Parental Involvement in the Lives of Children of Color1

This chapter is a timely chapter on the effects of parental involvement in the lives of children of color. This chapter especially focuses on the strengths of parents of color in helping their young and adolescents to achieve, in ways that teachers often do not sufficiently recognize. The findings of meta-analyses suggest that parents of color are often strongest at home-based parental involvement. The authors assert that educators need to be more appreciative of this fact.Two meta-analyses were undertaken in this chapter and then contextualized to some degree within the context of addressing whether family factors ameliorate African American and Latino scholastic outcomes. The first meta-analysis of 42 studies examines the relationship between parental involvement and the academic achievement and school behavior of African American pre-kindergarten–college freshman school children. The second meta-analysis of 28 studies examines the relationship between parental involvement and the academic achievement and school behavior of Latino kindergarten–college-age children. Analyses determined the effect sizes for parental involvement overall and specific categories of involvement. Results indicate a significant relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement and overall outcomes, but not for school behavior. This relationship between involvement and academics existed both for younger (pre-elementary and elementary school) and older (secondary school and college freshman) students, as well as for certain specific components of parental involvement. Parental involvement, as a whole, was associated with better school outcomes by about .5 of a standard deviation unit for both African American and Latino students. The significance of these results is discussed. The findings also indicate that African American and Latino parents especially excel at home-based parental involvement. These findings are discussed in the context of a model that encourages educators to think in terms of the strengths of these parents rather than focusing only on school-based expressions of parental involvement.