Gender Differences in the Intergenerational Transmission Process of Educational Aspirations in Late Childhood
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Gender Differences in the Intergenerational Transmission Process of Educational Aspirations in Late Childhood Xiaolin Guo 1
&
Surina He 1 & Zhenzi Du 1 & Tiantian Bi 1 & Liang Luo 2
Accepted: 10 November 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Parents’ aspirations for their children’s future educational attainment influence their child’s educational aspirations. However, gender differences in the intergenerational transmission of educational aspirations have not been fully explored. The present study employed a two-step model of value transmission to provide a detailed picture of the gender patterns that occur during the transmission process of educational aspirations in late childhood. A total of 2857 Chinese students (Mage = 9.85 years, SD = .37, range = 8–12; 1373 girls) and their parents were followed from fourth to sixth grade. Fathers and mothers separately reported their educational aspirations for their children, and children reported their perceptions of their fathers’ and mothers’ educational aspirations for them as well as their own educational aspirations. The results indicate that different patterns for girls and boys emerged at each step of the transmission process. Specifically, in the perception step, girls exhibited more accurate perceptions of maternal educational aspirations than boys did, but this was not true of their perceptions of paternal educational aspirations. Furthermore, in the acceptance step, both boys and girls revealed higher levels of acceptance of their perceived same-sex parent’s educational aspirations. Our study provides a framework for analyzing and understanding gender patterns in the intergenerational transmission of values. Keywords Gender differences . Intergenerational transmission . Educational aspirations . Two-step process model . Late childhood . Chinese cultural groups
Students’ educational aspirations are strong predictors of their grades, academic achievements, and ultimate educational attainment (Jacob and Wilder 2011; Zhang et al. 2011). Therefore, many psychologists and educationalists have attempted to identify the determinants of students’ educational aspirations. Based on the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation (Wigfield and Eccles 2000), children’s expectations for success are influenced by the beliefs of their parents (i.e., parental expectations of their child’s future). Parents’ educational aspirations for their children can function as a form of
* Liang Luo [email protected] 1
Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
2
Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality and Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
communication, which conveys to children the value that society and parents place on education outcomes and thereby shapes children’s educational aspirations (Yamamoto and Holloway 2010). Numerous studies have provide
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