0.03, 1.30] --- --- 1.32 (0.18) * [1.02, 1.71] Engagement

Hours/ Week on H.W. --- --- --- --- 1.06 (0.03) * [1.01, 1.12] 1.06 (0.03) [1.00, 1.12] Disengagement

G2 skipped school 0.48 (0.15) * [0.26, 0.89] -0.39 (0.80) [-1.98, 1.19] 0.48 (0.15) * [0.26, 0.89] 0.49 (0.16) * [0.26, 0.93] Panel B: Testing high school disengagement as a mediator between aspirations and G2 earned a high school diploma/GED ‘on time’


High school disengagement

G2 enrolled in college G2 earned high school diploma/GED ‘on time’

Model 1 a Model 2 a Model 3 a Model 4 a G2 youth aspirations 1.35 (0.18) * [1.04, 1.75] 0.86 (0.09) [0.70, 1.07] --- --- 1.32 (0.18) * [1.02, 1.71] Engagement

Hours/ Week on H.W. 1.06 (0.03) * [1.00, 1.12] 0.99 (0.02) [0.96, 1.02] 1.06 (0.03) * [1.01, 1.12] 1.06 (0.03) [1.00, 1.12] Disengagement

G2 skipped school --- --- --- --- 0.48 (0.15) * [0.26, 0.89] 0.49 (0.16) * [0.26, 0.93] 1.35 (0.18) * [1.04, 1.75] 0.86 (0.09) [0.70, 1.07] --- --- 1.32 (0.18) * [1.02, 1.71]

Note. G2= Generation 2, G1= Generation 1, GED = General Educational Development, H.W. = Homework. * p< .05, ** p<. 01, *** p<.001







VITA

Emily Pressler

Education:

May 2014* Expected PhD, Human Development and Family Studies


May 2006 B.S., Psychology

Fordham University

Professional Position:

Aug 2009- Current Graduate Research Assistant

Department of Human Development and Family Studies


Publications:

Hernandez, D. C., & Pressler, E. (2014). Accumulation of childhood poverty on young adult weight

status: Race, ethnic, and gender disparities. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health,

e-pub.

Hernandez, D. C., Pressler, E., Dorius, C., & Stamps Mitchell, K. (2014). Does family instability

make girls fat? Gender differences between instability and weight. Journal of Marriage and

Family, 76, 175-190.

Hernandez, D. C. & Pressler, E. (2013). Maternal union transitions and household food insecurity:

Differences by race and ethnicity. Journal of Family Issues, 34, 373-393.

Raver, C. C., Jones, S. M., Li-Grining, C. P., Zhai, F., Bub, K., & Pressler, E. (2011). CSRP's impact

on low-income preschoolers' pre-academic skills: Self-regulation as a mediating mechanism.

Child Development, 82, 362-378.

mind over matter: intergenerational links to youth

Documents