Friday, 14 January 2005 - 2:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Risk for Child Maltreatment

The Role of Substitute Parenting in the Educational Experiences of Children in Public Child Welfare

Purpose: To address the problems of the educational disadvantages of children in public care, the current research aimed to examine the effects of caregivers' educational expectations and involvement on children's educational achievement, drawing upon social capital theory. Further, the study investigated whether the quality of caregivers' relationships with children affects the level of caregiver involvement.

Methods: This study employed secondary data of the Illinois Subsidized Guardianship Demonstration and administrative data of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS). The Demonstration data was collected through interviews conducted in 2000 with approximately 1,000 children and their caregivers who were involved with IDCFS. The math and reading percentiles from a standardized test administered in 2001 provided measures of children's educational achievement. A principle component analysis identified three factors of caregiver involvement labeled as follows: supervision reported by children, supervision reported by the caregivers themselves, and direct educational activities, such as help with homework. Three variables indicated the quality of the relationship between caregivers and children: the presence of kinship, achievement of permanency, or the level of affection they shared. Multiple regression analysis was used as a major statistical tool.

Results: The results revealed no significant effect of the caregivers' educational expectations on either math or reading percentiles, controlling for correlates of educational achievement: children's race, gender, disability status, presence of history of maltreatment, number of school changes, total days with caregivers, and caregivers' education and income. However, separate sets of analysis performed for the children without disabilities indicated significant positive effect of caregivers' expectations on their reading achievement (p<.05). Further analysis of the effect of caregiver involvement on children's educational achievement found the level of supervision reported by children positively affected reading achievement (p<.01), and direct educational activities positively affected math achievement (p<.05), even after accounting for correlates of caregiver involvement: children's age, gender, total number of days with caregivers, and caregivers' age, income, and educational levels. The results also revealed that the presence of kinship ties had a unique effect on the level of supervision reported by caregivers, controlling for the correlates of caregiver involvement and two other variables of quality of relationship (i.e. permanence achievement and the level of affection) (p<.05). The level of affection showed a unique positive effect on the level of supervision reported by children (p<.001) and on the level of direct educational activities (p<.001), after considering the effects of the covariates. However, the achievement of permanence failed to show a unique effect on any types of caregiver involvement.

Implications for practice include three recommendations: to train caregivers in public care to see the importance of their realistic but high educational expectations and active involvement in facilitating children's education; to include educational support and interest as selection criteria for foster parents; to draw social workers' attention to the importance of affectionate relationships between caregivers and children as an incentive for caregivers' investment in children's education.

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