Birth order and family size: influences on adolescents' achievement and related parenting behaviors.

The purposes of this study were to confirm birth-order and family-size differences in achievement, to confirm birth-order and family-size differences in parenting, and to examine whether parenting style and parental involvement serve as mediators of birth-order and family-size differences in achievement. Subjects were 195 ninth-grade boys and girls and their parents from urban, suburban, and rural communities in the southeast and the midwest. Questionnaire measures of adolescents' and parents' perceptions of parenting style and parental involvement were used. Birth-order and family-size differences were found in adolescents' achievement and perceptions of parenting style and parental involvement but not in parents' perceptions of parenting. However, these parenting characteristics did not mediate the differences seen in achievement by birth order and family size. Implications of these findings are discussed.