Poverty, Race, and Parental Involvement During the Transition to Elementary School

Abstract

Using multilevel models of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal 356), the authors find that parental involvement in education partially mediates the association between family poverty and children's math and reading achievement in kindergarten, but differences exist across race. In Asian families, poor and nonpoor children have similar levels of achievement. Poverty is not related to Black children's participation in organized activities, but these activities are not associated with Black children's achievement. Home-learning activities predict reading achievement in Hispanic families only. The findings provide support for application of the family process model to educational outcomes during the transition to elementary school and underscore the need to examine developmental models across racial subsets of the population.

Parents’ Perceptions of Their Involvement in Schooling

“…In addition, Cooper (2010) noted that families' socio-economic status during kindergarten may have an impact on their children's transition through the early years of schooling. Poverty negatively affects parent involvement because, these families lack the time, and money (Erdoğan & Demirkasımoğlu, 2010), which means that they may not provide cognitively stimulating materials for their children (Cooper, Crosnoe, Suizzo & Pituch, 2010).…”

The Need to Distinguish Between Quantity and Quality in Research on Parental Involvement: The Example of Parental Help With Homework

“…Therefore, cross-sectional studies with only one measure of academic achievement cannot disentangle the effect that parental involvement has on students' achievement and the effect that students' achievement has on parental involvement. Similarly, it is also important to control for students' family background to get an accurate estimate of the effectiveness of parental involvement on students' achievement, as previous research has shown that family background variables have a major influence on students' achievement (McLoyd, 1998) and that family background variables are also associated with parents' involvement (e.g., C. E. Cooper, Crosnoe, Suizzo, & Pituch, 2010;Englund, Luckner, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004;Turney & Kao, 2009). For instance, it is well known that parental aspirations are strongly associated with parents' socioeconomic background (Davis-Kean, 2005;Englund et al, 2004;Suizzo & Stapleton, 2007).…”

Untitled

“…Most of the research on parental involvement has been conducted at the elementary and secondary school level. However, there is a growing body of research examining parental involvement at the infant, toddler, and preschool level (e.g., Castro, Bryant, Peisner Feinberg, & Skinner, 2004;Cooper, Crosnoe, Suizzo, & Pituch, 2010;Mendez, 2010). This prior research establishes that parental involvement can increase the positive educational and social outcomes of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.…”

“…Within the context of a child care center, school based parental involvement might include attending events sponsored by the childcare center, engaging in volunteering and fund raising efforts, and/or participating in shared governance activities. This focus on school based parental involvement is important, as previous research on parental involvement at the infant, toddler, and preschool level has tended to focus on home based involvement (e.g., Arnold, Zeljo, Doctoroff, & Ortiz, 2008;Bridge, 2001;Cooper et al, 2010;Sy, Rowley, & Schulenberg, 2007) and parent teacher involvement (e.g., Arnold et al, 2008). Certainly, home based and parent teacher involvement are important forms of involvement at the infant, toddler, and preschool level.…”

“…Few studies have examined predictors of parental involvement at the infant, toddler, and preschool level, and most of the existing research focused on low income or at risk preschool aged children (Arnold et al, 2008;Cooper et al, 2010;Mendez, 2010;Waanders et al, 2007). Our study contributed to the literature by further examining predictors of school based involvement among parents of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, most of whom were not low income or at risk.…”