Widening Educational Disparities Outside of School: A longitudinal study of parental involvement and early elementary schoolchildren's learning time in Japan

This study attempts to further our understanding of social-class-based differences of school-aged children's effort levels by shedding light on the beginning of the inequality. Using four waves (from 1st to 4th grade students) of the Longitudinal Survey of Babies in the 21st Century collected in Japan, this study investigates how the effort gap emerges and widens in the first four years of compulsory education. The results of hierarchical linear model (HLM) growth curve analyses indicate that college-educated parents demonstrate "concerted cultivation" (Lareau 2003, 2011). Parental education background, a proxy of social class, relates to the usage of shadow education (i.e., cram schools and long distance learning), the length of a child's time spent on television viewing/video gaming, and the degree of parents' involvement in the child's learning at home. Findings of a hybrid fixed effects model show that these social-class-related parenting practices are associated with the levels and changes in children's learning time.