Master s Thesis of Marloes de Lange. Research Master Social Cultural Science

Transcription

1 Family Forms and Children s Educational Performance in a Cross Comparative Perspective: Effects of School s Resources and Family Policies of Modern Societies Master s Thesis of Marloes de Lange Research Master Social Cultural Science Supervisors: dr. Maarten Wolbers (Radboud University Nijmegen) prof. dr. Jaap Dronkers (European University Institute) Radboud University Nijmegen, August, 2008

2 Acknowledgements Many times, writing this thesis, I wondered how it would feel finishing it, and, above all, how it would feel to complete five very enjoyable and fruitful years of studying Sociology in Nijmegen. Finally, I know the answer: it feels great! Starting my studies in September 2003, I never imagined how much I would enjoy 'Sociology' as I do now. Throughout the years, I discovered the many interesting opportunities it offers for scientific research and it made me realize how important this is for society. Therefore, I am happy to complete my studies now, and, at the same time, to continue as a PhDresearcher. Many different people have contributed to the successful completion of my studies, and, obviously, I am grateful to all of them. Many thanks I owe to both my supervisors, Jaap Dronkers and Maarten Wolbers. Jaap, the time I spent in Florence was not only wonderful because of the great environment, the nice weather and the delicious Italian pasta, but especially because of the pleasure of working together with you. Your great enthusiasm for sociological research kind of 'infected' me and I really appreciate the positive way you always approach students. Often, you have told me that once you are in the Dronkers circle, it would be hard to get out. It is definitely true, but fortunately I never regretted this: I am happy that you have always inspired me and that we are still working together. Maarten, when you joined the Department of Sociology in Nijmegen, about a year ago, I was pleased to know that it would be someone specialized in my favourite field of sociology, i.e. inequalities in education and the labour market. As the supervisor of my Master s thesis we got to know each other, but it took quite a long time for me to actually start writing this thesis, and I imagine it must have been hard for you to evaluate my qualities then. That is why I particularly appreciate your trust in me and the fact that you have selected me as the PhD candidate for your research project. Even though I just mentioned that it feels great to complete my studies, it feels even better to know that, actually, I am just at the beginning now, and I really look forward to continue working together with you. Moreover, I want to thank all the other members of the Department of Sociology and the Department of Social Science Research Methodology for the good education and assistance they offered, during the last five years. It feels good that I can be part of a department with people like these, at least for the next four years. In particular, I would like to mention Wout Ultee for being such an inspiring professor and because of his never ending enthusiasm towards students. Also Paul de Graaf and Rob Eisinga I would like to thank for the great assistance they offered as head of our Research Master. Not only teachers, but also students determine to a great extent the ambiance of education. Especially the last two years, it was really good to share knowledge and the sometimes high levels of stress and frustration with my colleague students in our hok in TvA More importantly, however, we had a lot of fun together too, which definitely made the last two years of studying much more pleasant.

3 Especially regarding the subject of my thesis, I cannot forget to thank my personal resources for all the love and support they have given me during my studies. My friends, I want to thank for their interest and understanding when I could not see them often enough, due to my bad planning sometimes. And I do not even need the results of my thesis, of course, to be convinced of the fact that a nice and stable home situation determines a child s educational performance to a great extent. But, mama, papa, Anne, Maike and Peter: working on this subject made me realize even more how lucky I am with you as my family. Finally, Daniël, without your love, attention, humour, encouragements and many more, the last six months would never have been that good as they were now. To put it very briefly: I am just very happy you are there! Marloes de Lange Nijmegen, August 2008

4 Contents 1 Introduction Families and the Rise of New Family Forms Negative Consequences of Growing up with a Single Parent Loss of Financial Resources Loss of Cultural Resources Loss of Social Resources Variation between Countries Variation between Schools Variation between Family Forms Problem Statement and Research Questions Scientific and Societal Relevance Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses Family Form and Children s Educational Performance Differences in Children s Educational Performance between Family Forms Differences between Schools and Countries? The Role of Family Resources Before and After Family Dissolution Financial Resources in the Family and Children s Educational Performance Cultural Resources and Children s Educational Performance Social Resources and Children s Educational Performance School Climate and Children s Educational Performance School s Composition of Children from Disrupted Families School s Composition of Single Parent Families and its Cultural Resources School s Proportion of Single Parent Families and its Social Resources National Family Policies and Children s Educational Performance Family Support Through Economic Assistance Family Support Through Social Security Family Support Through Child Care Family Support Through Promoting Labour Market Participation Data and Methods Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Sample Design Construction of Dependent Variables Reading Literacy Mathematical Literacy Construction of Independent Variables Student Level Variables School Level Variables Country Level Variables... 38

5 3.5 Construction of Control Variables Methods Analysis and Results Descriptive Analysis Reading Literacy Mathematical Literacy Conclusions and Discussion The Research Questions in Retrospect Family Form and Children s Educational Performance Explanation by Student, School and Country Characteristics? Variation Between Countries and Schools Explained? Some Critical Notes Future Research... 61

6 1 Introduction 1.1 Families and the Rise of New Family Forms Families fulfill an important function in every society: most of the children in developed countries grow up in a family, which is responsible for teaching them norms and values that are essential in life. Family forms the context in which a child develops by adopting social behaviour and its first attitudes. Generally, it provides the child with opportunities to develop into a stable and independent person, for example through enabling the child to attend school. The future success of children thus greatly depends on the household they grow up in. Nevertheless, a child is not in the position to choose its own family and has to accept it if its family is not capable of offering him or her the best opportunities. Traditionally, the word 'family' referred to a married couple with one or more children. Within this family, the father normally had to work to earn his bread, while the mother stayed at home to run the household and to take care of the children. This portrait of a family, also referred to as the traditional male breadwinner model (McDonald, 1997; Lewis, 2001), prevailed during the 1950s. At that time it was very common for young people to marry early and to have a lot of children quickly (Martin & Kats, 2003). Moreover, people hardly ever got a divorce, cohabitated or had children without being married. As a result, single parenthood was quite rare and in most cases it followed after the death of one of both parents. Especially poor widows could not often find a new husband and as a consequence, they hardly ever remarried. Poor widowers, on the other hand, did remarry quite often, since they usually had a job. Although nowadays many households still fit the description of the male breadwinner, female homemaker family, family structures have changed enormously during the later decades of the 20th century with the introduction of some new family forms (Martin & Kats, 2003). To a large extent, this change comes down to the fact that two parent families have made way for single parent families. This trend in family structures coincides with changes in other demographic aspects that occurred from the 1960s till the late 1980s in developed countries and that directly affected family composition. Together, these changes are also known as the Second Demographic Transition, a concept introduced by Ron Lesthaeghe and Dirk van de Kaa in 1986 (Sorrentino, 1990). First of all, the fertility rates dropped off in industrialized countries during this period, as women tended to have fewer children. Except for the baby boom after the Second World War, total fertility rates declined to below the level of 2.1 children per woman, which is the minimum level needed to replace population deaths. As a consequence of decreased fertility, family size became smaller. This enabled women to increase labour market participation, but it also implied fewer family members to take care of the young children. Another trend in the same developed countries could be observed towards lower marriage rates, combined with a rising trend in the age at first marriage. Countries only appeared to differ in the time the number of marriages started to decline. In addition, people not only tended to marry less often and marry at an older age, but also the divorce rates increased considerably because 5

7 of the liberalization of divorce laws, first in the United States and also later in Europe. In 1990 the chance to divorce from a first marriage was about one in two in the United States and about one in three to one in four in Europe. Furthermore, the number of births to unmarried women increased in developed countries, except in the case of Japan (Sorrentino, 1990; Martin & Kats, 2003). Altogether, the demographic trends explained above, i.e. the Second Demographic Transition, contributed to the rise of new family forms, especially to the rise of single parent families. Not only does this imply a growing number of mother headed households, but also more and more father headed families exist nowadays. In the Netherlands, for example, the number of households with only a father has increased by almost 36 percent between 1995 and 2007, i.e. from to The absolute number of households with only mothers exceeds the number of single fathers, but the number of single mothers has risen less quickly during the same period: from to , which is an increase of 25 percent. By way of comparison, the number of fathers within a two parent household (married or unmarried) decreased with 2.3 percent from to , whereas for mothers, the decrease is 2.1 percentage points, i.e. a decrease from to These numbers make clear that the single parent family is becoming a more common family form in society (CBS, 2007). But, not only the rise of the single parent family was a result of the Second Demographic Transition, also other family forms arose at the same time. Since more people decide to divorce today, many parents also remarry once or more, which results in a growing number of families including stepparents. And, apart from families with stepparents, other family members (e.g. grandparents) may belong to the household. As a consequence, many different family forms exist nowadays, besides the traditional two parent family. 1.2 Negative Consequences of Growing up with a Single Parent As a result of the growing number of divorces, decreasing marriage rates and increasing number of births outside marriage, every year many children are confronted with the negative effects of single parenthood, such as economic deprivation, a decrease in parental contact and an increase in stressful experiences (Amato & Keith, 1991). Not only divorce itself and the period following it engender negative experiences for children in disrupted families, but already before the divorce such families usually have to do with more conflicts, which is harmful to the child(ren). The amount of negative experiences after a divorce does furthermore differ between countries as divorce procedures differ between countries. For instance, the costs involved with divorce, the waiting times and the simplicity of getting a divorce determine the number of conflicts that arise after the divorce (Engelhardt, Trappe & Dronkers, 2002). Apart from the fact that the negative experiences associated with divorce themselves are very hurtful for a child, they all have something in common that is also extremely detrimental, i.e. the fact that the educational achievements of the child are likely to get worse, because of the loss of one parent from the family. This loss can be interpreted as a decrease 6

8 in the number of resources or capital a family has at its disposal, which can be globally divided into three different types of resources or capital: i.e. financial, cultural and social resources. The influence of family structures on children can be studied in various ways and within many different areas. In this research we will specifically focus on the influence of family form on educational performance of young children. In order to explain differences in school outcomes between children, we will follow previous scholars who have emphasized the importance of family background by focusing on the role of the three types of capital mentioned above Loss of Financial Resources McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) give an extensive description of the three types of resources (i.e. financial, cultural and social) that are important in explaining the impact of growing up with a single parent on children s chances of future success. Not only they explain how the different resources relate to different family forms, but they also clarify how the loss of capital actually affects children s school performances. First of all, the authors underline the importance of financial resources and the loss of income that generally goes together with family disruption. Although the high poverty rate of single parent families cannot be blamed entirely on family structure, as single women or single men might be poor already prior to the break up, still many of them become even poorer after a separation or divorce. This is due to the fact that from that moment two households need to be supported instead of only one and thus a lot of household expenses cannot be shared any longer. This is also called a loss of economies of scale. Moreover, this loss can be caused by the fact that total family income is often not distributed equally when parents live apart, because many nonresident fathers do not pay adequate child support. This implies that the economic status of divorced mothers usually declines after divorce, while the status of divorced fathers increases. The most direct effect of this loss of income on educational performance of children is the fact that the quality of the school they attend is generally lower. The higher the income of parents, the more possibilities they have to live in neighbourhoods with good public schools or to send their children to a private school of their preference. Accordingly, a lower income is usually associated with the attendance of a lower quality school. Income can also affect school outcomes in a different way, namely through enabling a child to participate in extracurricular activities, like lessons after school, special trips or summer camps. Such activities improve children s skills directly, but also indirectly via general intellectual stimulation, which affects subsequent learning (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994) Loss of Cultural Resources Not only a loss of financial resources, but also a loss of cultural resources is generally associated with divorce or separation. McLanahan & Sandefur (1994) refer to this as a loss of parental resources. Also this type of capital is required for children to do well at school and it mainly comprehends the time that parents spend with their children on reading, helping with their homework, or by listening to the stories about their experiences at school. Moreover, parental resources refer to the willingness and 7

9 ability of parents to monitor and supervise children s social activities outside school, which reduces their opportunities to get in trouble. After a divorce or separation children live with just one parent instead of two and, consequently, they lose the parental involvement and supervision of one of their parents. Although children may maintain contact with the leaving parent frequently, the quality of parenting is lower in a one parent family than in a two parent family. First of all, this is due to the fact that the remaining parent is likely to experience high levels of stress and anxiety after the disruption, also because it has to fill two parenting roles simultaneously. This can lead to inconsistent parenting. Secondly, compared to a two parent family, the parents in a one parent family cannot control and correct each others parenting styles, which makes it less sure whether the remaining parent is behaving in appropriate ways (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). A loss of parental resources (parental time) also influences the school achievement of children negatively. Children from parents who are distracted and less involved in their schoolwork, or who are simply not available to help with their homework will perform not as good at school as children of parents who read to them for instance, or who take an interest in their schoolwork. A supportive work environment at home is very important for children to do well at school hence Loss of Social Resources The third and last type of resources that decrease after a divorce or separation, i.e. the social resources, is described by McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) as the loss of community resources. This loss represents two things: first, it implies the fact that one parent families are restricted to live in neighbourhoods where the level of resources is lower, as a result of their reduced income. And second, it involves the fact that the connection of children to the community they live in, reduces after a divorce or separation. Strong community connections provide a child with social capital in the form of emotional support and information about the broader community. However, a divorce or separation often involves moving from one town to another or from one neighbourhood to the other, which undermines or destroys the community ties. Especially frequent moving which is often the case as family size first decreases because of the leaving of one parent and later on might increase after a remarriage is bad for the development of social capital, because long term relationships of commitment and trust are impossible this way. Children s social capital can also be reduced because of divorce and single parenthood even when a family does not move: for instance, old friends of the parents might be replaced by new friends. The single parent may neither find the time or energy to keep investing in personal relationships after a divorce, because of stress or depression, and as a result he or she loses friends without making new friends and, consequently, social capital will reduce (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Just like the negative effect of the loss of financial and parental resources on children s school achievement, access to community resources also affects children s educational experiences. Families with more social capital, that is to say families who live in the same neighbourhood for a long time, have more knowledge of and can take more advantage of the educational resources in their community than parents who just moved to that same neighbourhood. For example, they know 8

10 which teachers are good and which are not and they are more familiar with after school activities (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Pong (1997, 1998) also examined the effect of social relations among parents on children s educational performance, by studying the school context of children. She argues that schools with a high concentration of single parent families are usually characterized by less social relations between the parents and negatively affects children s educational performance. However, the negative effect of attending a school with many children from single parent families and stepfamilies could be offset by stronger social relations among parents (Pong, 1997). 1.3 Variation between Countries Although the number of family forms has increased in many countries in the last decades, as a result of the Second Demographic Transition, considerable variation between countries can be observed. Figure 1 shows the different kinds of family forms (i.e. families with two parents, single parent families, stepfamilies and other) and the proportion of children aged 11, 13 and 15, within each type across different countries. From this figure it appears that in 2001/2002 approximately 78% of the children in these countries live with both of their parents. About 13% of the children lives in a family in which only one parent is present and 8% of all children lives in stepfamilies. But, these numbers vary considerably between regions: e.g. in the Eastern European countries the number of singleparent families is rather high, while there are relatively more stepfamilies in the Northern/North Western European countries (Currie et al., 2004). However, what matters is not the variation in family structures as such, but the question if the impact of growing up within a specific family on children s well being differs across countries. Recently, UNICEF, the organization that works for children s rights, development and protection all over the world, published a report on the lives and well being of children and adolescents in 21 economically advanced countries (2007). In this report, the child s well being is measured and compared on six different dimensions: material well being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviours and risks and young people s own subjective sense of well being. An important conclusion, among other things, is that poverty has an effect on many aspects of child well being. Nevertheless, it is not easy to simply compare different measurements of poverty and well being between countries: every country has its own policies and legislation that affect, for example, the relationship between poverty within a household and the child s well being. As a result of cross national differences in legislation and policy towards families (e.g. benefits, child care, flexible employment arrangements) and demographical variations, a child growing up with one parent (with a low income) in country X may show to have the same level of average well being as a child from a two parent family (with a high income) in country Y, (Unicef, 2007). Through policy, a country can take care of the deficiencies some people deal with by counteracting (to some extent) their negative consequences. This does not necessarily have to be financial help: families may be supported through other social services like child care as well. What turns out to be important is to consider the consequences of the family form in which a child grows 9

11 up within a comparative approach on societies, by taking account of the relevant characteristics of each country. However, variation between countries not only exists in the effect of family form on children s educational performance, but also the number of divorces differs between countries, resulting in different effects of divorce on children across countries. Previous research learned, for instance, that in countries in which divorce is more common because of a high divorce rate, the (negative) impact of divorce on children is smaller (Härkönen & Dronkers, 2008). In addition to studying the effects of family characteristics on school achievements, this research aims to improve on previous research by investigating differences in the effect of family structures on educational performances between countries. Although a lot of prior research has already investigated the educational consequences of, for example, single parenthood, most of this research has focused solely on one specific country. Only a few studies have adopted the crossnational approach that is needed in order to understand the relative importance of public policy (Pong, Dronkers & Hampden Thompson, 2003). The government in a country can use different strategies to attempt to reduce the negative consequences that result from a particular family form. Although the emotional distress that goes with a divorce or the loss of one parent cannot be taken away by the government, through policies especially designed to help families in need and through offering different social services at least part of the suffering can be reduced. This study will therefore compare the educational performances of children from different families across many different countries, by taking account of some demographic characteristics and family policies of those countries. 1.4 Variation between Schools Even though a child lives with his family and consequently spends a lot of time with his parents, especially when it is young, the family context is not the only context a child is surrounded by: a child spends a large part of the day at school and as a result, it will also be affected by factors related to its school, like the school s composition of teachers and students. Previous research showed that the number of single parents at a school negatively influences the achievements of its pupils (Pong, 1998). This effect has been partly explained in terms of the school s socio economic status and social capital in the form of parental involvement. This implies that even though a child can be supported by a relatively high degree of economic, cultural or social capital at home, this positive effect on educational achievement might be weakened by a lack of social capital at school. Obviously, the opposite effect might be true as well: children who lack financial resources, who have poorly educated parents or no social network, could benefit from a school with a lot of social capital. In this way, children might still have relatively good performance at school, although their home situation would predict something else. In this research, we will examine how the specific school context contributes to the educational performance of children, in addition to the effect of the family context 10

12 a child is living in. What could schools do to counteract the consequences of the loss of capital in single parent families for children s school achievements? Figure 1. Children (aged 11, 13 and 15) living in different family forms (%), 2001/2002. Source: HBSC Survey 2001/

13 1.5 Variation between Family Forms Whereas previous educational performance research has mainly focused on the difference between two parent families and single parent families, this is a rather rough division of families, as many more different family forms exist nowadays. Garib, Martin Garcia & Dronkers (2007) already advanced on earlier studies by considering the following family forms: children living with both parents, with a single mother, with a mother and a stepfather, or with both parents and another family member. However, in this study the focus is on children with only a mother (or a mother plus stepfather). As indicated above, the number of single fathers is growing substantially and consequently more and more single father families exist nowadays. As Borgers, Dronkers and Praag (1996) show, the well being of children at secondary school is negatively influenced because of living with a single mother and this effect has not been found for children from single father families. Since we have different expectations towards the effect of growing up in a single mother versus a singlefather family based on previous research, we will also examine the effects of growing up in a fatherheaded family on children s school achievement. In addition, we expect differences in educational performance between children growing up with a single parent and children growing up with a single parent plus stepparent, as the presence of a stepparent might (partly) reduce the loss of differences resources in a family that are the consequence of divorce. In this research we will therefore investigate differences between growing up with a single mother, a single father or a single parent plus stepparent and the impact on children s educational performance. In section 1.3 we already discussed the fact that the distribution of different family forms varies between countries. The composition of family forms in a country is expected to have consequences for the meaning or implications of growing up in a specific family form, as it determines, for instance, whether you are in the minority or majority when you grow up with a single parent. This determines, consequently, how much a person will feel deviated from others, which affects his or her well being. Furthermore, children from single parents might be better understood and supported in countries in which single parenthood is more common. Therefore, it is relevant to make an international comparison when studying the influence of family form on children s educational performance. 1.6 Problem Statement and Research Questions In brief, three different contexts at three different levels are relevant to determine the effect of family forms on educational achievement of children across different countries. First of all, at the individual level the household situation needs to be clarified, by allowing for different personal and family characteristics of the child that could explain his or her educational achievement. Second, the school level must be considered to find out how children are affected by their educational environment and to examine if the effect of family form changes (i.e. reduces or intensifies) after taking account of several school characteristics. Lastly and perhaps most importantly within this research, the effect of family forms on children s educational performance will be compared across 12

14 countries by studying different demographic characteristics and family policies at the national level. Differences between countries could subsequently reveal the effectiveness of different family policies within countries. Since we are primarily interested in comparing the effects of family forms on educational performances between different schools and different counties, this study, first of all, seeks to address the following question: (1) How do differences in the educational performance of children vary across different family forms? And, does this effect of family form on educational performance vary between schools and between countries? By posing this question, we aim to find out, first of all, if countries really differ in the relationship between the family form children grow up in and their achievement at school, and, furthermore, what the differences actually look like. However, variation between schools and between countries in the effect of family form on educational performance possibly is the result of differences in the effect of other individual characteristics on school achievement. In other words, we might have to do with a spurious relationship between family form and educational performance, if we do not control for the effect of other individual characteristics. Hence, the second question we address is: (2) To what extent does the effect of family form on children s educational performance still exist, after taking account of student (family) characteristics, school features and country characteristics? Through this question it can be examined, first of all, how the various family resources (economic, cultural and social capital) affect the child s educational achievement. Does the effect of family form weaken or even disappear after taking account of different family characteristics? This would imply that the effect of different family forms can be explained through other characteristics than the family form itself. However, family form could also have a substantial independent influence. Furthermore, this question addresses the effect schools have on children s educational performance as well as the influence of country characteristics like family policies and demographic features. After having controlled for characteristics at the individual, school and country level, we aim to explain why variation in the effect of family form on educational performance exists between countries and between schools. In particular, we expect that some demographic characteristics and different national policies regarding employment and social security will affect the relationship between family forms and educational achievements, resulting in variations between countries. We also expect that the school s composition of single parent families will affect children s educational performance and that this is especially important for children from disrupted families. For instance, children from single parents might be better understood and supported at schools with more other children from single parent or stepparent families. Through cross level interactions between family form and characteristics at the school and country level, we can investigate the variation across schools and countries in the effect of family form on children s educational performance. Therefore, our third research question is as follows: 13

15 (3) To what extent can variation between schools and across countries in the relationship between family form and educational performance be explained, by means of differences in school features and country characteristics? To answer these questions, data from 28 industrialized countries on students educational performance are used, as collected by the Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development (OECD), i.e. the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 & 2003 (PISA). 1.7 Scientific and Societal Relevance Previous research has often studied the effect of divorce on children s educational performance. However, most researchers have focused on the consequences of single parenthood compared to a two parent family (Amato & Keith, 1991; Amato, 2001; Astone & McLanahan, 1991). As we already explained above, this research will improve on earlier studies by extending the number of family forms that are included, especially by taking account of the single father family as a rising family form. As we expect different effects of single mother and single father families and, moreover, of single parent families including a stepparent, we will not analyze single parenthood as a whole, but as different groups. In this way, we can make, first of all, theoretical progress regarding differences between family forms. We also advance on previous research by making an international comparison of the relationship between family form and children s educational performance. Only a few studies have adopted this cross national perspective that is important in order to understand the relative importance of public family policies. Furthermore, we are able to include many different countries in our research, i.e. 28 countries, since we make use of pooled data, i.e. PISA 2000 and Analyzing the effect of family form on children s educational performance using these both data sets is unique and enlarges the variety of the different values of the country level characteristics included in the analysis. This improves the test of our hypotheses at the country level. Not only we make an international comparison in our study, but at the same time we compare the relationship between family form and children s educational performance across schools. Although previous studies have already examined the contextual effect of schools in this respect, these studies did not simultaneously investigate the contextual effect of countries. Therefore, our multilevel research design, including three levels, adopts a more comprehensive approach and can be considered as methodological progress. The societal relevance of our research also lies in the simultaneous inclusion of both the school level and the country level in a multilevel analysis. As divorce most often results in a loss of financial, cultural and social resources in a family, which negatively affects children s educational performance, we will investigate if and how, first of all, the school context can help reducing the negative consequences of growing up in a disrupted family. When more information is known about this, it is easier for (divorced) parents to choose a school that is expected to provide the maximum benefit for their children s educational performance. Schools are also able to organize themselves in 14

16 such a way that the educational advantage is at most for their pupils. Reduction of the negative consequences of divorce can also be attained through public policies. Obviously, it is useful and important to know more about the effect of family policies on children s educational performance, in order to better suit future policies to the needs of the population. We expect benefits of schools as well as benefits of countries regarding children s educational performance. However, we only know if both schools and countries contribute positively to the school achievement of children, when we study the school level and country level effects simultaneously. For that reason, we will apply multilevel analysis and distinguish three different levels in this research, i.e. the student, school and country level. 15

17 2 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses 2.1 Family Form and Children s Educational Performance In scientific research on social stratification and inequalities especially in the field of family and education several theoretical concepts, all related to the notion of capital or resources, are known and frequently used. As Coleman (1988) already indicated, it is misleading to examine the effect of family background on school achievement as a single entity. Instead, family background can be divided into three different components which are interrelated: financial capital, human capital and social capital. In section 1.2 we already pointed at the importance of economic, cultural and social resources in explaining the relationship between family form and children s educational performance. It is to be expected that two parent families have more resources at their disposal than a single mother or father and the amount of resources in turn affects the school achievement of children from these families. Although in this study we try, first of all, to understand what exactly is the role of family s resources in determining the educational performance of children, an important aim of this research is also to examine and understand how both the school environment and a country s family policies influence the relationship between family form and children s academic achievement. We approach this problem by focusing on economic, cultural and social resources in the family and investigate how a decrease in the amount of family resources (as a consequence of a specific family form) can be counteracted by various national policies concerning families. We will start by discussing why we theoretically expect that children growing up in different family forms also differ in their achievement at school. Hypotheses will be derived, first of all, at the individual level, regarding the child s financial, cultural and social resources and the relationship with his or her educational performance. We will subsequently explain how the school s composition of students, their parents and teachers can either reinforce or offset the negative consequences for children s educational performance, that result from a decrease in the family s resources as related to family disruption. Finally, we will compare the effect of family form on school achievement across countries and elaborate on the (im)possibilities to use national policies to reduce negative effects of family disruption on children s educational performance Differences in Children s Educational Performance between Family Forms Numerous previous researchers have studied the effects of divorce on children s school achievement; they all found that children growing up in one parent families have lower achievement at school than children growing up with two biological parents (Amato & Keith, 1991; Amato, 2001; Astone & McLanahan, 1991). These studies mainly focused on differences between children from single versus two parent families and, in particular, on differences between children in motherheaded households versus two parents households. Based on the findings of prior research we can expect hence that children growing up with a single parent perform less well at school than children from two parent families. Therefore, the first hypothesis in this research is as follows: 16

18 Hypothesis 1a: Children growing up with a single parent have lower educational performances than children growing up with two (biological) parents. However, little is known about the effect of growing up in other families than single mother versus two parent families as prior research did not extensively focus on that. Therefore, we want to extend the number of different family forms in this research. Borgers, Dronkers and Van Praag (1996) argue that, in general, there is a difference between mothers and fathers who are single because of divorce, in the quality of the care they take of their children. They suggest that if fathers take care of the children, this is more often the result of a well considered choice, than if mothers are the main caretakers. It is even probable that single fathers (more often) fought for custody in court, compared to single mothers. In many cases of divorce, the woman is the parent who automatically gets custody of her child(ren), as a consequence of a more obvious division of roles between men and women (Borgers, Dronkers & Van Praag, 1996). If mothers take main care of the children, this does not really say anything about the qualities of her job as an educator, whereas this is the case if fathers have custody of their child(ren). Therefore, it is likely that, on average, the caretaking qualities in fatherheaded families are higher than in mother headed families, which will positively affect the educational performance of children in father headed families. Accordingly, we expect that: Hypothesis 1b: Children growing up with a single mother have lower educational performances than children growing up with a single father. Apart from the focus on single mother and single father families, we are also interested in the effect of stepparents on children s educational performance. We derive different expectations from previous research towards the role of stepparents in children s school achievement. First of all, Borgers, Dronkers and Van Praag (1996) point out that, through the inclusion of stepparents into the family, the paternal power has been reinstated, because of the presence of two adults in the family. Thus, if the number of adults in the household determines the children s educational success, children growing up in a stepparent family are better off than children with a single parent and they will have educational performances equal to children from two parent families (Astone & McLanahan, 1991). This leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1c: Children growing up with a single parent plus stepparent have educational performances equal to children growing up with two (biological) parents. However, it is also possible that rather than the number of adults in the family, the quality of the parent child relationship is important (Astone & McLanahan, 1991). It is likely that the quality of this relationship is lower in single parent and stepparent families than in two parent families, due to the stress associated with divorce, remarriage, conflicts between biological parents or conflicts between children and stepparents. In this case, we expect that the educational performance of children growing up in stepparent families is worse than the performance of children growing up in two 17

19 parent families (Bukodi & Dronkers, 2003). This leads to the following hypothesis, which is in contradiction with hypothesis 1c. Hypothesis 1d: Children growing up with a single parent plus stepparent have lower educational performances than children growing up with two (biological) parents Differences between Schools and Countries? Apart from the fact that we expect children s educational performance to differ between various family forms, we also expect differences in the relationship between family form and school achievement of children between schools and across countries. Although previous research has not particularly investigated the role schools can play in determining the consequences of singleparenthood for children s educational performance, it appears from prior studies that school s capital has a contextual effect on student s school outcomes, in addition to family effects (Marjoribanks, 2002). Consequently, we formulate the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: The effect of family form on educational performance varies between schools. Not much research has also been performed to investigate the educational consequences of single parenthood (among other family forms) cross nationally. However, several studies have indicated that growing up in a single mother family, for instance, does not have the same effect on school achievement in every country. Pong, Dronkers and Hampden Thompson (2003) have compared the gap in math and science achievement between children living with one parent and children living with both parents in 11 different countries and they have found differences in educational performance between children from different family forms in various countries. Garib, Martin Garcia and Dronkers (2007) have drawn a similar conclusion from their cross national study on the relationship between four different family forms (two parents, single mother, recomposed and extended) and children s academic achievement. From previous research we expect that the effect of different family forms on children s educational performance is not equal across countries. This expectation leads to our third hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: The effect of family form on educational performance varies between countries. 2.2 The Role of Family Resources Before and After Family Dissolution In this research we are interested in the relationship between family form and children s educational performance and we try to find out how this effect varies across countries. In order to discover the pure effect of family form on school achievement, we need to control for several family background characteristics that are possibly so interrelated with various family forms, that the effect of family structure on children s educational performance can easily be overestimated or underestimated. We start by applying different theories on family resources that could explain children s educational 18

20 performance. We adopt the division of family resources made by McLanahan and Sandefur (1994), i.e. the financial or economic resources, the role of parenting or cultural capital and finally the connection to the community, also defined as social capital. Based on these theories, we formulate hypotheses at the individual level to test whether differences between family forms still exist once family resources are taken into account. In this study we assume that a family form is in many (or most) cases determined by whether or not a family went through a divorce, which creates families consisting of two parents and families consisting of only one (biological) parent. Moreover, the remaining parent can start a new relationship or even remarry and, as a consequence, some singleparent families come to include stepparents. However, the relationship between family form and the level of different family resources is often ambiguous: i.e. in some situations we are not sure whether the level of the family resource in question is the reason why a family has a specific form. For instance, a lower income could have been the reason for divorce in a family and both the family form and lower educational performance of the children are in this case the consequence of this particular family resource, i.e. the level of income. In fact, in this situation there is a spurious relationship between family form and children s educational performance. But, the level of the family resource in question can also be the result of a specific family situation: as a result of the divorce in a family, the level of income has decreased and this has a negative effect on children s academic achievement. Apparently, we have to be careful with the assertion that differences in educational performance of children are caused by differences in family forms of those children. After examining the relationship between family form and school achievement at the individual level, we will also control for school features and country characteristics and examine whether family policies can influence the relationship between family form and children s academic achievement Financial Resources in the Family and Children s Educational Performance One of the possible reasons why family form influences children s educational performance is the fact that various family forms are related to the financial resources in a family. Financial or economic capital refers to a family s wealth and income, and through this kind of capital parents can provide a child with books or other materials that aid learning and with a room to study in, for instance. Apparently, through these physical resources, family income has an indirect and positive effect on children s educational performance (Coleman, 1988). However, the level of family income varies greatly between different kinds of families. Besides, parents may differ in the way they invest money in their child s education. As a consequence, not every child profits from the positive effect of (family) income to the same extent. In A Treatise on the Family Becker (1981) attempts to explain the allocation of resources in a family by integrating the theory of mobility (intergenerational differences) with the theory of income distribution (intragenerational differences). This has led to a theory of household production which states that individuals are not isolated, but part of a family whose members span several generations 19