Introduction
For those more familiar with the language of applied analysis a moderating effect is
equivalent to an interaction effect.
1.4. A conceptual model of the inter-generational transmission of
learning
We referred above to evidence suggesting a causal link between parents’ education
and the attainments of children. The studies referred to treat education as a distal
factor like others. The objective of this paper, however, is to explore and model the
more complex relationships underlying this distal connection.
Box 3 lays out a model for the effect of parents’ education on child development. It
describe our hypotheses about how parental education impacts on family processes
and hence development both directly and indirectly through other mediating distal
factors and/or via important characteristics of contexts and proximal processes.