The Relationship between Parental Involvement as Social Capital and College Enrollment: An Examination of Racial/Ethnic Group Differences

Abstract

Although comparable percentages of African American and White high school sophomores expect to finish college (Nettles & Perna, 1997), smaller shares of African Americans and Hispanics than of Whites actually enroll. Only 39% of African American and 32% of Hispanic high school graduates between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in college in 1999, compared with 45% of Whites (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2001). College preparation programs (also known as early intervention programs and pre-collegiate outreach programs) are an increasingly common approach to raising the college enrollment rates of African Americans, Hispanics, and other groups of students who are underrepresented in higher education. Although the federal government has been involved with college preparation programs since the establishment of the TRIO programs in the 1960s, the federal government extended its role in 1998 with the establishment of GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness through Undergraduate Preparation). State governments, not-for-profit organizations, and individual colleges and universities also sponsor college preparation programs (Fenske, Geranios, Keller, & Moore, 1997). These programs are designed to promote educational attainment among disadvantaged groups of students by developing the skills, knowledge, confidence, aspirations, and preparation that are needed to enroll in and graduate from college. Administrators of college preparation programs, as well as researchers and policy analysts, generally believe that is a component of successful programs (Swail & Perna, 2000; Tierney, 2002). A 1999 survey by the College Board revealed that more than two thirds (70%) of college preparation programs that target historically underrepresented minority groups report having a parental involvement component; for one third of all programs, parents of participating students are required to participate (Perna, 2002). Despite this high self-reported prevalence, however, some research (Tierney, 2002) suggests that parents are only superficially involved, likely because these programs often lack the time, funding, staffing, and other resources that are required for more substantial involvement. The stated commitment of most college preparation programs to involve parents reflects an assumption that parental involvement promotes the college enrollment of underrepresented groups of students. Researchers have found that parental involvement is associated with a greater likelihood of aspiring to attend college and actually enrolling (Cabrera & La Nasa, 2000; Horn, 1998; Hossler, Braxton & Coopersmith, 1989; Hossler, Schmit & Vesper, 1999; Perna, 2000), as well as with higher grades (Lee, 1993; Muller, 1993; Zick, Bryant, & Osterbacka, 2001), higher eighth grade mathematics and reading achievement (Lee, 1993; Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996), lower rates of behavioral problems (Lee, 1993; Zick, Bryant, & Osterbacka, 2001), and lower likelihood of high school dropout and truancy (McNeal, 1999). Nonetheless, research on the relationship between parental involvement and college enrollment is limited in several ways. When included in quantitative analyses, parental involvement is generally operationalized using just one indicator such as a composite of the frequency of discussions between the parent and child about school-related activities (e.g., Horn, 1998; Perna, 2000), rather than a multidimensional construct as recommended by some researchers (e.g., Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996). The role of parental involvement in college enrollment is also generally conceptualized as an individual-level characteristic with no attention to the structural constraints that influence involvement or the types of resources that may be accessed through such involvement (Horvat, 2001). Moreover, although some researchers (Perna, 2000; St. John, 1991) have shown that the college enrollment process varies across racial/ethnic groups, other researchers (Dika & Singh, 2002; Mattingly, Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriguez, & Kayzar, 2002; McNeal, 1999; Tierney & Auerbach, in press) have concluded that little is known about the extent to which the relationship between parental involvement and college enrollment varies by race/ethnicity. …