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Head Start，旨在缩小低收入儿童和高收入儿童之间的入学准备差距。最近，学者们建议加强这种干预措施，提高入学儿童的母亲接受中学后教育(PSE；高中以上教育或普通教育)的入学率。这一建议是由大量文献推动的，这些文献将更高的母性教育与更好的子女结局联系在一起。然而，这些文献中的大部分都没有区分生育前和生育后的教育。尽管母亲在PSE方面的收获在短期和长期影响可能不同(例如，PSE可能在短期内抑制收入，但从长期来看，PSE可能会增加收入)，但很少有研究将儿童发展作为母亲出生后在教育方面的收获的函数，这些研究只对儿童进行了较短时间的跟踪。此外，这些研究中的大多数都没有具体讨论在PSE方面的收获(即，他们检查了任何教育领域的收获，包括高中)，也没有考虑一套全面的解释机制。这项拟议的研究将是迄今为止对低收入母亲的PSE收益对孩子结局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，该调查在1979年对14-21岁的妇女进行了抽样调查，并对她们的子女进行了评估，每两年一次，直至2010年。利用第一个孩子出生时尚未获得PSE的低收入女性的子样本，我们将追求五个研究目标。(1)我们将考察母亲在童年早期获得的PSE对孩子的认知和社会情感结果的短期和长期影响。为了克服选择偏差的威胁，将使用倾向分数匹配。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与孩子的结局联系起来的机制。我们将调查家庭生活的四个维度：家庭收入、母亲参与育儿、家庭情感氛围和家庭学习环境的中介作用。(3)我们将测试母亲与伴侣同居是否会缓和母亲在PSE方面的进步对孩子的影响。我们将在模型中测试母亲在PSE中获得的对孩子结果的直接和中介影响的适度性。(4)我们将测试PSE中母亲收入的长期影响是否依赖于资格认证。我们将比较有证书的母亲和没有离开PSE的母亲的孩子，并调查证书类型(职业证书与大专或学士学位)对孩子的影响。(5)我们将确定母亲PSE时机的后果。我们将根据儿童在童年早期(0-5岁)和中期(6-11岁)是否接触过母体PSE来比较儿童。结果将说明在有年幼子女的低收入母亲中推广PSE的智慧，以及此类计划可能采取的设计，以优化儿童福祉。

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.