The impact of mothers' adult learning on their children's academic performance at Key Stage 3: evidence from ALSPAC

This paper investigates whether the inter-generational benefits of parental adult education exist over and above the achievement of parental educational qualifications during schooling and whether returns to parental adult learning are greatest for children of parents with low levels of education. U...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inOxford review of education Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 485 - 504
Main Authors Sabates, Ricardo, Duckworth, Kathryn, Feinstein, Leon
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Routledge 01.08.2011
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Academic education
Adult Education
Adult learning
Adults
Andragogy
Child development
Children
Children & youth
Cognitive Development
Education
Educational Attainment
Educational Benefits
English
Evidence
Informal Education
Informal learning
Learning
Longitudinal Studies
Mathematics
Mothers
Parent educational background
Parents
Qualifications
Scores
Secondary School Students
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
United Kingdom > UK
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This paper investigates whether the inter-generational benefits of parental adult education exist over and above the achievement of parental educational qualifications during schooling and whether returns to parental adult learning are greatest for children of parents with low levels of education. Using data from the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, ALSPAC, results show that mothers' participation in adult education is not associated with improvements in their children's academic attainment in English and mathematics at age 14 once the previous parental academic qualifications are included. This lack of relationship was found for the overall sample, and for subgroups defined by the type of adult education (accredited, unaccredited or informal learning), the intensity of learning (duration and engagement) and by mothers' prior educational qualifications. Although our results suggest that maternal adult learning is not a key factor for improvement in children's test scores at age 14, further research is needed to investigate the role of parental adult learning at other stages of children's cognitive development.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0305-4985
1465-3915
DOI:10.1080/03054985.2011.601102