THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409050051
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
A nationwide study of families and schools released Monday shows that many parents, consumed by making ends meet, are far less involved in the high schools than in the elementary schools, leaving their children with less guidance in the face of a destructive peer culture.
A private research organization in Washington, Child Trends Inc., conducted the study, ``Running in Place: How American Families Are Faring in a Changing Economy and an Individualistic Society.'' It highlights several facts about American families in the 1990s. Among them:
Nearly half of high school students have parents who do not volunteer at school and do not attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings, back-to-school nights, class plays and varsity football games.
Contrary to worries that conditions for families disintegrate as more mothers work outside the home, the study found that such mothers are just as involved in their children's schools as those who work at home. And many states with the highest percentage of working-outside mothers rank highest on indicators of family well-being, such as low child poverty rates and fewer births to teens.
Parents want their children to do well in school and to refrain from smoking or drinking, but these aims are subverted by an adolescent culture that mocks high achievers and promotes cigarettes and alcohol.
Most families are working hard to stay in place, with wages stagnant; meanwhile, the wages of married women rose much faster than those of married men.
Asian-American parents tended to be less involved in organized school activities - 38 percent as against 62 percent of white, non-Hispanic parents. But their children still did better on the whole in school, leading the researchers to conclude that Asian parents may supervise schoolwork at home.
The study draws on new analyses of several nationwide surveys, including the 1990 Census, two national education surveys and vital statistics like birth certificates. It was conducted by Dr. Nicholas Zill, a psychologist, and Christine Winquist Nord, a demographer.
Zill said he was struck by the sharp drop in parental supervision of children's education. Involvement in schools falls to 50 percent of parents when children are 16 or older, from 73 percent when children are 8 to 11, the study said.
These findings, Zill said, indicate a need to pay more attention to adolescents, particularly in the face of a peer culture made more powerful by television and music, and adults less confident of exerting authority.
He also said the study contradicted widespread fears about working mothers. ``By no means is there the kind of conservative stereotype that maternal employment means the death of family,'' Zill said.
For example, states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, which had high percentages of employed mothers of young children, also ranked well on several indicators of family well-being.
These included rates of child poverty, births to teenage mothers or those with less than high school education, parental unemployment, parental involvement in schooling, and levels of student respect for teachers. The states ranking lowest overall on these indicators were Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina.
Over all, the study found, states like Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Utah and Vermont offer the best conditions for family life, with the lowest rates of child poverty and repeat births to teenage mothers and the highest rates of parental involvement and student respect for teachers.
KEYWORDS: STUDY STUDENTS HIGH SCHOOL by CNB