Connecting School and Home: Examining Parental and School Involvement in Readiness for College Through Multilevel SEM

Abstract

Parental involvement is widely acknowledged as a critical factor influencing the college choice process among families. What is not clear, though, is whether this parental driven factor also takes place at the school level along with school related factors. Using a national sample of 9th grade students drawn from about 900 schools, we found that parental involvement also operates at the school context along with a high school’s academic press. Moreover, at both individual- and school-level contexts, parental involvement creates a “college-going” cultural capital in the form of attainment of milestones towards college.