POPA ADRIAN

Anglo-American Studies, 2nd year

Research on families, schools and communities

After many years of researches and debates, scientists are drawing the conclusion that
there is a strong link between families and how their children develop (physically,
psychologically, socially and so on). The aim of this paper is to focus our attention on some
aspects that until now were looked aside but proved to be of high importance in the process of
raising our children.
Among those aspects, researchers bring into our attention the distinction between
children raised in monoparental families and children raised in normal families. Studies have
shown that the number of adults which have graduated college or a university is lower than in
the case of adults which were raised in intact families. Also, children raised by grandparents
had better school performances than those raised by a single parent.
Based on the theory that the family structure may have effects on childrens
development, Bjrkland, Ginther, and Sundstrm made a research on monoparental and
biparental families from Sweden and USA. In comparison with other countries, Sweden and
USA, has an alarming number of cases in which parents divorced while having small children.
40% of the American kids and 30% of the Swede kids with the age up until 15 have experienced
family brake ups. They predicted that these children will be less successful in school than the
children who grew up in complete families.
Another interesting study is The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), which
researched 4,800 households and how its members created their own families. 36.000 young
people from Sweden and USA took part in this study, some of them having half-blood siblings.
Their educational achievements were measured by the years of schooling and the benefits soon
after. In this study, the family structures were made out either of two biological parents (some
married some not), a single biological parent or a biological parent and a step parent. The
performances and benefits they gained were based on various elements like the parents

POPA ADRIAN
Anglo-American Studies, 2nd year

education, family circumstances and siblings inside the family. The results in Sweden and those
from USA were very almost the same. As the study reveals, the poor school performance is
correlated with living together with stepbrothers and sisters. Living along with stepbrothers
includes stress and competition for obtaining attention and success. Also, as the number of
siblings went higher, the sum of available opportunities went lower per every child, limiting
their opportunities. In the case of children living in intact families, most of them finished their
studies, unlike children coming from broken families.
In 2010, Suet-Ling and Chen performed a study on children raised by their grandparents
in order to find out if this type of families had any effects on the childrens educational
progress. In the study, they used subjects from Taiwan, where there is a tradition for
grandparents to live along with their children and grandchildren. Due to this cultural trait, it is
believed that living along with grandparents offers many benefits. Among those, grandchildren
grow up having healthier and more mature relations with other persons, setting goals in life,
having good manners all of these resulting in a better school performance.
Another set of researchers made a study on family cohesion, parents expectations and
the effects on the academic success of white and Afro-American students. From previous
studies they found out that the family and demographic status could affect the academic
performance of the children. Walker & Satterwhite, the two researchers, came with the theory
that children following higher education are less affected by these variables. They also claimed
that children that are part of cohesive families have better results in school.
To prove this theory, a number of 212 students from the mid-Atlantic region were
tested. The participants of the study received questioners which evaluated their closeness to
their parents, their emotional bound and the parents expectations. Results showed that AfroAmerican students had lower graduation marks because of a high level of stress and a low selfesteem. Both white and African-Americans proved to have a high level of family cohesion which
could not be linked with the low scores. Their conclusion was that those students who had
higher expectations regarding their scores had a history of good scores and a higher self-

POPA ADRIAN
Anglo-American Studies, 2nd year

esteem. So, in other words, self-esteem influences the school marks and the school marks
influences self-esteem.
Dornbusch, Ritter, Liederman, Roberts i Fraleigh (1987) studied the impact of parental
interactions and the way the parental style affects the academic performance of their children.
In this study they focused on three parental styles: authoritative, permissive and authoritarian.
The authoritative style implies a strict way of raising a child, forcing rules, standards and house
harmony. It also discourages free discussions of rules between the parent and the child. The
permissive style refers to a more tolerant behavior using less or no punishment at all, not
expecting a mature behavior. The authoritarian style imposes a set of clear rules, encouraging
individuality and free opinions this is also thought to be as the better one.
On this study participated a number of 7.836 teenagers from a San Francisco high
school. They had to answer a questionnaire with different questions concerning information
about their origin, school scores, their relation with their parents, parental attitude and family
communication. The parents also receive a questionnaire in which they had to give information
about their education. 50% of the parents were identified as having pure parental styles: 18%
were pure permissive, 17% were pure authoritarian and 15% authoritative.
The authoritative style was used mostly by mothers rather than fathers, while the other
styles did not have a distinct use by one genre or the other. Results also show that the
permissive way of raising a child is used more as the childs age becomes higher. Asian and
Hispanic children showed a lower higher level of permissibility than the white students, while
Afro-Americans had a lower level of permissibility than the white folks. Single parents show a
higher level of permissibility than married couples. The authoritative style has a powerful
negative correlation with childrens school scores while the permissive style has a lower one.
The authoritarian style on the other hand has a positive impact on grades.

POPA ADRIAN
Anglo-American Studies, 2nd year

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Ginther DK, Pollak RA (2004) Family structure and childrens educational outcomes: blended
families, stylized facts, and descriptive regressions. Demography 41(4):671696.
2. King, G., McDougall, J., DeWit, D., Hong, S., Miller, L., Offord, D., & ... LaPorta, J. (2005).
Pathways to Childrens Academic Performance and Prosocial Behaviour: Roles of physical
health status, environmental, family, and child factors. International Journal of Disability,
Development & Education, 52(4), 313-344. doi:10.1080/10349120500348680
3. Leadbeater, B. & Bishop, B. (1994). Predictors of behavior problems in preschool children of
innercity afro-American and Puerto-Rican adolescent mothers. Child development, 65,
638-648.
4. Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the self. New York: Basic Books.
5. Skowron, E. A. (2005). Parent Differentiation of Self and Child Competence in Low-Income
Urban Families. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52(3), 337-346. doi:10.1037/0022
0167.52.3.337
6. Suet-ling, P., & Chen, V. W. (2010). Co-resident Grandparents and Grandchildren's Academic
Performance in Taiwan. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 41(1), 111-129. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.
7.Walker, K. L., & Satterwhite, T. (2002). ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG AFRICAN
AMERICAN AND CAUCASIAN COLLEGE STUDENTS: IS THE FAMILY STILL
IMPORTANT?. College Student Journal, 36(1), 113. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.