Mothers Gains in Postsecondary Education and Childrens Development

描述（由申请人提供）：早期教育干预措施，如头部开始是为了缩小低收入和高收入儿童之间的入学准备的差距。最近，学者们建议通过促进入学儿童的母亲接受中学后教育（PSE;高中以上的学校教育或GED）来加强这种干预措施。这一建议的动机是大量的文献将更高的孕产妇教育与更好的儿童结局联系起来。然而，这些文献中的大多数并没有区分在生育之前和之后获得的教育。少数研究将儿童发育视为母亲产后教育进步的函数，但仅对儿童进行了相对较短时间的跟踪，尽管事实上母亲产后教育进步的短期和长期影响可能有所不同。幅度甚至方向（例如，PSE可能会在短期内降低收入，但从长期来看会增加收入）。此外，这些研究中的大多数都没有专门针对PSE的增益（即，他们审查了包括高中在内的任何教育的成果，也没有考虑一套全面的解释机制。这项拟议中的研究将是迄今为止对低收入母亲PSE收益对儿童结果影响的最彻底的检查。我们将使用具有全国代表性的1979年全国青年纵向调查，该调查调查了1979年14-21岁的妇女样本，并评估了她们的孩子，每两年一次，直到2010年。使用低收入妇女谁没有获得PSE的时候，他们的第一个孩子的出生的子样本，我们将追求五个研究目标。(1)我们将研究母亲在儿童早期获得PSE对儿童认知和社会情感结果的短期和长期影响。为了克服选择偏倚的威胁，将使用倾向评分匹配。母亲在儿童早期进入PSE的儿童将在7岁和13岁时与母亲没有进入PSE的儿童进行比较。(2)我们将确定将母亲的PSE与儿童结果联系起来的机制。我们将探讨家庭生活的四个维度的中介作用：家庭收入，母亲参与养育，家庭情感气氛，和家庭学习环境。(3)我们将测试母亲与伴侣共同居住是否会缓和母亲在PSE中的收益对儿童的影响。我们将测试适度的模型的直接和介导的影响，母亲的收益在PSE对儿童的结果。(4)我们将测试是否长期影响的母亲收益在PSE取决于认证。我们将比较母亲谁没有退出PSE与证书的孩子，我们将调查的证书类型（职业证书与副学士或学士学位）对儿童的影响。(5)我们将确定母亲PSE时间的后果。我们将根据儿童是否在儿童早期（0- 5岁）与中期（6-11岁）暴露于母体PSE来比较儿童。结果将说明在低收入幼儿母亲中推广PSE的智慧，以及这些计划的设计可能会优化儿童福祉。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Early educational interventions such as Head Start are intended to close the gap in school readiness between low-income and higher-income children. Recently, scholars have suggested enhancing such interventions by promoting enrollment in post-secondary education (PSE; schooling beyond high school or a GED) among the mothers of enrolled children. This suggestion is motivated by a vast literature linking higher maternal education to better child outcomes. However, most of this literature does not distinguish between educations attained before versus after childbearing. The few studies that have examined child development as a function of mothers' postnatal gains in education have followed children for only relatively short periods of time, despite the fact that the short- and long-term effects of mothers' gains in PSE may differ in magnitude or even direction (e.g., PSE may depress income in the short term but augment it in the long term). Moreover, most of these studies have not addressed gains in PSE specifically (i.e., they have examined gains in any education, including high school), nor have they considered a comprehensive set of explanatory mechanisms. The proposed study will be the most thorough examination to date of the effects of gains in low-income mothers' PSE on children's outcomes. We will use the nationally representative National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979, which has surveyed a sample of women who were 14-21 years old in 1979, and assessed their children, biennially through 2010. Using a subsample of low-income women who had not obtained PSE by the time of their first child's birth, we will pursue five research aims. (1) We will examine the short- and long-term effects of mothers' early childhood gains in PSE on children's cognitive and socioemotional outcomes. To overcome the threat of selection bias, propensity score matching will be used. Children whose mothers entered PSE during early childhood will be compared, at ages 7 and 13, to children whose mothers did not. (2) We will identify the mechanisms that link mothers' PSE to child outcomes. We will investigate the mediating role of four dimensions of family life: household income, maternal involvement in parenting, household affective climate, and the home learning environment. (3) We will test whether mothers' co-residence with a partner moderates the effects of mothers' gains in PSE on children. We will test for moderation in models of both the direct and mediated effects of mother's gains in PSE on children's outcomes. (4) We will test whether long-term effects of maternal gains in PSE depend on credentialing. We will compare the children of mothers who did versus did not exit PSE with a credential, and we will investigate the effects of type of credential (vocational certificate versus associate's or bachelor's degree) on children. (5) We will determine the consequences of the timing of mothers' PSE. We will compare children according to whether they were exposed to maternal PSE in early (0- 5) versus middle (6-11) childhood. Results will speak to the wisdom of promoting PSE among low-income mothers of young children, and to the design such programs might take in order to optimize child wellbeing.