Friday, 14 January 2005 - 12:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Poster Session I

Effects of Caregivers' Educational Expectations on Academic Performances of Children in Public Care

Purpose: To address the problems of the educational disadvantages of children in public care, the current research had three purposes: (1) to explore educational experiences of children in public care, including their school performances and number of school changes; (2) to examine direct effects of caregivers' educational expectations, as well as indirect effects transmitted via their educational involvement, on children's academic performances; (3) to investigate whether the effects of caregivers' expectations on children's academic performances differ according to the caregivers' relationship with the children.

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: Descriptive results showed that 79% of the studied children did not reach national average both in math and reading percentiles and almost 30% of the children had some type of disability codes. Another striking finding was that over 30% of the children reported that they had changed their schools in past 12 months. The results of multiple regression analysis 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). There was no evidence of indirect effect of caregivers' expectations transmitted through caregiver involvement on the children's academic performances. Further, the current study examined the interaction effects between caregivers' expectations and each of the three variables related to the quality of relationship (the presence of kinship, achievement of permanency, and the level of affection) on the children's educational achievement. The results indicated that none of the three variables of the quality of relationship had interaction effect with caregivers' expectations on children's educational achievement.

Implications for practice include four recommendations: to realize that children in public care need extra educational encouragement and supports to overcome their previous and present educational disadvantages; to put every effort in reducing children's school changes due to administrative reasons; to train caregivers in public care to see the importance of their realistic but high educational expectations in facilitating children's education; to include educational support and interest as selection criteria for foster parents.

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