An analysis of social class differentials in parent-initiated contact with teachers

Abstract

This article analyses the association between social class and parent-­initiated contact with teachers. Hypotheses are derived from Lareau’s theory on ‘concerted cultivation’ and status maintenance theory on rational educational decision-making. Data from a national survey on French students traversing secondary school are used to study social class differentials in parents’ involvement in Grade 9 when students are about to proceed to an important transition from lower to upper secondary school. Linear probability models reveal that the likelihood that parents initiate meetings with teachers decreases as students’ performance increases and that concerted cultivation beliefs have positive effects. Through inclusion of interaction terms into the models, clear evidence is provided that middle-class parents are more likely to seek a meeting than working-class parents when their children face difficulties.

Keywords:

• Social class
• parental involvement
• parent–school contact
• concerted cultivation
• status maintenance
• school performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Markus Klein and William Baker for very helpful comments on an early version of this article.

Notes

1. The strong reduction of the sample is mainly due to high numbers of missing values on the grade point average (GPA) variable, which is not provided by the parents but by the schools. Comparisons of descriptive measures of the variables included in the analysis for this sample and a larger sample that is not excluding cases with missing information on the GPA variable (N  = 11,378) reveal that differences between the samples are marginal.

2. The theory suggests that social classes follow a hierarchical order. However, in France the families in the class including farmers and agricultural workers have distinct educational and occupation aspirations, and attitudes towards education (Ichou and Vallet 2011; Roux and Davaillon 2001). Therefore, they should be observed outside the hierarchical order.

3. The five answering categories were (DEPP 1998, own translation): ‘the teachers have so much to do with their students that they cannot solve all problems. Meeting them does not change much’; ‘it is better to let the teachers do their work and to inconvenience them as rarely as possible’; ‘parents should meet the teachers as soon as there is a problem’; ‘it is important for the parents that they build up a good communication with the teachers and meet them even when there is no problem’; and ‘teachers can do their work only in close collaboration with the parents’.