A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success

The Coleman Report posited that the inequality of educational opportunity appears to stem from the home itself and the cultural influences immediately surrounding the home. However, this line of inquiry assumes that school and home processes operate in isolation, which is often not the case. An exam...

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Main Authors: Angel L. Harris, Keith Robinson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Russell Sage Foundation 2016-09-01
Series:RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2016.2.5.09
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author Angel L. Harris
Keith Robinson
author_facet Angel L. Harris
Keith Robinson
author_sort Angel L. Harris
collection DOAJ
description The Coleman Report posited that the inequality of educational opportunity appears to stem from the home itself and the cultural influences immediately surrounding the home. However, this line of inquiry assumes that school and home processes operate in isolation, which is often not the case. An example of how families and schools can reinforce one another is through parental involvement. Whereas some studies suggest that children have better achievement outcomes when their parents are involved in their education, other studies challenge the link between parental involvement and academic outcomes. One major reason for this lack of consensus among scholars is that parents’ involvement has been measured differently across studies. Thus, scholars’ disagreements about how parents should be involved and about which aspects of parental involvement are associated with improvements in children’s academic outcomes have contributed to inconsistent findings. We argue that the mixed results observed in previous studies indicate that parental involvement does not operate through the typical channels posited by researchers, educators, and policymakers and that traditional measures of parental involvement fail to capture the fundamental ways in which parents help their children academically. We propose a framework of parental involvement that might provide some clarity on how parental involvement operates.
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spelling doaj.art-5c718cd9f81646d8b30576288306847e2022-12-21T18:36:34ZengRussell Sage FoundationRSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences2377-82532377-82612016-09-012518620110.7758/RSF.2016.2.5.09A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic SuccessAngel L. Harris0Keith RobinsonDuke UniversityThe Coleman Report posited that the inequality of educational opportunity appears to stem from the home itself and the cultural influences immediately surrounding the home. However, this line of inquiry assumes that school and home processes operate in isolation, which is often not the case. An example of how families and schools can reinforce one another is through parental involvement. Whereas some studies suggest that children have better achievement outcomes when their parents are involved in their education, other studies challenge the link between parental involvement and academic outcomes. One major reason for this lack of consensus among scholars is that parents’ involvement has been measured differently across studies. Thus, scholars’ disagreements about how parents should be involved and about which aspects of parental involvement are associated with improvements in children’s academic outcomes have contributed to inconsistent findings. We argue that the mixed results observed in previous studies indicate that parental involvement does not operate through the typical channels posited by researchers, educators, and policymakers and that traditional measures of parental involvement fail to capture the fundamental ways in which parents help their children academically. We propose a framework of parental involvement that might provide some clarity on how parental involvement operates.http://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2016.2.5.09parental involvementacademic achievement
spellingShingle Angel L. Harris
Keith Robinson
A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
parental involvement
academic achievement
title A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success
title_full A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success
title_fullStr A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success
title_full_unstemmed A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success
title_short A New Framework for Understanding Parental Involvement: Setting the Stage for Academic Success
title_sort new framework for understanding parental involvement setting the stage for academic success
topic parental involvement
academic achievement
url http://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2016.2.5.09
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