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Ecological-Cultural Perspectives & Findings
Immigration from Mexico and
Central America continues to alter the demographic landscape
of the U.S. Schools have been especially affected by Latino
immigration. This population of students poses particular
challenges to U.S. schools. Yet, we know very little about
these students and their parents. One area in need of
investigation, and of particular interest to us, has been
families' educational values, goals, beliefs, and
aspirations related to children's learning and achievement.
Some writers and researchers have argued that differences,
or discontinuities, between the educational values and
beliefs of Latinos and the values and beliefs needed for
success in U.S. schools are responsible for these students'
low levels of academic achievement. Other authors also cite
discontinuities in values or beliefs between Latino families
and schools, but interpret these discontinuities within a
framework of cultural differences not deficiencies. Still
others argue that Hispanic students and parents (as well as
other groups historically victimized by discrimination)
develop attitudes and values that are dysfunctional for
optimal school achievement. These three perspectives,
different as they are, have at least one thing in common:
They attribute the difficulties Latino youngsters have in
U.S. schools to discrepancies, or discontinuities, between
family values and beliefs about schooling and the values and
beliefs assumed to be important for school success in this
country--high aspirations for educational attainment and a
belief in the value of formal schooling for future success
and well-being.
But are the educational
values and beliefs of Latino immigrant families entirely
discordant with more mainstream U.S. values and beliefs,
those presumably espoused by the schools and necessary for
school success? We suspect not, and this skepticism provided
a large part of the impetus for the program of research we
will describe here. Despite differences in cultures and
outlook, we have seen evidence of considerable commonality
between values and beliefs of Latino immigrant parents and
those of educators in our schools. Moreover, and despite
clear attempts to maintain links with their native cultures,
we have seen evidence of self-conscious attempts by
immigrant parents to move away from the educational values
espoused by their parents and provide greater educational
opportunities for their children than they felt were
provided to them. This complex portrait of commonalities and
differences, continuities and discontinuities, is at the
heart of our longitudinal study.
Cultural Models,
Values, and Beliefs
One focus of our research
program has been parents' cultural models of learning and
their education-related values, beliefs, and actions
(Goldenberg, 1987, 1988, 1989; Goldenberg, Reese, &
Gallimore, 1992; Reese, Balzano, Gallimore, &
Goldenberg, 1995). We have presumed that, like all cultural
models (D'Andrade & Strauss, 1992), those that guide
family management of children's learning and education
represent a complex and interpenetrated set of assumptions
and dispositions. Although they may be experienced by
individuals as coherent and consistent, values and beliefs
encoded in cultural models do not necessarily appear to
others as internally consistent, nor consistently related to
behavior (Strauss, 1992).
Similarly, endorsing and talking
about a cultural model for children's learning and education
does not always translate into parental actions that might
be predicted by a superficial analysis.In this chapter, we
detailed which beliefs encoded in our sample's cultural
model of learning and education they act on and some reasons
why they do not act on others. One significant implication
of this analysis is its usefulness for program design, such
as finding ways to improve home/school cooperation to
promote student achievement. Knowing which beliefs in their
model of child learning and education are linked to action
provides a basis for designing programs that are more
sensitively fitted to the family's culture and more likely
to work effectively.
Our studies have been
guided by several questions about immigrant Latino parents'
educational values and beliefs: To what extent do immigrant
Latino parents value formal schooling for their children?
What role do they see formal education playing in their
children's future lives and well-being? To what extent is
there discontinuity in values and beliefs that might work
against children's academic achievement (for example, "low
academic effort syndrome")? Alternatively, to what extent is
there continuity, or commonality, between parents'
education-related values and beliefs and values and beliefs
that support school achievement? What other discontinuities
might exist that can interfere with these children's school
success?
Two seemingly paradoxical
themes weave their way through analyses carried out as part
of the longitudinal study. One theme is discontinuity across
generations and cultures; the other is continuity across
generations and cultures.
In some important respects, the
beliefs and attitudes of the families do differ from that of
the schools the children attend. These differences are
important. Differences in beliefs and attitudes and
differences between how children are socialized at home and
taught at school can interfere with students' school
adaptation and performance (California State Department of
Education, 1986; Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991; Jacob
& Jordan,1987; Laosa, 1982). But in equally important
respects, there can be common features across school and
family cultures. These commonalities are perhaps just as
important, since they offer potential avenues for
cooperation and mutual benefit.
Similarly, the families
represent important continuities with traditional
features--including values and attitudes--of their natal
cultures. But there are also important discontinuities,
sometimes even self-conscious attempts to break with the
past and with the values and attitudes of the older
generation in the native country. Both continuity and
discontinuity across generations are part of the process of
cultural evolution, a complex dynamic that contributes to
change and variability within cultures (Chibnik, 1981;
Edgerton, 1992). These paradoxes--continuity and
discontinuity across cultures and generations--will defy
attempts to reach simplistic and reductionistic conclusions
about parents' cultural models and the role they play in
children's schooling and achievement.
Our motivation for studying the
cultural models (values, beliefs, and actions) of the Latino
parents had a more pragmatic aim, although we think the
results are relevant to theory as well. We sought to
discover whether beliefs and values underpinning family
actions provide a foundation for productive school-home
collaborations that could help students succeed in school.
We believe such a foundation has been uncovered by more than
a decade of longitudinal research with immigrant Latino
families, at least in the elementary school years (although
it might exist in high schools as well; Lucas, Henze, &
Donato, 1990). In the case the of immigrant Latino families
with whom we have been in contact, this foundation
consists:
1. Latino immigrant families
from Mexico and Central America express a deep and abiding
belief in formal education as a means toward social and
economic mobility and stability.
2. Immigrant Latino parents want
to be involved in their children's schooling, and they
express considerable satisfaction when teachers make efforts
to involve them in children's academic development; the
possibility of productive home-school collaboration for this
population of students is therefore
considerable.
3. Parents' views of what
education--or in Spanish, educacin--comprises is much
broader than formal schooling; it includes moral development
and familial responsibility.
4. Although parents greatly
value academic development in general and literacy
development in particular, children in immigrant families
from Mexico and Central America typically have relatively
few experiences at home that promote text-based literacy
development as it is defined in school.
Also a part of this foundation
is the parents' conception of educacion, which emphasizes
good and respectful behavior, and staying on the right
path--being "well-educated"(bien educado) as well as
well-schooled--, although it is of a different order.
Teachers with whom we have worked often comment (sometimes
disparagingly) that Latino parents appear more interested in
their children's comportment than their cognitive
achievement. Our interviews reveal that this might well be
true, but one of the reasons is that parents see good and
proper behavior as the basis for academic and cognitive
advance. Thus parents' emphasis on comportment and the
schools' (at least overt) emphasis on academic learning
complement, rather than conflict with, each
other.
In contrast, parents'
de-emphasis of pre-school academic learning opportunities in
the home (both because literacy is not a fundamental
activity for most families' economic activities and because
parents emphasize morals and comportment in their
socialization practices) translates into a relative scarcity
of text-based literacy experiences for these children before
they begin school. This leads to a fundamental discontinuity
between schools and immigrant Latino homes, since when
children begin school, even kindergarten, one of the main
items on the agenda is to begin promoting literacy skills.
Although literacy is not absent--families write and receive
letters; ads, printed matter, and environmental print are
often present; parents and older siblings do read,
particularly if they are in school--the relatively little
emphasis on literacy, or "emergent literacy," during the
preschool years put Latino youngsters at risk for
underachievement. However, as soon as children begin school,
and learning literacy becomes an important goal, we see
parents playing a more active role in helping children
academically, particularly if parents receive encouragement
and assistance from children's teachers.
The Latino parents' cultural
models or schemas related to schooling and achievement thus
present a mixed picture. On the one hand, values and
practices exist that are at least complementary and at best
fully compatible (even congruent) with school values. On the
other hand, there are clear differences. In much of the
current literature, there is a tendency for observers to
feature the differences as the principal issue and to take
one of three positions: Some argue success in U.S. schools
will come only as immigrant families leave behind their
"different" values that were adaptive in more traditional,
non-technological contexts and adopt those of the academic
occupational model. Others argue that for these children to
succeed, schools must accommodate to differences in values,
learning styles, and children's home experiences. Yet others
contend that differences in U.S. opportunity structures mean
that Latinos and other disenfranchised groups will
inevitably devalue formal schooling as an avenue for social
and economic mobility.
Our findings suggest a different
interpretation. To the extent that the cultural schema we
have described have motivational force, that is, they
function as goals and instigate action (D'Andrade, 1992),
there are commonalities that the Latino families and the
schools share, which provide avenues for home-school
collaboration. We cannot generalize to other groups, but we
hypothesize that significant commonalities exist between the
schools and those for whom the schools have not worked
well.
Our examples and analyses raise
an intriguing possibility: Is accommodating to culturally
different children mainly a matter of making fundamental
changes in teaching, staffing, or curriculum? Or can we also
accommodate to culturally different children by recognizing
similarities and consistencies, as well as differences and
discontinuities, across cultures? We suggest that cultural
accommodation cuts both ways--making changes if needed but
recognizing similarities when they exist. Ignoring one over
the other is not in the best interest of children or
families. As we confront the challenges posed by this most
recent wave of immigrants to the United States, educators
must be aware of discontinuities that must be skillfully and
sensitively handled. But they must be equally sensitive to
what the families, children, teachers, and administrators
share.
Effect of school
performance on parents' and children's educational
expectations and aspirations
Questions: Do the
patterns we have documented of increasing correlation
between child's school adjustment and parental expectations
continue? Do parents also begin adjusting their aspirations
to reflect clear patterns of school adaptation so that
aspirations become increasingly correlated with achievement?
Do child expectations show the same pattern, suggesting that
they too adjust their expectations and aspirations in
response to achievement? Do the correlations with
performance continue to increase over time?
Hypotheses: We expected
that the answers are yes, particularly with respect to
expectations. We hypothesized that as children proceed
through school and begin to demonstrate clear patterns of
achievement and interest, they and their parents would form
clearer pictures of likely educational outcomes. We also
thought it possible that aspirations would be affected, as
parents and children seek to reduce the dissonance between
what they hope will happen and what they think is
likely.
Findings: At the
beginning of kindergarten, there was no relationship between
children's school performance (as measured by teacher
ratings and test performance) and parents' aspirations and
expectations. Parents aspirations continue, for the most
part, to be unrelated to children's achievement throughout
elementary school. However, by the end of first grade,
teacher ratings of child performance were significantly
correlated with parents' expectations the following fall
(the beginning of second grade). This pattern is repeated in
second, fourth, and fifth grades. In addition, in 4th grade,
expectations are significantly associated with both math and
reading test scores, and significantly correlated with math
scores in 5Th grade.
Although children's achievement
and parents' expectations are unrelated in kindergarten,
over the course of the elementary grades parents'
expectations become increasingly linked to how well children
are doing in school. This association is in strong contrast
to aspirations, which appear almost entirely independent of
student achievement. Parents aspire to high levels of formal
schooling, no matter how their children are doing
academically. Parents expect more or less formal schooling,
and this expectation is somehow related to how well their
child is achieving (Goldenberg, Gallimore, Reese &
Garnier, 1998, under review).
Effects of
expectations/aspirations and their mediation by family
routines and settings.
Questions: Given that
child school performance influences parents' educational
expectations and perhaps aspirations, do these expectations
and aspirations then influence routines and settings in the
home that are related to subsequent school performance? What
are these routines and settings, and what are their
effects?
Hypotheses: One
assumption is that high expectations lead to routines,
settings, and interactions that support good, or enhanced
performance; lower expectations are assumed to lead to
routines, settings, and interactions that further depress
achievement. But we predicted the dynamics of expectancy
effects are more complex, even paradoxical in some cases. We
expected that activity settings in the home (e.g., whether
adults talk with children about the future, whether they
organize or supervise learning activities or other
recreational time outside of school) will mediate
expectations (and aspirations) and children's ongoing and
subsequent school adaptation.
Findings: We did not
uncover evidence of direct effects of reported expectations
on home activities or vice versa (see Goldenberg, et al.,
1998, under review).
The effects of
socio-cultural factors on parents' and children's
aspirations and expectations.
Questions: Aside from the
child's school performance, what are the effects of other
factors on parents' and children's assessments of children's
future prospects? Specifically, what are the effects of
older siblings, family economic resources, perceived dangers
of the environment, the influence of peers, and their
perceptions of discrimination and a job
ceiling?
Hypotheses: We expected
the school performance and experiences of older siblings to
play an increasing role in affecting parental expectations.
We predicted a correlation between parents' assessments of
their child's peer group (i.e., the extent to which it
constitutes a positive or negative influence) and parents'
views of their child's future prospects. We expected to see,
for example, in response to the perceived risks of drugs,
gangs, and other influences, signs of lowered parental
expectations, at least for some portion of our sample. In
contrast, consistent with our current findings, we did not
expect to see perceptions of discrimination and job ceiling
influencing aspirations and expectations.
Findings: Since parents
indicated substantial variability in length of US residence
(for 81 mothers, mean years = 9.9; s.d.=5.4; range=1-27; for
77 fathers, mean years=11.7; s.d.=5.1; range=1-21), we could
test the hypotheses that the longer they had been in this
country, the lower their aspirations and expectations for
children's educational attainment would be and the less
likely would they be to consider formal schooling a viable
means of social and economic mobility. We found no evidence
to support either proposition at any grade level-from
pre-kindergarten to grade 6--between years in the U.S. and
expectations for the larger N of 81. Using only those cases
that stated an expectation, we also found no correlation
between expectations and years in the U.S. In addition,
there was no correlation between parents' educational
aspirations and the average number of mothers' and fathers'
years in U.S.
The direct assessment of recent
discrimination experiences obtained in the Spring of the
child's fifth grade year (Ecocultural Family Interview
carried out in Year 1 of the current study cycle) indicated
only eight percent of parents reporting discrimination was a
significant factor affecting the family or children.
Ninety-two per cent of responses indicated discrimination
was not a dominant theme nor that their children's
experiencing discrimination was a major concern (20% of
responses indicated 'moderate' concerns regarding
discrimination, and 72% of responses were rated as 'low' in
experiences with or concern regarding discrimination).
Parent reports of discrimination were unrelated to years in
the U.S. (r = -.11) or years parents' were educated in U.S.
schools (r = .04 and r = .01 for mothers and fathers
respectively). Nor were reports of discrimination related to
parent expectations.
Formal education, for both
occupational advancement and personal growth, receives such
uniform endorsement among families in our sample that we
have identified it as a cultural schema (the estudios
schema) or model of how the world is perceived to work
(Reese et al., 1995). Regardless of years in the US, parents
see a strong positive value to formal schooling, and they
want their children to get as much of it as possible. This
appears to explain their high, consistent, and certain
aspirations throughout children's elementary
years.
Rather than producing a direct
effect on the lowering or raising of parental expectations,
ecocultural factors such as job instability and gang
influences contribute to the reluctance of some parents to
state an expected level of achievement for their child.
Although an extremely small number of parents responded "no
s"' ("I don't know") to the aspirations question, more
parents (from 6% to 26% over the years) gave this answer
when asked to state an expectation for their children's
eventual school attainment. High aspirations-parents' hopes
and dreams for how well their children will do in school and
in life-were often accompanied by the belief that, whatever
one may desire for one's child, the children themselves
ultimately make the choice about the road their lives will
take. Parents reported that this child choice included
decisions about peer group association, boyfriends or
girlfriends, and academic motivation.
Mediation of
effects by family routines and settings.
Questions: What will be
the effects of the ecocultural factors identified in on
family routines and activity settings? How will these
routines and settings influence students' school adaptation
and parents' and students' expectations and aspirations for
future achievement?
Hypotheses: We expected
that the ecocultural factors identified in 2a will influence
activity settings and routines in the home. These, in turn,
would influence students' subsequent achievement and their
and their parents' expectations and
aspirations.
Findings: A major factor
influencing the choice of parent strategies and activities
has been found over the years to be the dangerous
neighborhood environments in which families live and educate
their children. Families are confronted with very real
dangers in the form of gang activity, gunfire, and drug
sales in their immediate neighborhoods. In addition, the
cultural schema of 'la calle' --the street-reinforces the
idea that the street and neighborhood are inherently
dangerous, while the educacin' schema fosters respect for
and obedience to parents. So it is not surprising that a
common response among our parents is that of closely
monitoring their children's friendships in order to protect
children from gangs and malas amistades (bad
friendships).
The parental strategy of tight
monitoring and restriction can be considered a reasonable
response to a dangerous environment, and most of the
students whose parents exercise tight control seemed to
understand why they do it and go along with the parents'
decisions. We have identified three groups: restrictive
parents, restrictive/co-constructor, and permissive parents
(Reese, Kroesen, & Gallimore, 1998, in press). The
"restrictive" parents are very restrictive in terms of
friendships and activities, keeping their children close to
home and either not allowing or not encouraging them to
participate in extra-curricular activities. The
"restrictive" parents see their tight discipline as the
means of keeping their children away from bad influences of
peers and concentrating on their studies. However, these
children are not among the higher achievers in our sample.
They attend school regularly, do their homework, participate
in chores and family activities, but they are not doing
particularly well in class. These students, most of whom are
girls, have not lost interest in school and follow through
with homework and assignments, but their grades and class
performance do not appear to be strong enough to carry them
beyond high school.
By way of contrast, the more
successful children in our sample tend to be the ones whose
parents are restrictive but co-construct with their children
alternatives settings in which they can participate. These
co-constructor parents still closely monitor children's'
activities, and are restrictive to some extent. However,
children in these families make choices in concert with
their parents that express both of child agency and parents
desire to monitor their children. Parents often participate
in the activities of their children, such as coaching a
son's soccer team or attending a band concert. The more
successful children also report spending more time on
homework and on school projects.
The permissive group (all boys
at this point) go out with friends with or without parent
permission. Mothers allow, or fail to deny, them greater
geographical freedom than the other children experience, and
they go alone or with friends to the mall, to the arcade,
out bike riding, or fishing. Their parents are not
ideologically permissive; they express the same values that
other parents in the study express about obedience, respect,
and the need for schooling. Yet in practice they are less
skilled at helping their children structure their choices.
At this point in our study this "permissive" group of
parents consists of boys whose fathers are absent, or
usually absent. In part because of this absence, their
mothers often feel that they cannot control the boys'
behavior. On an "agency scale" these boys would be rated
high; however, since they are only very loosely monitored by
their parents, they tend to make choices that are
detrimental to school achievement. They sometimes do their
homework, but often they choose not to. They tend to choose
to participate at a very minimal level in class as well,
completing little classwork in the allotted time and not
participating in discussions. At this time these boys are
not delinquent. We have detected no illicit activities and
virtually no overt hostility to authority. They are simply
not engaged in school.
Gender Differences. These
findings regarding parenting styles indicate that Latino
immigrant parents tend to structure activities for their
adolescent boys and girls differently. Thus, we would expect
to find gender differences for Latino youth in terms of
factors associated with underachievement and unfavorable
outcomes, with some factors being more predictive of lower
performance for boys and other factors for girls. Gender
differences emerged quite clearly in the analysis of
parenting styles. Seven of the nine girls (78 per cent) were
classified in the restrictive group, compared to four of 12
boys. If we combine the 3 boys in the permissive group with
the five boys in the co-constructive groups, 8 of the 12
boys (67 percent) were in homes characterized by the least
restrictive parenting patterns we observed. By comparison,
78 and 22 percent of the girls, respectively, were
classified in the most and least restricted
patterns.
We analyzed gender differences
using a sample of students (n= 81) for whom complete test
score and teacher ratings were available. Performance data
were missing for some students at some grade levels because
the children changed schools and data were not obtained for
various reasons. Girls (n=36) outperformed boys (n= 45) on
standardized tests of both reading and math throughout
elementary school. These differences were significant for
reading in grade 2 (p<.05) and in grade 5 (p<.05), and
for math in grade 4 (p<.05) and grade 5 (p<.01). By
grade 5, means for girls and boys in reading were 40 and
25.8 respectively, and in math were 53.2 and 39.4
respectively. Teachers also rated girls higher than boys
throughout elementary school, with the exception of grade 4,
when ratings were equivalent. Differences were significant
at entrance to kindergarten, in grades 1, 2 and
5.
The Stability and
Predictive Value of Protective/Risk Factors for School
Adaptation, Achievement, and Persistence.
Questions: All of the
following factors emerged and showed suggestive or
documented association with student success in school:
multiple uses of literacy, home literacy experiences of
children, familiarity of family members with the university
system, father involvement in literacy at work and home,
parent-child discussions of the future, the presence of
successful older siblings in the family ; participation in
church activities, and commitment to/implementation of
educacin values. Do these factors continue to function as
protective?
Another potential protective
factor is early literacy development, i.e. level of reading
achievement in early grades. Are the children who did well
in reading early on and who had higher initial ratings on
home literacy environment the same ones who continue to do
well at the end of elementary school (5Th grade) and the end
of middle school (8Th grade)?
Hypotheses: We predicted
that a variety of protective factors would be associated
with differential school achievement and adaptation, and
that some factors would arise and fade depending on the age
of the child. We predicted that students who learn to read
in grades kindergarten through 4 would continue to have an
advantage in middle-school adaptation and would be more
likely to make it into high-school.
Findings: The continuing
correlation of initial literacy development, as measured by
a variety of individually administered assessments of early
literacy at the beginning of kindergarten and before formal
literacy instruction at school, with reading achievement is
one of the most robust correlations of the current study.
Correlations of .34 (p<.002) in grade 1 rise to .4
(p<.003) by the end of grade 5 and .47 (p<.0001) by
the end of grade 7. This illustrates the tremendous
importance and protective value of home literacy
environments and practices in the years before the child
enters school. Similarly, some familiarity with English upon
entering kindergarten (as measured by the Bilingual Syntax
Measure) also predicts reading achievement in grade 5 (.63,
p<.0001) and somewhat less so in grade 7 (.49,
p<.0001).
In analyses carried out during
the students' first grade year, fathers' job-required
literacy was the only ecocultural feature which correlated
significantly with test scores; parent education,
occupational status, and parents' length of time in the U.S.
were not significantly correlated
with performance
(Gallimore, Reese, Balzano, Benson & Goldenberg, 1991).
Further analyses indicated that the fieldworkers' rating of
"general home literacy environment" was highly correlated
with both job-related father literacy (.67, p<.0001) and
father's education (.63, p<.0006). In turn, the home
literacy environment was correlated with individually
administered measures of early literacy (POSTFACT) at the
end of kindergarten (.45, p<.01) and also with teacher
ratings of student academic performance at the end of
kindergarten (.53, p<.01) (Gallimore et al., 1991). In
addition, children's early literacy performance (as measured
when they entered kindergarten on PREFACT) continues to show
robust correlations with performance through middle school
with reading national percentile scores (.47, p<0001) and
with math percentile scores (.31, p<.01). However, parent
reports of help with homework have not been found to be
correlated with achievement.
The Dynamics of
Protective Factors & Emergence of New Risks and
Protective Factors in Middle-childhood
Questions: How is it some
families implement their educacion values and others do not?
What proactive steps do families take to implement these
values? What proactivity or family accommodations are
reported by the families to specifically or partly deal with
the threats of the urban environment such as gangs, drugs,
violence, pressures that take away from attention to school
work, etc. Do the accommodations reports correlate with
student achievement and/or school adaptation? Do the values
stressed by the families and associated with success change
in response to the increased stress and perceived
problematic nature of the middle school
environment?
Hypothesis: We expected
to find that some parents proactively shape some of the
experiences of their children in ways that accommodate both
ecological presses and their cultural values.
Findings: As described
above, variability in performance is associated with
variations in parenting styles and patterns of youth agency,
with higher achieving students engaging in a variety of
activities in which they had the opportunity to exercise
choice and agency under the guidance or with the
participation of their parents. Students whose activities
and friendships were more strictly restricted, in response
to the dangers of the high-crime neighborhoods in which they
live, were not observed to do as well in
school.
We also addressed the question
of why some families are observed to engage in the
co-construction of activities which support academic success
and others are less likely or able to do so. Our findings
suggest several factors that appear to be at work. In some
families, although they endorse traditional values (Reese,
et al., 1995a), parents are unable to exercise the degree of
control over their children's activities sufficient to
implement their values. The families for whom this is true
in our sample are those in which fathers are absent and/or
heavy users of alcohol and mothers are unsupported in their
efforts to guide their adolescent sons. In addition,
parental strategies are related to the gender of the child,
with girls tending to receive stricter limitations on their
activities and friendships than boys do.
Lastly, we have observed that
families' strategies appear to be linked with the parents'
level of education: families in the "co-construction"
category have higher levels of mother's schooling than those
in the "restrictive" category, who in turn have higher
levels than those in the "permissive" category. In the
co-construction category, 86% of the parents had finished
secundaria (grade 9 in Latin America) or high school, while
in the restrictive category 64% of the parents had finished
primaria (grade 6) or less. Although for our longitudinal
sample parental level of schooling is not directly
correlated with children's achievement (due to the
restricted range of the education), parents' educational
background may exercise its effects indirectly through
construction of activities in the daily
routine.
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