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Title: Explaining Southern Disadvantage in Verbal Facility Among Young Children
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Parcel, Toby L.
Geschwender, Laura Ellen
Explaining Southern Disadvantage in Verbal Facility Among Young Children
Social Forces 73,3 (March 1995): 841-872.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2580549
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Children, Home Environment; Family Characteristics; Family Structure; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Mothers, Race; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Regions; Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction; Verbal Memory (McCarthy Scale)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Data on children from the 1986 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) suggest that children aged 3 to 6 from the Deep South score lower than children in the north central states on PPVT-R, a standardized test of receptive vocabulary, while children in the Northeast and West and Border South score close to children in the north central states. We argue that regional variation in demographic composition/social class, and in patterns of family social capital as influenced by regional variations in subculture account for the findings. Descriptive analyses reveal regional differences in maternal characteristics and attitudes, family composition, parental working conditions, and children's home environments, most suggesting southern disadvantage. Multivariate analyses suggest that regional variation in maternal race and ethnicity account for the observed differences among girls. Among boys, these factors--in addition to maternal background, socialization, and very frequent church attendance; maternal working conditions; and children's home environments--contribute to explaining the differences.
Bibliography Citation
Parcel, Toby L. and Laura Ellen Geschwender. "Explaining Southern Disadvantage in Verbal Facility Among Young Children." Social Forces 73,3 (March 1995): 841-872.