A Rand study develops a model concerning mothers in Peninsular Malaysia's three major ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese, Indian), investigating relationships between their early life experiences and their expectations for education levels of their children. The model examines three of the women's early life experiences that are governed by their parents' desires and characteristics: education, early labor force experience, and age at family formation (marriage or first birth). Data are from mothers of 1,159 children, aged 5-9, from the 1976-77 Malaysian Family Life Survey. Results indicate that relationships among mothers' early life experiences and between those outcomes and expectations for children's education often differ by ethnicity and by child's sex. Modern-sector work experience substantially increases mothers' expectations among Chinese and Indian women, but not among Malays, many of whom are from rural areas. Chinese mothers (but not Malays or Indians) strongly favor sons over daughters in expected schooling, but modern-sector work experience changes this pattern, dramatically increasing Chinese expectations for daughters' schooling, but not affecting expectations for sons' attainments. Government policies to improve Malays' social and economic standing have apparently raised expectations for their children's education, relative to Chinese and Indian expectations, as Chinese and Indian women expect their children to complete less schooling than Malays expect. (MH)