Parental educational attainment and children’s mathematical skills: The role of parental expectations and the home environment

Abstract

Parental educational attainment is an important predictor of children’s mathematical trajectories. However, the mechanisms explaining the association between parents’ educational attainment and indicators of mathematical skills remain underexplored. In this study, we analyzed the roles of parental educational expectations and four dimensions of the home environment—absence of negative discipline, warmth/responsiveness, learning materials, and learning experiences—to understand the association between parental educational attainment and children’s mathematical skills (applied problems, calculation, and mathematical fluency). We used two waves of data from a representative cohort of Chilean children (Encuesta Longitudinal Primera Infancia; ELPI), measured first at ages two to three (2012) and followed up five years later (2017). The analytical sample comprised 2042 children (48 % girls; 13 % Indigenous) and their parents (95 % mothers). Structural equation models (SEM) showed that parental educational attainment predicted parental educational expectations, which in turn predicted the home environment. Availability of learning materials predicted children’s mathematical fluency, while learning experiences predicted children’s applied problems and mathematical fluency, although with small effect sizes. Our findings enhance our understanding of how parental educational attainment relates to children’s mathematical skills through the expectations and behaviors of parents in the home environment.