CHILDREN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Children Academic Achievement In Single Parent Households

Children Academic Achievement In Single Parent Households

Introduction

Children from single parent homes are not as negatively impacted academically as some in the popular media suggest. The number of children living in single-parent homes has risen dramatically over the last 10 years. Despite prior research stating that single-parenting itself has a negative impact on academic achievement, new findings show that it is other social and environmental factors that have a much greater impact. There are several theories that can be used to study the way family structure influences academic achievement, as well as to demonstrate the influence of other factors such as poverty and family resources. When these factors are more closely examined it is evident that within any family structure a lack of necessary financial and supportive resources will negatively affect children's academic achievement. As the number of both single and two-parent families living in poverty rises, this research is important in helping to develop an educational system in the United States that is both equal and effective for the growing changes in family demographics.

Discussion

Children from single parent homes are not as negatively impacted academically as some in the popular media suggest. Raising children without a partner presents many challenges, but there is research that points to strategies to mitigate these issues. Specifically in terms of children's academic achievement, studies show that it is other social and environmental factors, not single parenthood itself, which accounts for the achievement gap between children from single-parent homes and their peers from nuclear families.

Single parenthood is not a source of drawback but research on children's academic outcomes has proved to be the other way round (Olson et al.,1993). In an Atlantic magazine article entitled “Dan Quayle was right,” Whitehead (1993, p.77) viewed the family breakdown connected with the rise in single parent households as “a central cause of many of our most vexing social problems.”

Evidence from the study conducted by Dornsbusch et al. (1985) indicated that absences and behaviour problems in school are affected by the family structure. Family structure (number of parents and number of siblings) is also said to influence student academic achievement (Manning, 1998; Pong, 1997, 1998). Social psychologists like Sewell and Hauser (1980) believed that social processes in the home is concerned with the family's influence on the child's academic behaviours as parental expectations, parenting styles or parent-child communication. Adolescents who live in single parent households have lower grades than those living in intact families (Dornbusch et al., 1987).

Kinard and Reinherz (1984) found that third grade children who live with disrupted families had more attentive problems at school as compared to those who live with never-disrupted families or families that were disrupted when the child was in preschool. The impact of divorce influences the child's ability to attend school-related tasks. Roberts (1987) claimed that the separation or divorce of their parents leads to a loss of self esteem and rejection by one parent. The school work and behaviour of the children ...