In the current context of increased demand for family involvement in education, without knowledgeable parental advocates, children's opportunities are often foreclosed, leading to unrealized talent, lost potential, diminished educational and vocational attainment, and widening demographic gaps in achievement. This is most acute for lower SES families and ethnic minority families, especially after the transition to middle school. Middle schools provide less guidance regarding involvement and parents must depend on their own knowledge and resources for effective involvement}despite that curricular decisions made during middle school have long term implications educational attainment. Most theories of parental involvement are based on elementary school models. The field lacks a theory to account for the unique and most effective strategies of parental involvement for middle school students. Consistently, research finds differences in the amount, type, and effectiveness of parental involvement across ethnicity and SES. Lower SES families are often less involved and their involvement is less effective for promoting achievement.
The specific aims are to identify practices of effective parental involvement during middle school, design a measure to assess these practices, and account for ethnic (African American, Hispanic, &White) and SES variations in the amount and effectiveness of parental involvement strategies by examining the influences of parental beliefs about involvement, knowledge/resources for involvement, and barriers to involvement. Focus groups will be conducted with parents, teachers and adolescents to develop a grounded theory of involvement during middle school and to design a measure. A separate pilot study of 120 African American, Hispanic, and White mothers of 7th graders will be conducted to test the psychometric properties of the measure and test hypotheses regarding ethnic and SES variations in family involvement. Project narrative: In the current context of increased demand for family involvement in education, without parents as knowledgeable advocates, children's opportunities are often foreclosed, leading to lost potential, unrealized talent, diminished educational and vocational attainment, and widening demographic gaps in achievement. The overall objective of this application is to broaden and refine current theories of family involvement in education to include developmentally appropriate strategies for middle school, by creating a developmentally appropriate theory and measure of parental involvement at middle school. In addition, the proposed studies will test hypotheses about the relations between parental involvement and achievement in middle school and hypotheses to explain ethnic and socioeconomic variations in the relations between parental involvement and achievement.
