Predictors and behavioural outcomes of parental involvement among low-income families in elementary schools, United States

ABSTRACT

Parental involvement (PI) in their children’s schools has been shown to have a positive influence on the children’s behaviours and academic achievement. The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of PI and relations of PI in schools to child externalizing and internalizing behaviours. Data were from the fifth-grade wave of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, with 1354 fifth grade low-income children and parents. Results revealed that family conflict predicted child internalizing and externalizing and negatively predicted PI in schools. However, PI in schools partially reduced the negative effect of family conflict on both internalizing and externalizing. Parental warmth negatively predicted child externalizing behaviours, and positively predicted PI in school. Additionally, PI in schools further enhanced the positive effect of parental warmth in reducing externalizing behaviours. The study highlights home and parent characteristics that relate to low-income fifth-grade parents’ involvement in their child’s education and demonstrates the mediating role of PI in reducing behavioural problems of low-income children.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental involvement
• children’s behaviours
• elementary education
• low-income families

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Sukran Ucus is the assistant professor in the Early Childhood Education Department at Ahi Evran University. Her research interests are creativity and creative thinking skills in education, parenting (parent-child relations, parent-teacher relations, parental involvement), teacher professional development and social studies for young children.

Aileen Garcia is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her current research interests include Filipino and immigrant parenting, the influence of culture on parenting beliefs and practices, and the effects of poverty on children's academic and health outcomes.

Jan Esteraich, M.S. is a doctoral graduate student at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in the Department of Child, Youth, and family studies.

Helen Raikes, Willa Cather Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), received a Ph.D. from Iowa State University, and a M.S. from the University of California, Davis. Prior to her career at UNL she was a Society for Research in Child Development Executive Policy Fellow and Consultant for the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and was an associate and Research Director of the Donald O. Clifton Child Development Center, at the Gallup Organization. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, her area of study is early childhood education, largely focused on research to inform outcomes and opportunities for low-income children before school begins. Her current research projects include evaluation of the Lincoln Educare program and of Save the Children's Early Steps to School Success home visiting program in rural US communities and previous projects included oversight for the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project and the Midwest Child Care Research Consortium, each with a suite of substudies. She has received awards for research, teaching and mentoring at UNL and nationally and is author of two books and over a hundred scholarly articles. These include Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development on the follow-up study of Early Head Start (as a co-editor and contributor); and refereed articles on Early Head Start, home visiting, child care quality, parent perceptions of child care quality, parent immigrant status and child development, parent contributions to children's school readiness, theories of change in early childhood programs, father involvement, and others. She is a frequent presenter and advisor to the U.S. Government for early childhood, Head Start and child care research projects. Recently, she completed a cross cultural study of low-income children's self regulation with collaborators in Ankara, Turkey, and is also involved in projects in Colombia, Zambia, and other areas in the quest to better understand optimal environments for young children living in adverse circumstances. In Nebraska, she serves on boards of directors for Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, Sixpence Early Childhood Partnership, Lincoln Community Foundation and the Buffett Early Childhood Fund.

ORCID

Sukran Ucus http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7992-9802

Additional information

Funding

This article was financed by a grant from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (The TUBITAK) to the first author as part of the visiting scholar program.