Parental Involvement in Children’s Education

By Dr Rosanne Jocson
Education Research Scientist, OER Centre for Research in Child Development, NIE, NTU
Published: 1 May 2023

Overview

Parental educational involvement refers to the practices, resources, and interactions that parents invest or engage in to help their children succeed in school. Numerous studies demonstrate the benefits of different types of parental educational involvement on children’s motivation, school engagement, and academic performance.

• Parental values, goals, expectations, and aspirations refer to parents’ beliefs about the importance of education and their goals, expectations and aspirations for their children’s educational attainment and outcomes. When parents have a high perceived value of education, they are more likely to invest in their children’s education and engage in behaviors that support their children’s school success (Pinquart & Ebeling, 2019; Walker et al., 2010).
•  Home-based involvement encompasses strategies that parents use at home to support their children’s education, including cognitively stimulating activities (e.g., shared book reading, discussing school activities), emotionally supportive practices (e.g., praising children’s efforts, fostering a warm and supportive home environment), and establishing rules and routines to support learning. These strategies help foster a structured and emotionally supportive environment that encourages learning at home, thus enhancing children’s capacity for self-regulated learning (Grolnick et al., 2015).
•  Home-school collaborations include parent-teacher-school interactions such as communication and sharing of children’s learning and progress through various face-to-face or digital platforms. Collaborative interactions between parents and teachers enhance the integration of families into the school, thereby enhancing parents’ knowledge and networks that may help them in supporting their children’s learning and academic adjustment (Epstein, 2019).

The Singapore Context  

Parents in Singapore place a very high value on education and have high aspirations for their children’s academic success (Karuppiah & Poon, 2022). Considering the highly competitive educational landscape of Singapore, parents invest a substantial amount of time, energy, and resources into supporting their children in school starting from the early years. For example, many parents send their young children to tuition and enrichment programmes to ensure that they are academically prepared (Choy & Karuppiah, 2015; Koh-Chua et al., 2021). Apart from engaging in a variety of home-based activities that support children’s learning, parents also research school rankings and learning centres, purchase supplementary assessment books, volunteer in schools, and network with other parents (Debs & Cheung, 2021; Göransson, 2021).

Whereas parents aspire for their children to develop holistically, they also experience persisting societal pressure to prioritize their children’s academic success (Göransson, 2021; Karuppiah, 2022; Lim-Ratnam, 2013). At the same time, some students report feeling pressure from parents to excel academically and attain good grades due to the high-stakes examination process that can influence their educational trajectory and career prospects (Tan & Yates, 2011). However, studies suggest that academic pressure may have negative implications for children’s mental well-being (Ang & Huan, 2006). Given the importance of nurturing confident and resilient learners (Ministry of Education, 2022), it is important to build effective school-home-community partnerships that engage parents as active collaborators in supporting their children’s learning and well-being (Karuppiah, 2022).

In Practice

The following are the six types of involvement in Epstein’s (2019) framework of effective school-home-community partnerships and examples of how they can be practiced[REV1]   in the Singapore context:

• Parenting practices[REV2] 

-      Support families by providing information on parenting practices that enhance children’s learning, development, and well-being (Epstein, 2010).

-      Implement evidence-based interventions that[REV3]  support parenting skills to improve children’s learning and well-being, such as parental sensitivity, home- and school-based involvement, and proactive communication (Chan et al., 2021; Cheung, 2022; Rifkin-Graboi et al., 2023).

• Communicating

-      Establish various communication platforms, whether face-to-face or through digital or online means, to allow family members and teachers to communicate with each other about children’s learning and progress in school.

-      Develop balanced partnership programs with families where schools communicate with families not just when children have problems or difficulties but also when they display positive behaviors and accomplishments (Epstein, 2010)

-      Address potential barriers to school-home communication such as busy work schedules, language barriers, and lack of familiarity with the local education system (Teng, 2019).

• ·Volunteering in school

-      Encourage family engagement in the school by providing opportunities for parents to contribute their time, effort, and resources to school activities and to voice concerns about their children’s education (Khong & Ng, 2005; Teng, 2019).  

-      Promote participation of all families by providing a range of opportunities for family members to participate at various times, locations, and platforms especially for those who may have less flexibility to volunteer their time and skills (Epstein, 2010).  

• Learning at home

-      Support families in fostering a home environment that is conducive to learning, such as providing guidelines on homework policies and tips on how to monitor and discuss school tasks at home. (Epstein, 2010).

-      Promote consistency in providing children with quality learning opportunities in the home and school environment, by having high levels of parental involvement at home and high levels of classroom quality (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2012).  

• Participation in decision-making at school

-      Foster a welcoming school climate by communicating to parents that their participation is welcome, valuable, and expected (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Khong, 2017; Manzon et al., 2015), for example, by providing opportunities for parent leadership in schools (Epstein, 2010).

-      Plan and implement a diverse and inclusive curriculum that incorporates learning materials, pedagogical practices, and assessments that are sensitive to the different social backgrounds, educational needs, and capabilities of all families and children (Epstein, 2019).

• Collaborating with the community

-      Support families with accessing and navigating government and community support systems that support family well-being and children’s development, particularly for families at socioeconomic risk and children with higher learning needs.  

-      Establish collaborations with families and community representatives in program management, monitoring, and evaluation (Khong, 2017).

Takeaways

• Parental educational involvement contributes positively to children’s motivation, school engagement, and academic performance.
• Parents invest a significant amount of time, energy, and resources into supporting their children’s academic preparation starting from the early years.
• Effective school-home-community partnerships are important to engage families as active collaborators in enhancing children’s learning and well-being.

References

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Bulotsky-Shearer, R. J., Wen, X., Faria, A.-M., Hahs-Vaughn, D. L., & Korfmacher, J. (2012). National profiles of classroom quality and family involvement: A multilevel examination of proximal influences on Head Start children's school readiness. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27(4), 627-639. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2012.02.001

Chan, M., Manzon, M., Hong, H., & Khong, L. Y. L. (2021). Multidimensional profiles of parent involvement: Antecedents and impact on student engagement. British Journal of Educational Psychology, e12456. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12456

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