Parenting for social mobility? Home learning, parental warmth, class and educational outcomes

Abstract

Parenting has come to play a pivotal role in breaking intergenerational disadvantage and increasing children’s life chances and social mobility through practices such as parental support with their learning and education. Using a UK representative sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, the present study examined the unique and cumulative contribution of children’s characteristics, parenting practices and family’s socio-economic background to children’s educational outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7). Consistently with previous studies, the findings showed that family’s socio-economic background made a substantive contribution to teacher-rated reading, maths and sciences. Despite much emphasis within family policy on parents as being central in tackling educational inequality, certain aspects of parenting such as involvement with home learning, parental warmth and discipline did not explain a significant amount of variance in teacher- rated reading, maths and sciences. These findings are likely to contribute to debates regarding the role of parents in reducing the achievement gap and the enduring influence of social class on young people’s school outcomes, drawing important implications for family policy.

Keywords:

• family policy
• inequality
• parenting
• social class