Professor George Farkas Delivers Invited Lecture and Workshop at University of Illinois at Chicago

Invited Lecture: "Risk and Protective Factors Mediating the Effects of Parental Education and Income on Children's School Readiness"

Abstract

One of the principal mechanisms by which inequality is reproduced across generations involves the higher school performance of students from higher social class backgrounds. This social class achievement gap has been found to begin in kindergarten. But which dimension of social class background – parental education or family income – is most strongly associated with this achievement gap, and what family risk and protective factors most strongly mediate these relationships? We address these issues by analyzing the 9, 24, 48, and 60 month waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). The answers are important, because they inform the discussion of the likely impacts of alternative interventions designed to reduce the social class gap in school readiness.

Workshop: "Interventions to Assist Low-Income Youth: Lessons from Personal Experience"

Description

From 1972 to 1978 I had a joint appointment in Sociology and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (an organization much like IGPA) at Yale. From 1978 to 1984, working for Abt Associates and Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, I evaluated the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects, initially designed as a model for Jimmy Carter’s youth employment program. From 1985 to 2003, at the University of Texas at Dallas and Penn State University, I designed and implemented Reading One-to-One, a paraprofessional tutoring program for at-risk students in grades K – 8. This played a role in the design of both Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s reading initiatives, which have been continued by Barack Obama. In this workshop I describe some of my experiences, draw lessons for those who wish to be involved in such efforts, and respond to questions from the audience.