Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Trends in the Educational Differences in U.S. Mothers’ Paid Work and Child Care Time-Use and Implications for Mothers’ Well-Being(2024) Gao, Ge; Cohen, Philip N; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores U.S. mothers’ time allocation to employment and child care post-2000 and its implications for their well-being, addressing three empirical questions: (1) How have educational disparities in mothers’ developmentally adaptive child care time evolved in recent decades? (2) How have paid work-child care time divisions shifted differently for less-educated versus more-educated mothers? (3) What are the trends in educational disparities in mothers’ well-being, and to what extent do mothers’ time-use patterns contribute to these changes? This dissertation found that there has been a significant historical decline in educational disparities in mothers’ developmentally adaptive child care time investment over the past two decades. Second, mothers with different educational attainments have gradually adopted divergent paid work-child care time coordination strategies: while high school and less educated mothers saw an increased tendency to spend high volumes of time on child care without employment, college-educated mothers became more likely to invest moderate time on child care while maintaining full-time professional jobs. Finally, college-educated mothers, who were initially at a disadvantage, have experienced significant improvements in the quantity and quality of downtime over the past two decades. Some evidence suggests that the shifting distribution of paid work-child care time coordination patterns contribute to the enhancements in leisure quality for college-educated mothers. This dissertation offers an updated understanding of how US mothers with varying educational backgrounds balance work and family, the potential trade-offs between mothers’ well-being and children’s development, with suggestive impacts on the intergenerational transmission of advantage.Item The Relations Among Childcare Provider Education, Neighborhood Poverty, and the Quality of Childcare Classrooms(2008-08-03) D'Amour, Allison Catherine; Jones Harden, Brenda; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The current study examined contextual influences on the quality of the childcare classroom. Previous research has examined how direct influences, such as childcare provider education, impact childcare quality, but to date, no research has examined how these direct influences interact with distal features, such as neighborhood poverty. Given the large number of children enrolled in childcare and the evidence that high quality childcare benefits children, it is important to identify what contributes to classroom quality. Using hierarchical linear modeling, this study examined (1) if childcare quality varies across neighborhoods, (2) if childcare provider education and (3) neighborhood poverty individually impact classroom quality, and (4) if the impact of childcare provider education on classroom quality varies as a function of the neighborhood. Data collected from the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania's Early to Learn project was used in combination with poverty data derived from the 2000 U.S. Census. Results of the present study were that childcare quality did vary across neighborhoods, but that childcare provider education had no direct impact on classroom quality. However, neighborhood poverty was positively associated with classroom quality. Additionally, there was no differential impact of childcare provider education on quality in the context of the neighborhood. Although these findings may seem to suggest that childcare provider education does not matter, further analyses reveal that higher education was positively related to structural features of the classroom, such as group size and staff: child ratios. Additionally, providers with Associate's degrees and Child Development Associates had the highest quality classrooms, higher than those with a Bachelor's degree and with High School education. More research is needed to fully understand the impact of the childcare provider in the classroom. The findings that classrooms in higher poverty had higher quality classrooms, in addition to the lack of findings regarding childcare provider education, have major implications for future research and policies aimed at improving childcare quality.