title: Life-course changes in the mediation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for parental effects on children's academic achievement.
abstract: We assess life-course changes in how cognitive and noncognitive skills mediate the effect of parental SES on children's academic achievement using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. Our results show: (1) the direct effect of parental SES declines while the mediating effect of skills increases over time; (2) cognitive and non-cognitive skills differ in their temporal sensitivities to parental origin; and (3) in contrast to the effect of cognitive skills, the mediating effect of non-cognitive skills increases over time because non-cognitive skills are more sensitive to changes in parental SES. Our results offer insights into the dynamic role skill formation play in status attainment.
authors.affiliation: Queens College-City University of New York, USA. Electronic address: amy.hsin@qc.cuny.edu.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hsin
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, USA.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie
keywords: Child development; Cognitive skills; Educational achievement; Non-cognitive skills