By: Christina Michalek ED Fall 2008

Table of Contents Introduction Statement of the Problem Literature Review Research Hypothesis

Statement of Problem In today’s world, more and more children are being born into single-parent households. It is a trend that is becoming very common. As a result, children’s academic achievement is being affected. Some researchers state that achievement is being affected negatively, while others state that the type of household a child is brought up in affects academic achievement.

Literature Review Featherstone, Cundick, & Jensen (2002) focus on different variables that may affect student academic achievement. Such factors include gender, socioeconomic status, and family type.Their research stated two different viewpoints, focusing on the impact of fathers in a household. Marks (2006) developed a cross-cultural study where he found that socioeconomic backgrounds are another issue that affects academic achievement of children. In a single parent family, only one income is being gathered. This limits families with the resources and support that children need at home and in school.

Parental involvement is one of the major issues that affects academic achievement. If parents are not capable of providing time for their children, the lives of the children will be affected. Parents should not only be involved at home, but in school as well. The National Center for Education Statistics (1997) reported that children from grades 6 through 12 earned A’s if their parents were involved in school activities (Min Lee, Kushner, & Ho Cho, 2007). Carlsen (1993) researched the “Family-School Research Project” which is designed to determine any patterns that are evident between the life of a child at home and their successes in school. Carlsen (1993) also goes on to mention the factor of parental support as an affect of student academic achievement.

“The Future of Children” (2008) mentions a few different issues that need to be considered when discussing single parent families. Parental support and economic hardship are amongst the several factors of academic achievement. The article also mentions discipline issues. Single parents are not able to set ground rules for their children, so expectations cannot be set in the household. Shim, Felner, & Shim (2000) focus on how family structure affects achievement. The main part of their research is that parental expectations of their children was the predictor of how their children performed academically. If parents established high expectations for their children, then they would perform well in school. If no expectations were set, students performed poorly and became stressed.

An article found in One Parent Families Scotland (2001) states that it is “less desirable for children to be brought up by one parent than two parents.” This is a common statement amongst many different researchers. The article focuses most importantly on why single parent families affect academic achievement. Jeynes (1998) takes another approach where remarriage and reconstructed families are considered. In a reconstructed family, parents were separated/divorced and the parents remarried someone else. This may not benefit all children even though there is now a two parent household. There may be hatred and anger towards the “new” parent coming from the children. Amato (2005) agrees with the previous researchers. He states that children in single parent families face cognitive, social, and emotional problems. These problems reflect in their academic achievement. Amato (2005) states hypotheses on what he thinks the future will bring, after the implementation of different interventions that may help children in single parent families.

Family Deficit Model Risk & Protection Factor Model Two parent household is ideal and normal. Single parent families negatively impact children. (Heatherington, Mavis, & Kelly, 2002) Does not view single parent families as irregular. It does not support single parent families. However, it does state that there are some strengths in a single parent household.

Research Hypothesis Student academic achievement is affected by single- parent families. Students who are a part of a single- parent family succeed less in school, as opposed to students who are a part of a two-parent family. Factors such as lack of parental support and socioeconomic status affect student academic achievement.