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This study examined migration narratives of West African immigrants for the connections between experiences of loss and educational aspirations for their children. The qualitative design consisted of three interviews per family in which parents (N = 20, 12 families) were asked to narrate their families' migration histories. Transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory followed by thematic coding. Discussions of loss were markedly proximal to discussions of children's education. Schooling was described as providing upward mobility but conflicting with education at home, which was seen as fostering traditional values. Discussion contextualizes findings using Hobfoll's conservation of resources theory and Kagitçibasi's family change theory. Implications include salience of loss to educational aspirations and school-family partnerships for immigrants.

The present meta-analysis assessed concurrent and longitudinal associations between parental educational expectations and child achievement, and factors that mediate the effect of expectations on achievement. A systematic search in electronic databases identified 169 studies that were included in a random-effects meta-analysis. We found small to moderate bivariate cross-sectional (r = .30) and longitudinal associations (r = .28) between parental expectation and achievement which persisted after statistically controlling for socioeconomic status. Associations varied, in part, by children's age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, matching of type of expectations and achievement, type of expectation assessed, publication status, and informant. The analysis of cross-lagged effects indicated that parental expectations predicted change in child achievement, thus indicating that expectations had an effect over and above the effect of prior achievement. Effects of expectations on change in achievement were even stronger (r = .15) than the effects of achievement on change in expectation (r = .09). Parental expectations tended to be higher than the child achievement. Associations between expectations and achievement were partially mediated by educational expectations in the offspring, child academic engagement, and academic self-concept, and to a lesser extent, by parental achievement-supportive behaviors. We conclude that parents are recommended to communicate positive educational expectations to their children. The transmission of positive expectations to the offspring and the encouragement of academic engagement seem to be more effective in realizing parental expectations than parental behavioral academic involvement such as checking homework and staying in contact with teachers. (ZPID).

Why is it that children of immigrants often outdo their ethnic majority peers in educational aspirations yet struggle to keep pace with their achievements? This article advances the explanation that many immigrant communities, while positively selected on education, still have moderate absolute levels of schooling. Therefore, parents’ education may imbue children with high expectations but not always the means to fulfill them. Swedish data on children of immigrants from over 100 countries of origin support this view: Net of parents’ absolute years of schooling, a high rank in the sending country benefits children’s aspirations, attitudes, and educational choices but not their test scores or school grades. The upshot is an “aspiration squeeze” where to emulate their parents’ relative place in the education distribution, children are left struggling against the momentous tide of educational expansion.

Conventional wisdom suggests that parents’ educational expectations (how far they expect their children to go) and aspirations (how far they want their children to go) positively impact academic outcomes and benefits from attending high-ability schools. However, here we juxtapose the following: largely positive effects of educational expectations (of parents, teachers, and students); small, mixed effects of parent aspirations; largely adverse effects of parental aspiration-expectation gaps; and negative effects of school-average achievement on expectations, aspirations, and subsequent outcomes. We used a large, nationally representative longitudinal sample (16,197 Year-10 students from 751 US high schools).Controlling background (achievement, SES, gender, age, ethnicity, academic track, and a composite risk factor), Year 10 educational expectations of teachers and parents had consistently positive effects on the following: student expectations in Years 10 and 12, Year 10 academic self-concept, final high-school grade-point-averages, and long-term outcomes at age 26 (educational attainment, educational and occupational expectations). Effects of parent aspirations on these outcomes were predominantly small and mixed in direction. However, the aspiration-expectation gap negatively predicted all these outcomes. Contrary to our proposed Goldilocks Effect (not too much, not too little, but just right), non-linear effects of expectations and aspirations were small and largely non-significant.Parent, teacher, student expectations, and parent aspirations were all negatively predicted by school-average achievement (a big-fish-little-pond effect). However, these adverse effects of school-average achievement were larger for parents and particularly teachers than students. Furthermore, these expectations and aspirations partly mediated the adverse impacts of school-average achievement on subsequent grade-point-average and age-26 outcomes.

Effective parent-teacher partnerships improve outcomes for autistic students. Yet, we know little about what effective partnerships look like for parents of autistic children from different backgrounds. We conducted interviews with 17 Chinese parents of autistic children attending Australian kindergartens/schools to understand their experiences. Parents appreciated the acceptance, opportunities and supports they received in Australia. They had high expectations of children; expectations not often shared by educators. Parents were respectful of teachers’ expertise and polite and undemanding in interactions. Nevertheless, parents were frustrated by inconsistent teaching quality and inadequate communication. Navigating systems was also challenging and parents faced discrimination from teachers and their community. Recommendations include fostering open home-school communication, proactively seeking parents’ expertise about children and explicitly scaffolding parents’ self-advocacy.

There were mixed results about the relationship between parental educational aspirations and students’ academic achievement. Parental educational aspirations, expectations and aspiration-expectation gap have internal association. To gain deeper insights about them, the present study aimed to explore the effects of parental educational aspirations, expectations and their gap on students’ academic achievement, controlling potential confounding factors. A total of 3448 students (52.78% boys, M age = 12.53 years) from 79 schools were selected using the whole class sampling method. Hierarchical linear models were employed for data analysis. The results showed an inverted U-shaped relationship between parental educational aspirations and academic achievement. Students’ academic achievement had a positive linear relationship with parental educational expectations, and a negative linear relationship with the aspiration-expectation gap. These findings indicate that parental educational aspirations are positively associated with academic achievement, but this relationship turns negative when parents aspire for their children to achieve beyond a bachelor degree. The current study provides new understandings regarding the relations among parental educational aspirations, expectations and aspiration-expectation gap, and their effects on children’s academic achievement.

In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achievement within and across diverse racial and ethnic groups. Our review suggests that the level of parental expectations varies by racial/ethnic group, and that students' previous academic performance is a less influential determinant of parental expectations among racial/ethnic minority parents than among European American parents. To explain this pattern, we identify three processes associated with race/ethnicity that moderate the relation between students' previous performance and parental expectations. Our review also indicates that the relation of parental expectations to concurrent or future student achievement outcomes is weaker for racial/ethnic minority families than for European American families. We describe four mediating processes by which high parental expectations may influence children's academic trajectories and show how these processes are associated with racial/ethnic status. The article concludes with a discussion of educational implications as well as suggestions for future research.

This study examined parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment in relation to ethnicity (African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic), parental education, children’s academic performance, and parental perceptions of the quality and climate of their children’s school with a sample of 13,577 middle and high school parents. All parents had relatively high educational aspirations for their children, and within each ethnic subgroup, parental education and children’s academic performance were significantly and positively related to parental aspirations. However, moderating effects were found such that Caucasian parents with lower levels of education had significantly lower educational aspirations for their children than did parents of other ethnicities with similar low levels of education. Although the strength of the relationship between parental perceptions of school-related factors and parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment was not strong, it was most predictive of non-Caucasian parental aspirations for their children.

The authors analyze the subtle mechanisms at work in the interaction between families and schools that underlie social inequalities at the transition point from elementary school into secondary-school tracks in Berlin, Germany. They do so by combining quantitative data from a large-scale survey and assessment study (N = 3,935 students and their parents) with qualitative data from in-depth interviews with parents (N = 25) collected during the 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13 school years. The quantitative analyses show that students from high-socioeconomic status (SES) families were more likely to enter the academic track than were students from low-SES families, even if they performed equally well on a standardized achievement test, had the same grades in school, and received the same track recommendation from their teachers. The qualitative analyses illustrate the many ways in which parents intervene during the transition process, with high-SES parents having particularly effective ways of getting what they want for their children. (DIPF/Orig.).

The heterogeneity of the contemporary Indian middle-class has been discussed widely. However, the effect of its internal differences on the distribution of educational resources needs to be examined systematically. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with parents in 53 middle-class families in Dehradun, India, this paper explores three aspects of the home-school relationship: how socioeconomic transformations shape parents' aspirations for their children's future, educational decisions parents make to realise those aspirations, and mothers' engagement in their children's everyday schooling. The tripartite analysis reveals that despite sharing common educational goals and strategies with the population in general, middle-class families in India use their class privilege to gain valuable educational resources. The paper argues that the discrepancy in the mobilisation of accumulated resources in the heterogeneous middle-class results in disparate educational advantages across families. It critiques the binary construction of social classes when explaining the processes of social reproduction in contemporary Indian society.