Academic Benefits from Parental Involvement are Stratified by Parental Socioeconomic Status: A Meta-analysis

SYNOPSIS

Objective. The present study critically evaluates the assumption that parental involvement benefits students’ achievement regardless of their socioeconomic status (SES). Design. A meta-analysis of 98 studies published 2000–2017 examines if patterns of associations between 11 specific parental involvement variables and the academic achievement of K-12 students vary with parental SES as measured by educational level. Results. Results showed that (1) six specific aspects of parental involvement, namely parental academic expectations, parental support for child learning, parent-child discussion of school matters, parental participation in school governance and events, parent and child reading together, and parental emphasis on education, were positively associated with student achievement; (2) subtle forms of parental involvement were most strongly associated with student achievement, followed by home- and school-based involvement; (3) parental learning support at home, parental academic emphasis, and parent-teacher communication had stronger association with the achievement of students whose parents were more educated; (4) parent-teacher communication and parental academic emphasis for college-educated parents did not additionally benefit student achievement when compared to these involvement activities for parents with at most Grade-12 education; and (5) parental involvement was more strongly associated with the linguistic achievement of students with highly educated parents. Conclusions. These results provide evidence that some benefits of parental involvement are stratified by familial SES.

AFFILIATIONS AND ADDRESSES

Cheng Yong Tan, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Meng Wah Complex Room 519, Pokfulam, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]. Meiyan Lyu and Baiwen Peng are also at The University of Hong Kong.

ARTICLE INFORMATION

Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Each author signed a form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No authors reported any financial or other conflicts of interest in relation to the work described.

Ethical Principles

The authors affirm having followed professional ethical guidelines in preparing this work. These guidelines include obtaining informed consent from human participants, maintaining ethical treatment and respect for the rights of human or animal participants, and ensuring the privacy of participants and their data, such as ensuring that individual participants cannot be identified in reported results or from publicly available original or archival data.

Role of the Funders/Sponsors

None of the funders or sponsors of this research had any role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Acknowledgments

The ideas and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone, and endorsement by the authors Institution is not intended and should not be inferred.

Notes

¹ Effect sizes presented are Pearson’s correlations unless otherwise stated.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cheng Yong Tan

Cheng Yong Tan is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. His research program unravels home and school factors that influence student achievement and comprises socioeconomic inequality in student achievement and school leadership. It is premised on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory that argues for the need to understand human development in multiple contexts such as the home and school.

Meiyan Lyu

Meiyan Lyu is a Master of Education graduate from the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. Her current research focuses on parental involvement of migrant parents and educational equality in rural China.

Baiwen Peng

Baiwen Peng is a Master of Education graduate from the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. His current research focuses on minority students in China and educational inequality. In addition, he is interested in studies of private tutoring.