Parental involvement in education: Toward a more inclusive understanding of parents’ role construction

Abstract

How parents conceive of their role in their children’s education and how researchers and practitioners conceptualize parental involvement are significant for understanding parental involvement in education and its impact on developmental outcomes. Parental involvement in education encompasses families’ engagement at school, with teachers, at home, and with their children. Whereas schools are focused on what parents do in relation to schoolwork, parents experience their involvement as integrated into the rest of their parenting ideologies. This special issue considers a full breadth of parental involvement in education from homeschooling to involvement at school. Further, these articles focus on parents’ understanding of their role through the lens of their ethnic, racial, and cultural background and how their role evolves across developmental stages—from elementary school to college. Finally, whereas most school-based conceptualizations of parental involvement in education are focused on academic outcomes, the field is challenged to consider a broader range of outcomes and emphasize nonlinear associations between parental involvement in education and developmental outcomes.