ABSTRACT
This chapter reconsiders how and why family configuration affects children's elementary schooling. To do this it draws extensively upon data pertaining to Beginning School Study parents. The chapter mainly covers the elementary school period, but occasionally refers to longer term outcomes that link back to those early yeans. Compared to children in two-parent families, those being raised in single parent families have lower IQ and achievement test scores, more often repeat a grade, more often drop out, and less often go to college. Living in a single-parent family is also problematic for students' classroom behavior and adjustment. Single parenting could have negative effects on children's schooling for many reasons: The relative dearth of economic resources in single parent homes; the greater difficulty that single parents have in socializing children for school; the family's living arrangements, because many single mothers share residences. Children's school performance is negatively correlated with family size both in intact and non-intact families.
