[AAACE-NLA] FW: Request for Information

Fri Jan 13 13:20:04 EST 2006

I just completed grounded theory for my Ph.D. dissertation this past
year, and I also found that the single largest  influence on the
first-generation college female learner was guess who:  her mother. If
her mother did not think she could do college or wish that she wouldn't,
it was a pretty good bet that she would drop out.  If the mother did
want her to go and succeed, she successfully completed her educational
goals!  However, my study centered on women who "overcame obstacles in
spite of the all the odds" and were successfully completing their
college.  The biggest single obstacle:  their mothers.

____________________________________________________
Charlene A. Lutes, Ph.D.
Transition Coordinator---Bridge
Northwestern Michigan College
1701 E. Front Street
Traverse City, MI   49686
(231) 995-1971   FAX (231) 995-1972

Eleanor Roosevelt said:    "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds
discuss events,
                                           and small minds discuss
people."
   __________________________________________________________________

>>> tsticht at znet.com 1/13/2006 11:36 AM >>>
Art: Following is a brief note I posted in 2002 with references to
mother's
education and children's (even grown up children) achievement of
literacy.
It may be of interest to know that the frequently quoted statement,
"the
single most effective predictor of children's literacy is mother's
education level" comes from workshops on Functional Context Education
that
I originally gave in 1987. In those workshops I cited research by the
Department of Defense to re-norm the Armed Services Vocational
Aptitude
Battery (ASVAB). In that work the researchers found that, after taking
into
account the young adults' own years of education, their mother's
years of
education was the single best predictor of scores on all 10 sub-tests
of
the ASVAB, including the basic skills of vocabulary and paragraph
reading
and mathematics. The citation for this study is

Bock, R. D. & Moore, E. G. J. (1984, February). Profile of American
Youth:
Demograpic Influences on ASVAB Performance. Washington, DC: Office of
the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Installations and
Logistics).

Good luck, Tom Sticht

September 4, 2002

Teach the Mothers and Reach The Children

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Traditionally, nations have emphasized the education and literacy
development of boys and men. The failure to focus resources on girls
and
women shows itself in the international literacy statistics compiled
by
UNESCO. From 1980 to 1995, the illiterate population of men fell from
327
to 318 million, while the numbers of illiterate women grew from 551 to
565
million (Aksornkool, 2001).

Typically, providing educational services to adults stimulates a
greater
interest on the part of parents, especially mothers, to become
involved
with the education of their children. Research by Wider Opportunities
for
Women (WOW) in Washington, DC studied the effects of women's
participation
in workforce basic skills training on (1) their behavior toward their
children, (2) their interactions with teachers and participation in
school
activities, and (3) their children's behavior in school (Van Fossen &
Sticht, 1991).

In the WOW research,  welfare mothers were trained in the work skills
needed
for higher paying,  non-traditional jobs for women, such as carpentry.
WOW
also taught women reading and mathematics skills using materials from
the
jobs  for which they were training. In their research on how a
mother's
education affects behavior with her children, they found that as a
result 
of their participation in the work-oriented basic skills programs
mothers
spent more time with their children talking about school, helping with

homework, reading  with their children, going to and helping with
school
activities and they talked more with teachers about their children's
education. The WOW mothers also  reported that their children liked
and
attended school more, and they showed improvements in their school
grades,
test scores, and reading.

Research for UNESCO (Sticht & McDonald, 1990) illustrates the effects
of
girl's and women's education on children and their educational
development
at various stages from before birth to the school years:

Before Pregnancy
Better educated girls/women show higher economic productivity; better
personal health care; lower fertility rates; and hence they produce
smaller
families. The latter, in turn, is related to the preschool cognitive
development of children and their subsequent achievement in school.

During Pregnancy and at Birth
Better educated women provide better pre-natal care; produce more full
term
babies; provide better post-natal care and this results in babies with
fewer learning disabilities.

Before Going To School
Better educated women produce better children's health care; better
cognitive, language, and pre-literacy development; and better
preparation
for schoolwork.

During The School Years
Better educated women produce higher participation rates in schooling;
better management of homework; better advocacy for children's
education and
negotiation of school/child conflicts; and they produce children who
achieve
higher levels of education and literacy.

All this suggests that we should pay special attention to the need for
resources to provide literacy educational opportunities to the millions
of
less literate women who will bring the next generation of children into
the
world. We should remember that, when we teach the mothers, we reach
the
children!

References
Aksornkool, N. (2001). Literacy: A key to Empowering Women Farmers.
Paris:
United National Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

Sticht, T. & McDonald, B. (1990). Teach the Mother and Reach the
Child:
Literacy Across Generations. Geneva: UNESCO International Bureau of
Education.

Van Fossen, S. & Sticht, T. (1991, July). Teach the Mother and Reach
the
Child: Results of the Intergenerational Literacy Action Research
Project of
Wider Opportunities for Women. Washington, DC: Wider Opportunities for
Women.

Additional Resources
Mason, J. & Kerr, B. (1992). Literacy transfer from parents to children
in
the preschool years. In: T. Sticht, M. Beeler, & B. McDonald (Eds.)
The
Intergenerational Transfer of Cognitive Skills. Vol. II: Theory and
Research in Cognitive Science. Norwood, NJ: ABLEX.

Sticht, T. (1983, February). Literacy and Human Resources Development
at
Work: Investing in the Education of Adults to Improve the Educability
of
Children. Professional Paper 2-83. Alexandria, VA: Human Resources
Research
Organization. (ERIC No. ED 262 201)

Sticht, T., Beeler, M., & McDonald, B. (Eds.) (1992). The
Intergenerational
Transfer of Cognitive Skills. Vol. I: Programs, Policy, and Research
Issues. Norwood, NJ: ABLEX.

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