Educational risk factors for students in single and dual parent households

Thesis (M.A.) - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of SociologyThe demonization of single parents by media and government sources has been a persistent problem in our society. In order to examine the validity of the claims made against single parents, this study examines the relationship between household structure and composite reading and math test scores. Secondary data analysis was used from the Educational Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS: 2002) of 10,945 10th grade students with a composite model consisting of: student role performance (SRP), schools, and families. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis are used to examine the independent effects on test scores. Mean composite test scores show a statistically significant difference in the test scores of students from single parent families (48.17) and dual parent families (51.88). The examination of the unique variance in test scores for each model segment shows student role performance factors explain more of the “unshared” variance in test scores than the other model segment. These results suggest that the blame of student outcomes on parent structure is explained by factors such as socioeconomic status within student role performance than the actual parental structure