Hoover Dempsey and Sandler Family Systems Model) -Parent’s motivational beliefs -Parent’s perceptions of invitations for involvement from others

Review of Educational Research Spring 1997, Vol 67, No. 1, pp. 3-42

Why Do Parents Become Involved in Their Children's Education?

Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey and Howard M. Sandler Vanderbilt University

This article reviews psychological theory and research critical to understand­ ing why parents become involved in their children's elementary and second­ ary education. Three major constructs are believed to be central to parents' basic involvement decisions. First, parents' role construction defines parents' beliefs about what they are supposed to do in their children's education and appears to establish the basic range of activities that parents construe as important, necessary, and permissible for their own actions with and on behalf of children. Second, parents' sense of efficacy for helping their children succeed in school focuses on the extent to which parents believe that through their involvement they can exert positive influence on their children's edu­ cational outcomes. Third, general invitations, demands, and opportunities for involvement refer to parents' perceptions that the child and school want them to be involved. Hypotheses concerning the functioning of the three constructs in an additive model are suggested, as are implications for research and practice. Overall, the review suggests that even well-designed school pro­ grams inviting involvement will meet with only limited success if they do not address issues of parental role construction and parental sense of efficacy for helping children succeed in school.

Parental involvement in education has long been a topic of interest among those concerned with optimal developmental and educational outcomes for preschool and elementary school children. With increasing frequency, issues related to parental involvement have also been examined with reference to adolescent outcomes. Across a range of studies, there has emerged a strong conclusion that parental involvement in child and adolescent education generally benefits children's learning and school success (e.g., Chavkin, 1993; Eccles & Harold, 1993; Epstein, 1989, 1991,1994; Hess & Holloway, 1984; Hobbs et al., 1984; U.S. Department of Education, 1994).x Recent work describing the correlates and forms of parental involvement, as well as teacher and school influences on involvement, has been an important part of the current effort to understand why parents choose to become involved and why their involvement often functions to create positive outcomes for their children of all ages (e.g., Eccles & Harold, 1993,1994; Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995).

Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1995) suggested that specific variables create patterns of influence at critical points in the parental involvement process. Their model includes parents' choices of involvement forms, major mechanisms through which parental involvement influences educational and related developmental outcomes in children, the major mediating variables that enhance or diminish the

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influence of involvement, and major outcomes for child learning (Figure 1). Although this model of the involvement process suggests that the process is composed of several levels of constructs operating between parents' initial choice to become involved (Level 1) and the beneficial influence of that involvement on student outcomes (Level 5), this review is focused on the first level of the model, which seeks to explain parents' fundamental decision about involvement. The explanation at this level draws on constructs that are focused primarily on the person—the individual parent. Given this focus, we review recent psychological

Level 5 Child/student outcomes

Skills & knowledge

Personal sense of efficacy for doing well in school

Level 4 Tempering/mediating variables

Parent's use of developmental! y Fit between parents' involvement

appropriate involvement strategies actions & school expectations

Level 3 Mechanisms through which parental involvement

influences child outcomes

Modeling Reinforcement Instruction

Level 2 Parent's choice of involvement forms, influenced by

Specific domains of Mix of demands on total Specific invitations &

parent's skill & parental time and energy demands for involvement

knowledge (family, employment) from child & school

Level 1 Parent's basic involvement decision, influenced by

Parent's construction Parent's sense of efficacy for General invitations &

of die parental role helping her/his children demand for involvement

succeed in school from child & school

FIGURE 1. Model of the parental involvement process Note. From "Parental Involvement in Children's Education: Why Does It Make a

Difference?," by K. V. Hoover-Dempsey and H. M. Sandler, 1995, Teachers College Record, 95, p. 327. Copyright 1995 by the President and Trustees of Teachers College. Adapted with permission.

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literature defining the constructs that are included in the first stage of the model. In doing so, we address the critical question: Why do parents become involved in their children's education?

Assumptions

We have grounded this review in several specific assumptions. First, we con­ sider the involvement process from the perspective of parents. We are interested in the processes and mechanisms most important to parents' thinking, decision­ making, and behaviors underlying their decisions to become involved in their children's education. We focus, in other words, on the major psychological constructs that appear to influence parents' fundamental involvement stance. To this end, we examine literature primarily from psychology, with full appreciation that other disciplines (e.g., anthropology, economics, education, sociology) offer significant information about critical and contextual elements of the involvement process.

Indeed, while we emphasize the parent and his or her decisions about involve­ ment, our findings are best understood within the context of the model (Figure 1) and the broader social ecology of parents' lives. As Bronfenbrenner (e.g., 1979, 1986) and others (e.g., Jessor, 1993; Slaughter-Defoe, 1995) have argued elo­ quently, human development cannot be adequately understood without significant reference to the proximal and distal social systems that work to limit or enhance both developmental processes and outcomes. The general model (Figure 1) in­ cludes specific dimensions of several of these systems (e.g., the parent's full familial and employment-related circumstances at Level 2, and the fit between the parent's choice of involvement strategies and both the child's developmental level and the school's expectations at Level 4). The implications of our findings about these constructs with reference to some aspects of the broader ecology of parental involvement are suggested in the final section of the article.

Although we make use of work from both education and other social science disciplines, the body of theory and research that we review is grounded in psychology. The perspectives and assumptions of psychology thus shape our analysis and the suggestions we derive from that analysis. While we believe strongly that psychological inquiry has much of value to offer understanding of parental involvement in child and adolescent education, we are also mindful that our psychological perspective does not give us access to the full set of issues involved in a comprehensive understanding of parental involvement. Specifically, because the questions and methods of inquiry that guide much psychological research (a) focus on learning more about the individual and (b) characteristically employ carefully limited (often experimentally controlled) methods of investiga­ tion, they do not, for example, offer information about the historical context of school-family relations or about the significant impact that political, economic, and social events may have on family-school relations. The outcomes of psycho­ logical inquiry (and any policy suggestions that may be derived) are thus limited to the individual and to selected elements of the individual's environments; they offer one window on the full range of issues influencing parental involvement in child and adolescent education.

Our definition of parental involvement incorporates the range of parental activities cited in the involvement literature. Broadly categorized, they include

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home-based activities related to children's learning in school—for example, reviewing the child's work and monitoring child progress, helping with home­ work, discussing school events or course issues with the child, providing enrich­ ment activities pertinent to school success, and talking by phone with the teacher. They also include school-based involvement, focused on such activities as driving on a field trip, staffing a concession booth at school games, coming to school for scheduled conferences or informal conversations, volunteering at school, serving on a parent-teacher advisory board (e.g., Baker & Stevenson, 1986; Clark, 1993; Comer & Haynes, 1991; Dauber & Epstein, 1993; Epstein, 1986; Epstein & Dauber, 1991; Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, & Brissie, 1987,1992; Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, & Burow, 1995; Lareau, 1989; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Dar­ ling, 1992; U.S. Department of Education, 1994). This full range of parental activities related to children's schooling and school outcomes is reflected in studies reviewed.

Throughout the article we refer to parents' choice of involvement. We believe that parental decision-making about involvement occurs in both explicit and implicit ways. Parents are sometimes explicitly reflective, aware, and active in relation to their decisions about being involved in their children's education; in other circumstances, they appear to respond to external events or unevaluated demands from significant aspects of the environment. We argue that the latter circumstances also represent parental choice, even if implicit. While several variables other than those reviewed here may also influence parents' decisions about involvement (e.g., a parent's need for affiliation or power, a parent's personal reinforcement history), we focus on those that appear within this litera­ ture to exert most influence over the decision. Both types of parental decision­ making for involvement—implicit and explicit—are the focus of this review, as we examine constructs that appear to explain best the fundamental choice for involvement. Following this interest, and building on the foundation of Hess and Holloway's comprehensive 1984 review of the role and influence of parents in the school performance of elementary and secondary school children, we have exam­ ined theoretical as well as empirical literature published generally within the past decade on parental involvement.

As evident throughout the review, research on parental involvement has fo­ cused preeminently on its influence on children's educational outcomes. There have been suggestions of benefits to others involved in the process; for example, Comer and Haynes (1991) noted improved parent-staff relationships as a function of parental participation in school activities, while Hoover-Dempsey et al. (1995) reported that mothers appeared to derive information about their own success as parents from their involvement efforts with children. Examinations of benefits to other than children, however, are clearly exceptions to the norm in this literature. In general, the questions that have been consistently asked in the literature, as well as the prevailing definitions of important outcomes, have been shaped by a strong empirical and societal focus on educational benefits to children. As we suggest in the concluding section of the article, however, knowledge of parental involvement and its influence on educational outcomes for children is likely to be enhanced as researchers and policymakers focus on the benefits it may create for all involved in the process—child, parents, school, and the community as a whole.

The specific parents of whom we speak in this review must also be noted. In

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general, we refer to mothers and fathers (although at times, other family members such as grandparents or siblings are included in the research on parental involve­ ment). However, literature in the area has generally focused on the involvement choices, activities, and influences of mothers. Across a variety of disciplines, observers have noted that mothers are the parents most closely involved in children's education, a pattern that appears related to traditional beliefs about gender roles, sociocultural prescriptions, and gender-linked patterns of power distribution in society (e.g., Hochschild, 1989; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 1995; Juster, 1985; Lareau, 1989; Leitch & Tangri, 1988; Lightfoot, 1978; Smith, 1985). Because we believe that the constructs examined in this review apply well to all family members who may become involved in children's schooling, because fathers' involvement is included in some of the research reviewed, and because shifting patterns of social and economic circumstances may support change in some traditionally gender-linked child-rearing tasks, we use the term parents in this review to refer to both mothers and fathers.

Finally, although we use the term children to refer to the beneficiaries of parental involvement as examined in this article, our observations—insofar as the literature examines both elementary and secondary school students—include children and adolescents.

On Dynamic (Process) Variables

The variables examined in this article are primarily dynamic in character; that is, they are realistically amenable to growth and change over the period of a parent's own adult development. While several are clearly grounded in events preceding the parent's assumption of responsibility for rearing children (i.e., outside of their immediate control), all are subject to influence and alteration by the primary characters in the involvement process: parents, their children, and school personnel.

The decision to focus on such dynamic variables grew from specific observa­ tions about the literature. It has been well established, for example, that family status variables (e.g., income, education, ethnicity, marital status) are often related to parental involvement and, in turn, to children's school success. In fact, Hess and Holloway's (1984) review described as "overwhelming" (p. 187) the evidence for linkages between family socioeconomic status and children's school achieve­ ment. Other investigators, often building on Kohn's (1963) assertion that social class is the most powerful variable underlying parents' influence on their children, concluded that family status variables are positively related to parents' ideas about child-rearing, their child-rearing practices, and children's school performance (e.g., Entwisle, 1990; Goodnow, 1984; Hoffman, 1984; Keating, 1990; Lareau, 1987, 1989; Thompson, Alexander, & Entwisle, 1988). Still others have suggested that the realities inherent in varied statuses influence the resources—such as income, time, energy, and community contacts—that parents bring to their involvement decisions and influence (e.g., Baker & Stevenson, 1986; Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Hobbs et al, 1984; Lareau, 1987,1989; McDermott, Goldman, & Varenne, 1984).

It has been equally well established, however, that family status variables do not explain fully parents' decisions to become involved in their children's educa­ tion, nor do such variables explain the linkages between parents' involvement and child and adolescent school outcomes. Status does not determine parents' think-

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ing, actions, or influence related to their involvement in children's schooling (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1992; Slaughter-Defoe, 1995). Even as it may define limits around family resources and may predispose certain attitudes and approaches, status requires activation (e.g., Lareau, 1987,1989)—parental choices and activi­ ties that put into action intentions for their children and children's schooling. Predispositions grounded in status do not always result in easily predictable outcomes. They do not, for example, appear to determine the value parents put on education, their wishes to be involved or their involvement in children's school progress, their interest in having their children succeed in school, or their aspira­ tions for their children's achievement (e.g., Chavkin & Williams, 1993; Clark, 1983,1993; Delgado-Gaitan, 1990; Eccles & Harold, 1993,1994; Lareau, 1989; Lee, 1985; Lightfoot, 1978, 1981; Moles, 1993; Saxe, Guberman, & Gearhart, 1987; Scanzoni, 1985; Spencer, 1985; Spencer & Dornbusch, 1990; Stevenson, Chen & Uttal, 1990). They do not explain many parents' abilities to nurture positive educational outcomes in spite of difficult and presumably discouraging circum­ stances (e.g., Brody & Stoneman, 1992; Clark, 1983; Delgado-Gaitan, 1992). Further, several studies enabling examination of the relative power of status and process variables in predicting school-related outcomes have often found process variables to be the more powerful (e.g., Clark, 1983; Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Dornbusch & Ritter, 1988; Epstein, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1994; Hess, Holloway, Dickson, & Price, 1984; Scott-Jones, 1987; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992).

This article assumes a primary focus on process variables (i.e., what parents think and do, across status groupings) that have been associated with parental decisions about involvement in their children's education. It does so because of the evidence suggesting that process variables are significant to outcomes in this area, and in part because they—unlike their status counterparts—are theoretically within the purview of school-initiated influence (e.g., Epstein, 1989; Gotts, 1990). While elementary and secondary schools cannot realistically hope to alter a student's family status, schools may hope to influence selected parental process variables in the direction of increased parental involvement; indeed, some have a growing tradition of doing so, especially during the elementary years (e.g., Anson et al., 1991; Cochran & Dean, 1991; Comer, 1985). The dynamic variables implicit in parents' thinking and behavior choices related to involvement may help us understand more precisely why parents make their involvement choices. Ulti­ mately, this information may help us understand how a parent's involvement choice may be linked to educational outcomes, and how those who wish to improve the parents' involvement and success may reasonably act to do so.

Parents' Decisions to Become Involved in Children's Education

The model of the parental involvement process under consideration here sug­ gests that parents' involvement decisions and choices are based on several con­ structs drawn from their own ideas and experiences as well as on other constructs growing out of environmental demands and opportunities (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995). At the first level, the model suggests that most parents' fundamen­ tal decision to become involved in children's education is a function primarily of three constructs: (a) the parent's construction of his or her role in the child's life, (b) the parent's sense of efficacy for helping her or his child succeed in school, and

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(c) the general invitations, demands, and opportunities for parental involvement presented by both the child and the child's school.

Consideration of the recent research in each of these three areas suggests that these constructs are each composed of specific sets of beliefs, experiences, and behaviors that serve to position parents in terms of their own answer to the question, Should I, and will I, become involved in my child's education?

Parents' Construction of the Parental Role

The model suggests that one major contributor to parents' positive decisions about involvement in children's education is to be found in their construction of the parental role. In short, what do parents believe that parents are supposed to do in relation to their children's education and educational progress? Examination of psychological and educational research suggested that parents' construction of the parental role is likely to be influenced by general principles guiding their defini­ tion of the parental role, their beliefs about child development and child-rearing, and their beliefs about appropriate parental home-support roles in children's education.

In general, parental role construction appears important to the involvement process primarily because it appears to establish a basic range of activities that parents will construe as important, necessary, and permissible for their own actions with and on behalf of their children. Parental role construction and functioning clearly begin before and extend beyond the child's years in school and, during those years, influence and are influenced by other domains of the child's life as well. Interest here, however, is focused specifically on parental role as it influences parental decisions about involvement in children's schooling.

General Role Construction

Roles generally are considered to be sets of expectations held by groups for the behavior of individual members—for example, a family's expectations for a mother's behavior, a community's expectations for the behavior of schoolchildren's parents—or sets of behaviors characteristic of individuals within a group—for example, fathers of school-age children, mothers of high school students (e.g., Babad, Birnbaum, & Benne, 1983; Biddle, 1979; Forsyth, 1990; Gross, McEachern, & Mason, 1958; Wheelan, 1994). Both aspects of roles are incorporated into the construct as we use it in this review; thus, it includes both (a) the expectations (explicit and implicit) that parents and those in their significant groups hold for their behaviors in relation to children's schooling and (b) the behaviors they enact in relation to their children's schooling.

The role definition process is characterized by interaction between individuals and their groups over time; it is also characterized by varying degrees of stability and change over time. Three aspects of the role process have been implicated in role stability and change: (a) structurally given demands, or the group's expecta­ tions and norms for an individual member's behavior; (b) personal role concep­ tions, or an individual member's ideas about what he or she is supposed to do as a group member; and (c) role behavior, or the actual behaviors of individual group members, which usually conform to, but may at times violate, the expectations of the group (Harrison & Minor, 1978, drawing on Levinson, 1959). When conso­ nant, these variables tend to yield role stability; that is, when the group's expec-

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tations match individual members' expectations for personal behavior and indi­ vidual members' behavior, roles tend to be stable. When these variables are dissonant—that is, when the group's expectations do not match individual mem­ bers' expectations or the behaviors of individual members—they tend to create changes in roles and role expectations.

In general, the more a group and its members agree on an individual member's roles and role behaviors, the more productive is the group (e.g., Wheelan, 1994). Conversely, the more ambiguity associated with a member's roles (i.e., lack of clarity in expectations associated with roles) or the more conflict among the varied roles held by an individual, the more likely are negative outcomes for the group and its members—for example, dissatisfaction with the group or oneself, higher stress, poor participation, lower commitment, and lower productivity (e.g., Fisher & Gitelson, 1983; Forsyth, 1990; Gilbert, Holahan, & Manning, 1981; Kemery, Bedeian, Mossholder, & Touliatos, 1985; Wheelan, 1994).

When applied to parents' choices about involvement in their children's educa­ tion, these basic tenets of role theory suggest that the groups to which parents belong (e.g., the family, the child's school, the workplace) will hold expectations about appropriate parental role behaviors, including behaviors related to involve­ ment in children's educational processes, and will communicate their role expec­ tations to parents. The groups' expectations may be quite similar, in which case parents will likely experience not only clarity about the behaviors they are supposed to perform but also consistent environmental pressure and support for performing those behaviors. Where these expectations call for positive involve­ ment in children's education, parents are likely to become involved to some degree; for example, Epstein and Dauber (1991) reported that where all constitu­ ents agreed on parental involvement, school involvement programs were stronger than was true when such agreement was missing. Conversely, of course, if the groups to which a parent belongs expect little or no parental involvement in children's education, parents will be much less likely to choose to become actively involved.

The expectations for appropriate parental involvement behaviors may also be quite varied across the groups to which a parent belongs, in which case parents are likely to experience conflict about appropriate role behaviors or, at the least, lack of consensus about what the most appropriate parental behaviors are. Such con­ flict may occur, for example, when a family or school expects parental involve­ ment activities, but the parent's workplace expectations preclude active involve­ ment in conferences (e.g., no time-off policies) or homework supervision (e.g., evening shift work). Parental role expectations may transcend gender (e.g., par­ ents of both genders are generally expected to protect children from harm, for example, on the way to or from school) or may be particular to one gender or the other; for example, mothers often experience stronger role expectations than fathers for day-to-day involvement in children's schooling, such as homework help or signing off on project completion checklists, while fathers may experience stronger expectations for involvement in children's athletic activities or "big" decisions involving such issues as major disciplinary action (e.g., Eccles & Harold, 1994; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 1995; Lareau, 1989; Leitch & Tangri, 1988; Lightfoot, 1978; see also Greenberger & Goldberg, 1989; Greenberger & O'Neil, 1993).

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Although parents' role construction (i.e., parents' beliefs about the actions they should undertake for and with their children, developed as a function of their membership in varied family, community, and school groups) has been examined in the literature only tangentially with reference to parental involvement in children's schooling, role construction appears logically related to parental beliefs and actions regarding involvement in children's schooling. Several investigators' work has suggested that role construction is influential in parents' involvemen

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