Doctoral Dissertation Research in Sociology: Social Policy, Family Structure, and Children's Educational Achievement: A Comparative Study

通过这项研究，我们将更好地了解单亲家庭与儿童识字率之间的关系如何受到特定国家的家庭政策环境的影响。我们将比较来自美国单亲家庭的15岁学生与其他17个工业化国家的同龄人，以评估一个国家的家庭政策环境是否会通过改变单亲家庭的可支配收入、改变父母的时间投入，或两者兼而有之，来影响单亲家庭与儿童识字成绩之间的关系。该分析将分层线性建模应用于来自两个来源的数据。首先，个别学生的数据是从经合组织提供的国际学生评估项目（PISA）中提取出来的。第二，国家一级的家庭政策数据将从英国约克大学的社会科学研究单位收集。本研究通过认识到家庭和国家家庭政策的重要性，探讨了超越学校范围的教育解决办法。重点是国际社会政策制定的作用，以及家庭政策如何改变影响儿童识字成绩的家庭状况。这项研究的结果将引起关注教育、家庭和比较研究的社会学家和其他社会科学家的兴趣。此外，这项研究有可能帮助美国决策者设计促进所有儿童取得更高学业成绩的社会政策。

Through this research we will better understand how the relationship between single parenthood and children's literacy is affected by a particular country's family policy environment. We will compare 15-year-old students from American single-parent families with their counterparts in 17 other industrialized countries in order to assess whether a nation's family policy environment influences the relationship between single-parenthood and children's literacy achievement through changing single parent family disposable income, changing their parental time inputs, or both. This analysis applies hierarchical linear modelling to data from two sources. First, the individual student data are extracted from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), supplied by the OECD. Second, the country-level family policy data are to be collected from the Social Science Research Unit at the University of York, England. This study examines educational solutions beyond the school context by recognizing the importance of the family and of a national family policy. The focus is the role of social policymaking cross-nationally, and how family policy changes family situations that affect a child's literacy achievement. The results from this research will interest sociologists and other social scientists focusing on education, the family, and comparative research. In addition, this study has the potential to help American policymakers to design social policies that promoting higher academic achievement for all children.