Parental Involvement as a Protective Factor in School Adjustment among Retained and Promoted Secondary Students

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationship of parental involvement and school adjustment among secondary students considering their school integration, school satisfaction, and prosocial disposition. The analysis also considers academic performance through the grade retention. Study sample was 1043 Spanish adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years (51.5% girls, M = 14.21, SD = 1.38). A factorial (3x2x2x2) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was applied for the outcome variables of school integration, school satisfaction, and prosocial behavior, with parental educational involvement, grade retention, sex, and age as independent variables. The results show that both parental involvement and academic performance are positively related to school adjustment. In addition, parental involvement influences adolescents' school adjustment, regardless of academic performance, being a protective factor in that adjustment.Sustainability 2019, 11, 7080 2 of 16 of cognition), exert their effects on academic performance through the level of parental involvement or support in education [12][13][14]. This implication refers to parental behavior as concerns their attention and participation, at home and at school, aimed at helping children in their school learning experiences [15,16].Parental involvement in school is related, directly or indirectly, to academic performance [17,18]. These effects seem to be mediated by the perception that children have of such involvement, relating positively to their school adjustment [9,19]. For example, improvement in academic performance has been observed through improved academic motivation, school satisfaction, school commitment, self-esteem, social competence, prosocial behavior, normative adjustment, and, likewise, through a reduction in absenteeism and antisocial behaviors [20,21]. However, studies point to the existence of gender differences in terms of the assessments that the adolescent makes regarding the educational practices exercised by both parents, with a tendency to perceive the mother's educational practices more positively than those of the father's [14,22], with girls being the ones who indicate the biggest differences in this perception [23,24]. Although parental involvement has been related to school adjustment in different studies, it has not been proven to be equally effective for adolescents with good and poor academic performance. Academic PerformanceSeveral authors recognize a close connection between the adolescent's evolutionary aspect and academic decline, especially determined by the decrease in motivation and school commitment [25,26]. This process is attributed to the rapid transformation in their psychosocial and cognitive development and to the changes in some predictive variables of school achievement, such as factors related to family, social relationships, self-concept, motivation, attributional style, attitude toward studying, and learning strategies [27,28], as well as the difficulties of adapting to the secondary school social and educational context [29,30]...

Parenting Styles, Internalization of Values and Self-Esteem: A Cross-Cultural Study in Spain, Portugal and Brazil

“…In this way, for example, academic self-esteem is higher in adolescents from Brazil and Portugal than in adolescents from Spain. Academic self-esteem is also higher in females and in early adolescents, as previous research has pointed out, suggesting the difference in academic achievement between sex and age that has been identified in other studies [5,104,105]. These results highlight how differences between the three cultural contexts (Spain, Portugal, and Brazil), along with characteristic such as sex and age, can influence adolescents' self-esteem.…”

Exploring the Role of Family and School as Spaces for 1.5 Generation South Korean’s Adjustment and Identity Negotiation in New Zealand: A Qualitative Study

“…Despite aspirations to give their children a less competitive education, many South Korean parents still wanted to enrol their children in the most prestigious schools in New Zealand. South Korean parents believed that active involvement in education can help their children to easily adapt school environment and achieve greater academic performance [34]. Consequently, many of the South Korean 1.5 generation were concentrated in school in particular geographic areas.…”

Behavioral, Emotional and School Adjustment in Adolescents with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) Is Related to Family Involvement

“…Family involvement is another phenomenon that requires further study in DLD. Although conceptualizing family involvement is difficult [36], we can define it as the group of parental behaviors, concerns and participation in both school and home in order to help children in their educational process [37]. Aguado [30] points out that rejection or the occurrence of negligence are important factors that might explain associated difficulties to DLD in families with low involvement.…”

“…As such, family involvement has shown a positive relationship with self-esteem [40], an important protective factor against most diseases. Moreover, high family involvement is negatively related to behavioral problems and positively associated with social skills, and children with larger family involvement display fewer behavioral problems and better social and school adjustment [37,41]. Referring to language, children in highly involved families are exposed to more and richer language input, which might turn into a protective factor to prevent the development of different language disorders in the future [42].…”