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Title: Can the Welfare State Replace Parents? Children's Cognition in the United States and Great Britain
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Parcel, Toby L.
Campbell, Lori A.
Can the Welfare State Replace Parents? Children's Cognition in the United States and Great Britain
Social Science Research (1 November 2016): DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.10.009.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X16302617
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Britain, British; Child Health; Cognitive Ability; Cross-national Analysis; Family Structure; Maternal Employment; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

In recent years we have learned a great deal about how families influence child outcomes in the United States (U.S.). We know that family social capital is important in promoting both child cognition and social adjustment (Dufur et al., 2013 and Dufur et al., 2008); that fathers play a vital role in promoting child well-being (Coltrane, 1996 and Marsiglio and Roy, 2012); and that marital disruption can be detrimental to child and adolescent development (Amato, 2010 and Kim, 2011). We know much less, however, about whether these same findings hold in countries outside the U.S., and whether similar processes are at work cross-culturally.

We address this deficit by studying the determinants of children's cognition in both the U.S. and Great Britain (G.B.). Classic sociological findings suggest that child cognition is important because it predicts school success, an important precursor of placement in western stratification systems (Crouse et al., 1979). Lower levels of cognition, even among younger children, are associated with subsequent reduced high school graduation rates, lower probabilities of college enrollment and lower levels of academic achievement (Jencks, 1979 and Sewell and Hauser, 1975). Thus, children's cognition has implications for long-term socioeconomic success.

Bibliography Citation
Parcel, Toby L. and Lori A. Campbell. "Can the Welfare State Replace Parents? Children's Cognition in the United States and Great Britain." Social Science Research (1 November 2016): DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.10.009.