The association between family structure and educational performance has been the focus of much research in recent years. It seems that a child’s education is often one of the casualties of family instability arising from divorce, separation and sole parenthood. The growing number of sole parent families, and an increasing body of evidence indicating educational disadvantage in these families, highlights the importance and urgency of this issue.

If Australia is to provide a quality education for all students and achieve excellence in education, then all potential causes of educational disadvantage need to identified and dealt with appropriately.

Children from sole parent families fall into this category of disadvantage, although the assessment of their disadvantage requires an acknowledgement and understanding of all the factors involved, not to mention the variables that affect the extent of this disadvantage. It is not the case that all sole parents are incapable of providing their children with a decent education, but rather that children from sole parent families are more likely to encounter difficulties that children in married couple families do not.

In light of the preceding discussion it is important to note that simply adding a parent/partner to the equation will not necessarily solve the problems associated with sole parenthood. The problem is that the original family has been disrupted or never existed in the first place. The optimal family situation for a child, and the one that will be strongest in enhancing its education is a stable intact family.

Alison Rich is a Policy Analyst with the Taking Children Seriously research program. This is an edited extract from her forthcoming CIS Policy Monograph, Beyond the Classroom: How Parents Influence Their Children’s Education.