Educational Sociology Commons^™

Unforeseen Consequences Of Mothers’ Return To School On Children’S Education Aspirations And Outcomes, J. Jill Suitor, Mari Plikuhn, Megan Gilligan, Rebecca S. Powers

Megan Gilligan

Parents' educational attainment is generally completed before offspring are born. Thus, there is little opportunity to study the ways in which children's observation of their parents' pursuit of education may augment the effects of structural factors on intergenerational transmission processes. In this article, the authors use qualitative and quantitative data collected from thirty-five women across a decade following their return to school to examine the effects of children's observations of their mothers' educational achievements on the children's educational aspirations and achievements in adulthood. The return to school was consequential only when mothers completed their degrees; when they did not, their …