Financial Capital explanation for educational disadvantages?
Parents with higher incomes have more resources to meet children’s cognitive development needs
Cultural Capital explanation for educational disadvantages?
Parents with higher incomes are more likely to make a greater investment in their child’s education
What was Rippeyoung’s new explanation for educational disadvantages?
Physiological capital (not her term)- Breastfeeding could explain these gaps in intellectual ability, due to correlations between breastfeeding and IQ
What were Rippeyoung’s 2 hypotheses?
Breastfeeding Advocate (Breastfeeding itself can reduce poverty gaps) and Spurious Effect (There is another factor going on: Rich educational Environment)
Dependent variable? How was it measured?
Cognitive skills measured w/ Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (what words can children understand and link with pictures?)
Independent Variable?
Poverty (3 categories: poor, near-poor, non-poor)
Mediating Variables?
Breastfeeding (how long did mothers breastfeed?) and Educational Richness
How did they measure Educational Richness (4)?
- Child involvement in cognitively stimulating activities
- How often either parents read aloud to the child or listened to them read
- Highest level of education of Person Most Knowledgeable (typically mother)
- Positive Parenting
Control Variables?
Gender (girls), Age of mother at child’s birth, occupation of PMK, family structure,
Univariate results?
Of Canadian children born in 2006, Most were non poor, then near poor, then least were poor
Is there difference in breastfeeding and poverty? What were Rippenyoung’s conclusions?
Not really… An educationally rich home environment is the most important factor. But, we don’t know the why/the mechanism. However, we know that Poverty is a major predictor of a cognitive skill gap
What were the bivariate results of poverty on breastfeeding?
In the less than 3 months category, Poor mothers were most likely group. But no other consistent correlations
Focus of this Module?
To understand:
-Early childhood origins of class privilege in education
-The relationship between university graduates family background and likelihood of graduating
2 existing explanations of poverty’s negative correlation with intellectual ability?
Financial and Cultural Capital
What was a factor positively correlated to poverty?
Number of siblings
Summarize the Bivariate results
As household income rises, so does:
-Child’s PPVT test results.
-Likelihood of breastfeeding for longer periods.
-Educational richness of the home environment.
-Likelihood of parents being married and both being present in the home.
-Age of mother at birth of child.
Which of Rippeyoung’s hypothesis won?
Spurious effect (no statistically significant differences in the rates of breastfeeding between the three economic groups)
Maximally maintained Inequality
Inflation of credentials, so that access to higher jobs require more educational re
Effectively maintained inequality
A university degree from a more prestigious school will benefit one more than a degree from a less prestigious school
Zarifa Study
examines who attends graduate and professional degrees 5 years after bachelors
Questions
- What is the impact of SES, gender, race or age on one’s likelihood of obtaining a grad degree?
- Do academic environments minimize the effects of social origins on completing a grad degree?
2 hypotheses in Zarifas study
Reproduction of inequality (advantaged backgrounds
Liberation from social origins
Variables of Zarifas study
Dependent: participation in a form of grad school
Independent: Family background
Mediating: measures of ability
control: socio-demographic variables
Parental impact on grad degree
If one’s parent’s have a graduate degree, you are more likely to pursue one as well
