On Children’s Outcomes
Chapter 12 reviews research on the educational progress of children raised in different kinds of families. Using data from the 2000 U.S. census, the chapter shows that children raised by same-sex couples had good outcomes, which was consistent with a broad consensus of social science studies. In contrast to the negligible difference in educational progress between children raised by same-sex couples and children raised by heterosexual couples, there are many dimensions of social life that are strongly associated with children’s educational progress in the U.S. These more predictive dimensions include race, gender of the child, parental social class, parental education, region, disability, children raised in families as compared to children under the care of the state or foster children, and rural compared to urban and suburban residence. This research was featured in the DeBoer v Snyder trial.