Studying parental involvement and university access and choice: An ‘interacting multiple capitals’ model

Abstract

Capital‐embedded parental involvement in education is essential in enhancing university enrolment and maximising the educational potentials for equality and excellence. Previous studies in this field have mainly utilised Perna's (, ) model, which defines parental involvement as social capital and identifies the additive influences of different types of capital (including social, economic and cultural capital) on university access and choice. Yet, little research to date theorises and disaggregates the interplay among various types of capital as well as the multiplicative capital effects on enrolment. This study addressed this gap. We proposed an ‘interacting multiple capitals’ (IMC) model and hypothesised that parental social capital could moderate the effects of cultural and economic capital on entry to university. To validate the model, a pilot survey was administered to 216 university students of Korean ethnicity in China and investigated the models of involvement adopted by Korean parents in the context of the increasing labour mobility of the Korean adult population. Moderated multiple regression analysis was employed and the results confirmed the hypothesis that capital effects upon university access and choice were multiplicative in nature, with social capital moderating the cultural capital influence on students’ educational aspirations. The study findings show that the interaction of various types of capital variables is sufficiently statistically significant to warrant future research and policy and practical discussion of how to promote parental involvement in university preparation and planning.

Gender Differences in the Link between Family Scholarly Culture and Parental Educational Aspirations

“…First, it focuses on a specific dimension of cultural capitalscholarly cultureby examining the link between scholarly culture and parental educational aspirations. Although various papers have examined the link between scholarly culture and educational attainment (Blaabaek 2020;De Graaf et al 2000;Evans et al 2015), or between aspirations and other dimensions of cultural capital (Gao -Ng 2017), the link between scholarly culture and parental educational aspirations generally has been neglected. We believe that it is important to focus on a specific form of cultural capital, as its different forms seem to affect aspirations differently (Gao -Ng 2017;Van de Werfhorst -Hofstede 2007).…”

“…First, while some dimensions of cultural capital likely are linked to educational aspirations (e.g. cultural value of college, see Gao -Ng 2017), the link is much less clear for some other dimensions (Van de Werfhorst -Hofstede 2007). Second, cultural resources are only one of many factors affecting aspirations.…”