[Reading-hall-of-fame] Multigenerational Effects of Adult Education

[Thomas Sticht]

*Multigenerational Effects of Adult Education on Family Learning*

Tom Sticht, International Consultant in Adult Education (Ret.)

A growing body of research on early childhood education (ECE), preschool
programs that have been studied longitudinally for some half a century
suggests that, to a very large extent, the long term success of these
programs can be attributed to the adult education received by the parents
of the preschool children (Sticht, 2011)..

Most recently, Heckman & Karapakula (2019a) studied the disadvantaged
African-American children who participated in the well-known High-Scope
Perry Preschool ECE program in the 1960s. Their new longitudinal research
shows that when the Perry children grew up to become adults aged in their
fifties, the Perry participants achieved a number of cost-beneficial
educational and social outcomes over those of the non-participant control
group of children,

Additionally, they found that when the children of the Perry Preschool
program grew up and had children of their own, the children of the Perry
participants showed positive educational and social outcomes over the
children of the grown-up, Perry non-participant controls (Heckman &
Karapakula (2019b)  This indicates a multigenerational effect of the Perry
program.

Importantly, for adult educators and advocates, research on the grown-up
children who participated in the Perry project led Heckman & Karapakula
(2019a) to note that the children who participated in the Perry program
“…had better home environments and parental attachment during childhood,
which are potential sources of the observed long-lasting treatment effects
(p.4).

These findings are significant for adult educators and advocates because
they point to the role of the education of the adult parents of the Perry
Preschool children in the ECE program. This role was supported by Lawrence
J. Schweinhart, a founder of the Perry Preschool program. He acknowledged
that in the Perry program teachers spent “…substantial amounts of time with
parents, educating them about their children’s development and how they can
extend classroom learning experiences into their homes. All the programs in
the long-term studies worked with parents. In fact, in the High Scope Perry
Preschool program, teachers spent half their work time engaged in such
activities” (Education Week, 2009, p.23).

The idea that much of the success of the Perry Preschool program may have
depended upon the education of the parents of the preschool children is
also suggested by the finding that the Perry Preschool program not only
improved the lives of the children who participated in the program, but
also the lives of their siblings who did not participate in the Perry
program (Heckman & Karapakula, 2019a),. Clearly, this strongly suggests
that much of the multigenerational success of this noted early ECE
preschool program depended on adult education to improve the skills and
knowledge of the children’s parents.

The importance of adult education in the Perry and other experimental ECE
programs that have been studied for decades is a point I made earlier in a
paper on “Educated Parents, Educated Children” (Sticht, 2010). In this
paper I considered the possibility that what many have considered to be the
long-term cost-beneficial effects of educating children in ECE programs may
actually have been primarily the results that the programs had on educating
the children’s parents, as in the Perry Preschool project above.

In a report from the Economic Policy Institute, on the importance of
preschool programs, it was noted that many ECE  programs also provide adult
education and parenting classes (Lynch, 2004).. Again, this suggests that
perhaps a significant percentage of the benefits these preschool programs
produce may result from the effects of their parenting and literacy
education activities for the children’s adult parents, which in turn helps
parents provide a better quality home life with activities supportive of
their children’s education and social emotional development.

In an extensive review of research on childcare and preschool education by
Frederick Morrison and colleagues they questioned the effectiveness of both
childcare and preschool programs that do not focus on improving parenting
skills. Concerning childcare, they say, “Overall, parenting appears to be a
more important source of influence on children’s development than is
childcare. …high-quality childcare will not offset the negative effect of
poor parenting, and poor-quality childcare will not prevent success for
children with effective parents” (
<https://www.edcan.ca/articles/educated-parents-educated-children-toward-a-multiple-life-cycles-education-policy/#_ftn14>Morrison,
Bachman, & Connor, 2005, p. 48-49).

*From Parents to Progeny: Toward a Multiple Life Cycles Education Policy*

Given the important intergenerational and multigenerational effects of
parents’ education level on the achievement of their children and their
grandchildren, I believe we need to shift our education policies from a
focus on one life cycle to a focus on “multiple life cycles” education.
Such a policy would explicitly recognize the many ways that adults transfer
their educational achievements to the educational achievement of their
children.

It would also recognize that adult education should be valued as much as is
early childhood education, and that nations should provide adult education
systems on a par with children’s education systems. Poorly educated
children are the source of adult functional illiteracy, and functionally
illiterate adults are the source of poorly educated children.

Perhaps through education based on a Multiple Life Cycles policy, in which
children are guaranteed a right to educated parents, the vicious
intergenerational and multigenerational cycles of functional illiteracy can
be stopped at both sources.

References

Education Week. (2009). The OBAMA Education Plan: An Education Week Guide.
San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Heckman, J. & Karapakula, G. (2019a). The Perry Preschoolers at Late
Midlife: A Study in Design-Specific Inference.  NBER Working Paper No.
25888, JEL No. C01, C4,I21.

Heckman, J. & Karapakula, G. (2019b). Intergenerational and
Intragenerational Externalities of the Perry Preschool Project. NBER
Working Paper No. 25889 JEL No. C4, I21.

Lynch, R. (2004). Exceptional Returns: Economic, Fiscal, and Social
Benefits of Investment in Early Childhood Development (Washington, DC:
Economic Policy Institute.

Morrison, F., Bachman, H. and  Connor, C. (2005). Improving Literacy in
America New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Sticht, T. (2011, Fall). Getting It Right from the Start: The Case for
Early Parenthood Education American Educator, p35-39. (Available online at:
 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ943722)



Sticht, T. (2010, Fall). Educated Parents, Educated Children: Toward a
Multiple Life Cycles Education Policy. Education Canada, Vol. 50.
(Available online at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ918849)
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