ikelihood of poverty for single parents without a high school education was 28 percentage points more than those with college education (1994, p. 85). Therefore, most children living in single-mother AFDC families were living in poverty.
McLanahan and Sandefur provided illuminating statistical information illustrating the effects of single-mother families on the educational achievements of the children. Using the estimates from the National Longitudinal Survey, they found that the percentage points of the children completing high school education from two-parent families surpassed those of the children from 1-parent families by 19 points (1994, p. 9). In addition, the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men and Women (NLSY) showed that the dropout rate for children from one-parent families was 29%, while the dropout rate for the children from two-parent families was 13 percent (1994, p. 41).
The information produced by High School and Beyond Study comparing the school performance of the children from the two family structures indicated a difference in the test scores, grades and attendance record. The children from one-parent families scored lower than the children from two-parent families. For example, in the test scores that ranked children from the first to the fourth quartile, children from two-parent families received a score of 2.62 and children from one-parent families 2.51 (1994, pp. 94-95).
These results indicated that children from one-parent families were more likely to leave school before completion and do worse in school than their counterparts from two-parent families. However, bare statistics do not provide the whole picture unless the underlying causes are explored in greater detail.
Various theorists have sought to provide explanations for the negative effects of the AFDC families on their children's educational performance. Extreme cultural theorists consider that the negative values and at...