The Role of Family Residential Mobility in Explaining the Lower Academic Achievement of High School Children from Reconstituted Families

Abstract

This study tests McLanahan and Sandefur's hypothesis that children from reconstituted families score lower in academic achievement due to the fact that their custodial families are more likely to move than children from intact families. If this hypothesis is correct, one would expect that children from reconstituted families whose parents moved during a substantial period of time would perform more poorly academically than their counterparts whose families did not move during the same period. Using the NELS 1988-1992 data set, the academic achievement of children whose parents remained remarried during the entire 1988-1992 period was examined. The academic achievement of children from these households whose custodial parent moved during the 1988-1992 period was compared to their counterparts whose custodial parent did not move during the same period. The analyses were performed for children from both divorced and widowed reconstituted families and also those from only divorced reconstituted families. The results showed no statistically significant differences between the two groups, but directional differences consistently emerged. Both the merits and possible problems with McLanahan and Sandefur's hypothesis are discussed.

Key Words:

• Stepfamily
• school failure and divorce
• high school students and divorce