title: Neighborhood Characteristics, Parental Practices and Children's Math Achievement in Elementary School.
abstract: This paper investigates the relationships among neighborhood characteristics, education-related parental practices, and children's academic achievement during a critical but under-studied stage of children's educational trajectories - the elementary school years. Using a large, nationally representative database of American elementary school students - the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) - and contextual data from the 2000 U.S. Census, we examine parental practices and neighborhood characteristics at the beginning of children's school careers (grades K-1) and their associations with math achievement through the end of the 5thgrade.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Net of family-level characteristics, higher levels of early education- oriented parental practices were associated with higher mathematics achievement at the end of 5thgrade, while neighborhood disadvantage was associated with lower 5thgrade math achievement. Families residing in high poverty, high unemployment, low-education neighborhoods employed fewer education- oriented practices with their kindergarten- first grade children, but the positive effect of such parental practices on children's mathematics achievement was stronger for children who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
authors.affiliation: The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Greenman
authors.affiliation: The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bodovski
authors.affiliation: The Pennsylvania State University.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Reed