School and home connections and children's kindergarten achievement gains: The mediating role of family involvement

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2011.05.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Children's home and school are the most influential contexts in which learning and development occur, especially during early childhood. This paper builds on Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory and Epstein's theory of overlapping spheres of influence to examine school and family connections and their relationships to family involvement and students’ achievement gains. We used a nationally representative sample of kindergartners (16,425 students from 864 schools) and found that schools’ efforts to communicate with and engage families predicted greater family involvement in school and higher levels of student achievement in reading and math at the end of kindergarten. We also found that, on average, family involvement at school and parents’ educational expectations were associated with gains in reading and math achievement in kindergarten. We discuss the implications of our findings for policy makers, researchers, and practitioners.

Highlights

► Schools’ efforts to communicate with and engage families predicted greater family involvement in school and higher levels of student achievement in reading and math at the end of kindergarten. On average, family involvement at school and parents’ educational expectations were associated with gains in reading and math achievement in kindergarten. Family involvement did not completely mediate the relationship between school outreach efforts and children's math and reading achievement gains, only family involvement at school was a partial mediator of the influence of school outreach efforts on achievement gains for reading and math.

Section snippets

Family involvement theory and children's academic achievement

This study adopted a multidimensional definition of involvement, consistent with current research and theory. These definitions include Epstein's (2001), framework of six types of family and community involvement (parenting, communication, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community) and Grolnick's (Grolnick et al., 1997, Grolnick and Slowiaczek, 1994) three dimensions of involvement (cognitive, affective, and school-based). Others distinguish between

School outreach to families and students and families outcomes

Researchers have shown that schools are critical influences on family involvement. Parents are more likely to be involved in their child's education when the school or teachers make a stronger effort to engage them in their children's learning (Deslandes and Bertrand, 2005, Epstein, 2001, Green et al., 2007, Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005, Sheldon and Van Voorhis, 2004). When educators foster stronger links with families by being responsive to and communicative with parents, families are expected

Research questions and hypotheses

This study built on previous research to analyze the influences of practices designed to engage families in their children's education on parental behaviors and students’ academic gains. Three research questions and hypotheses guided this study:

  • 1)

    To what extent is school outreach to families associated with family involvement (family involvement at home, in school, and parents’ educational expectations)? Based on prior research, we hypothesized that school outreach would be positively associated

Method

The data came from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, sponsored by the National Center of Education Statistics. ECLS-K focused on young children's cognitive and non-cognitive growth and collected information from students, parents, teachers, and administrators. Using a multistage probability sampling design, ECLS-K included a nationally representative sample of about 21,000 kindergarteners in over 1000 schools. For more details of the ECLS-K study,

Association between school outreach to parents and involvement

Table 2 includes the three models that give attention to different indicators of family involvement: family involvement in educational activities at home, family involvement in school-related activities, and parents’ educational expectations. The main independent variable of interest in all these models is: principals’ report of school outreach to parents. Regression estimates are reported as unstandardized coefficients in the table. Level-1 (student and family variables) and level-2 (school

Discussion

Researchers and policy makers have debated whether educational disparities are intrinsically related to the home environment or to the quality of the school a child attends. This study aimed to contribute to this discussion by examining the extent to which school outreach to parents and family involvement are associated with reading and math achievement gains in kindergarten, and the extent to which family involvement explains the relationship between school outreach to involve families and

Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development to the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships. Additional research support was provided by the Summer Faculty Fellowship program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. We appreciate the thoughtful comments of Joyce Epstein and the excellent research assistance of Amy Pucino. Opinions are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding

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