The Varied Educational Effects of Parent‐Child Communication: A Comparative Study of Fourteen Countries

Abstract

Research done in the United States shows that parental involvement in children’s education positively affects such educational outcomes as school persistence (Teachman et al. 1997; McNeal 1999), postsecondary educational attainment (Sandefur et al. 2004), and academic achievement (Muller 1993; Ho Sui-Chu and Willms 1996; Epstein 2001). Of course, parental involvement is multidimensional and comprises such home-based activities as parent-child discussions of school, parenting style, and monitoring children’s behaviors. It would also include school-based involvement such as attending parentteacher organization (PTO) meetings or school events, and parent-teacher interactions (Muller and Kerbow 1993; Ho Sui-Chu and Willms 1996; Downey 2002). Notwithstanding the generally positive impact of parental involvement, this effect varies across families of different backgrounds, at least in the United States (Teachman et al. 1997; Desimone 1999; McNeal 1999). Not only are lower socioeconomic (SES) parents less likely to participate in educational activities within and outside of the home, as compared with higher SES parents, but the same amount of parental involvement produces greater benefits among high SES students. Ralph McNeal (1999) found that lower SES students gain less from parent-child discussion than do higher SES students, even when comparable discussions occur. Parent-child discussion significantly reduced the likelihood of dropping out of high school for higher SES students, while such a beneficial effect of parent-child discussion did not exist for lower SES students. Parent-teacher organization involvement had the similar pattern of the interaction with SES. There are policy implications to the unequal effect of parental involvement across family SES. Efforts simply to increase the overall level of parental involvement may not result in overall positive effects. The greater effect of parental involvement for higher SES students, as found in American education, suggests that educational efforts generally to encourage more parental involvement could actually exacerbate, rather than attenuate, educational inequality by family SES. Parental involvement could produce greater benefits for higher SES students than for lower SES students. To understand how