Parents’ role construction for educational involvement and socioeconomic status: Relations to early adolescents’ academic self-concepts and achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics

Abstract

Parents play a critical role for their children’s academic development. However, little is known about the link between parental role construction for educational involvement (i.e., parents’ beliefs of whether they should be involved in their child’s education) and educational outcomes in early adolescence. This study therefore investigated relations between parental role construction and early adolescents’ reading, writing, and mathematics self-concepts and achievement. In addition, it was tested whether these effects vary depending on socio-economic status (SES). Relying on data from two measurement points in the first year of secondary school (413 adolescents, 50.5% girls, and their parents), results from longitudinal structural equation models revealed positive relations between parental role construction and initial writing achievement and self-concept. A stronger relation between role construction and adolescents’ mathematics achievement at both measurement points emerged in the presence of higher SES. This study contributes to the current knowledge on links between parental beliefs and educational outcomes in early adolescence and refines these insights by showing that SES moderates some of the effects of parental role construction.