Abstract
Marjoribanks in 1989 and Marjoribanks and Kwok in 1998 examined relationships among social status, sibship size, and measures of parents' support for learning for adolescents in Australia and Hong Kong, respectively. This present study investigated similar relationships for 1,305 (700 females, 605 males) 18-yr.-old African students in South Africa. The findings from the three cross-cultural investigations suggest a sibling hypothesis which states that, after taking into account family social status, sibship size has modest significant inverse associations with females', but not with males', perceptions of their parents' support for learning. These studies indicate that in large families, parents may provide fewer resources for daughters than for sons. The results may help explain a small part of the sex-related differences that occur in students' affective and academic school outcomes.
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