Introduction
Theories of risk and resiliency consider why children are likely to show diminished
well-being in the face of certain negative biological and environmental conditions
(Bynner, 2001; Garmezy, 1985, 1993; Werner, 1989). Fundamental to the notion of
risk is the predictability of life chances from prior experience and circumstances. This
is expressed through the concept of a ‘risk trajectory’, wherein one risk factor
reinforces another, leading to increasingly restricted outcomes in later life (Rutter,
1990b). A recent study by Schoon et al. (2002), for example, investigated the extent
of continuity of socio-economic disadvantage from birth to mid-adulthood and the
maintenance of academic adjustment in the face of this risk. Similarly, Sameroff et al
(see Gutman et al., 2002; Sameroff et al, 1998) have investigated the impact of
cumulative risk factors on children’s development and have shown that while there
are significant effects of single risk factors, most children with only one risk factor
would not end up with a major developmental problem. It is the compounding of risk
that is most damaging, in the sense that the presence of more risk factors is related to
a higher probability of negative outcomes. In a comprehensive review of the effects of
biological, psychological and social influences on development, Wachs (2000)
concluded that no single factor was sufficient to explain developmental outcomes and
that only the study of multiple influences simultaneously would produce reasonable
explanatory power.
Protective factors however, may impede or halt risk and risk trajectory processes,
promoting resiliency and enabling the child’s life to move in positive directions
(Garmezy, 1985, 1993). Protective factors work on the more malleable components of
development, such as the emotional, educational, social and economic influences.
These operate alone as well as more commonly interacting with each other. They
reflect the different kinds of resources that may help the child to resist adversity.
Thus, for example, strong parental attitudes and aspirations as well as sustained
encouragement and commitment to children by the schools they attend, may override
some of the worst effects of poverty and disadvantage.
In the same way as risk factors reinforce other risk factors, protective factors can also
have a cumulative effect. Individuals from more privileged homes for example, often
have more educational opportunities, greater access to financial resources when they
are needed (e.g. to pay for higher education), more positive role models, greater
occupational knowledge and better established informal/kinship networks
(Schulenberg et al., 1984).
We hypothesise that parental educational success acts as a protective factor for
children’s development, while lower levels of parents’ prior educational attainment
operates as a risk factor. Thus children of more educated parents will tend on average
to benefit from warmer, more supportive parenting, live in safer neighbourhoods with
better institutional resources and more positive role models, be placed in higher
quality pre-schools and attend more successful schools. In addition to the effects of
these specific individual factors, the interactions between them are vital. The role of
parental education in the inter-generational transmission of life opportunities and
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