Leveling the Home Advantage: Assessing the Effectiveness of Parental Involvement in

Elementary School
Author(s): Thurston Domina
Source: Sociology of Education, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 233-249
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4148916
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 Leveling the Home Advantage:
Assessing the Effectiveness of
Parental Involvement in Elementary
School
Thurston Domina
City Universityof New York

In the past two decades, a great deal of energy has been dedicatedto improvingchildren's
educationby increasingparents'involvementin school. However,the evidence on the effec-
tivenessof parentalinvolvementis uneven.Whereaspolicymakersand theoristshaveassumed
that parentalinvolvementhaswide-rangingpositiveconsequences,manystudieshaveshown
that it is negativelyassociatedwith some children'soutcomes. Thisarticleuses data from the
childrenof the NationalLongitudinalSurveyof Youth1979 to estimatetime-laggedgrowth
models of the effect of severaltypes of parentalinvolvementon scoreson elementaryschool
achievementtests and the BehavioralProblemsIndex. The findings suggest that parental
involvementdoes not independentlyimprovechildren'slearning,but some involvementactiv-
itiesdo preventbehavioralproblems.Interactionanalysessuggest that the involvementof par-
ents with low socioeconomicstatus may be more effectivethan that of parentswith high
socioeconomicstatus.

n the past two decades,a great deal of been even more pronounced.A 1995-96 sur-
research and policy-makingactivity has vey by the National Center for Education
been dedicated to increasingthe involve- Statisticsshowed that nearlyall public ele-
ment of parentsin schools. Parental-involve- mentary and middle schools in the United
ment initiativeshave been a mainstayof fed- States sponsored activities that were
eral educational policy since the Reagan designed to foster parental involvement.
administration's1986 Goals 2000: Educate According to the survey, 97 percent of
AmericaAct. In 1996, the Clintonadministra- schools invited parents to attend an open
tion reauthorized the Elementary and house or back-to-schoolnight, 92 percent
SecondaryEducationAct, adding a new pro- scheduled parent-teacher conferences, 96
vision that required the nation's poorest percenthosted artsevents, 85 percentspon-
schools to spend at least 1 percent of their sored athleticevents, and 84 percenthad sci-
TitleIsupplementaryfederalfundsto develop ence fairs(Careyet al. 1998). Throughoutthe
educational "compacts" between families United States, parental-involvementinitia-
and schools. Likewise,increasing parental tives have been central to state- and dis-
involvementin schools is one of the six cen- trictwideschool reformefforts,most notably
tral goals of the Bushadministration's 2002 in Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia
No ChildLeftBehindAct. (Epstein 2001; Fine 1993; Wallace and
At the state and local levels, interestand Walberg1991). In 2003-04, New YorkCity
activitysurroundingparentalinvolvementhas schools chancellor Joel Klein appropriated

Sociologyof Education2005, Vol.78 (July):233-249 233

234
$43 million to hire parent coordinatorsto
arrangeschool events and contact parentsin
each of the system's1,200 schools (Gootman
2003).
The spread of parental-involvement poli-
cies reflects the applicationof key insights
from the sociology of educationto the day-
to-day operation of American schools. As
Epstein (1986, 1987a, 1987b) argued,
parental-involvementefforts acknowledge
the crucialrolethat familiesand communities
play in children'seducation.They attemptto
moderate upper- and middle-classstudents'
home advantage by bringing all families,
regardlessof socialclassor race,into the daily
life of the school. Parental-involvement poli-
cies seek to redistributeculturaland social
capital,boosting the resourcesthat are avail-
able to disadvantaged children. They are
thought to foster social closure by creating
opportunities for parents, teachers, and
administrators to networkand shareinforma-
tion with one another.
Butdoes parentalinvolvementdeservethe
faith that the public has invested in it?
Researchers have generally agreed that
parental-involvement activitiesare associated
with strongereducationaloutcomes, but it is
not clear that these activitiescause educa-
tional success (A. Bakerand Soden 1998;
Downey 2002). Indeed, evidence regarding
the effectivenessof parentalinvolvementhas
been mixed and largelydiscouraging.Many
studies have suggested that the parental-
involvementactivitiesthat are most frequent-
ly targeted by schools have littleor no direct
influenceon children'seducationaloutcomes;
othershave indicatedthat the effectivenessof
parentalinvolvementmay be conditionalon
parents'race and class. However,these find-
ings may be misleading.Past researcherson
parentalinvolvementhavefocused on cogni-
tive and academicoutcomes, neglectingthe
effect of involvementon children'sbehavior.
Furthermore, most have studied middle
school and high school students, ratherthan
elementary school students.
I used data on the elementary school-aged icant findings. Evenwithin studies, the estimat-
children of the National Longitudinal Survey ed effects of particular parental-involvement
of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79)to investigate activitieshave variedaccording to the outcome
the relationship between six forms of parental measured. Forexample, Desimone (2001) and
involvement and two distinct outcomes-
Domina
children'scognitive achievement and their
behavioralproblems.The NLSY79's longitudi-
nal design makesit possibleto place parental
activitiesin the context of children'searlier
achievementand behavior.Usinga repeated-
measuresapproach,I estimatedthe effectsof
parental involvement on achievement and
behavior, net of earlier achievement and
behavior.Finally,I used interactionterms to
determine whether the effects of parental-
involvementactivitiesvaryby parents'socioe-
conomic status(SES).
PREVIOUSRESEARCH
Giventhe popularityof parental-involvement
initiativesas a tool for school reform,it is sur-
prising to note that research on the link
between involvementand school successhas
been inconclusive.A few national studies
have associated high levels of parental
involvementwith improvededucationalout-
comes for children (Fehrmann,Keith, and
Reimers1987; Stevenson and Baker1987;
Useem 1992), but others have reportedthat
parentalinvolvementin education is nega-
tively related to children'seducationalout-
comes (Fan 2001; Milne et al. 1986). Even
within studies, the results have often been
mixed, with the observedeffects of parental
involvementdepending on which aspectsof
involvement and which educational out-
comes have been considered (Crosnoe
2001b; Ho and Willms 1996; Keith 1991;
Miedel and Reynolds 1999; Muller 1993;
Singhet al. 1995).
Indeed,a reviewof multivariate studiesof
the effectivenessof parentalinvolvementyield-
ed no singleparental-involvement activitythat
was consistentlylinkedto favorablechildren's
outcomes. For example, whereas Catsambis
(1998), Muller(1993) and Ho and Willms
(1996) reportedpositiveeffectsof parents'at-
home educational supervision, Desimone
(2001) reported negative effects, and Fan
(2001) and McNeal (1999) reported nonsignif-
McNeal (1999) found that attendance at
Levelingthe HomeAdvantage 235

Parent-Teacher Association(PTA)meetings is middle-and high school students.Thisfocus

associatedwith positivevalueson some chil- may have caused researchersto underesti-
dren'soutcomesand negativevalueson others. mate the effects of parental involvement.
The one area in which recent studies have Parents' involvement in school tends to
seemed to agree is one in which involvement decline as children age (Catsambis and
has a counterintuitive negativeeffect on chil- Garland1997; Crosnoe 2001a), as does its
dren's educational outcomes; Catsambis effectiveness (Catsambis and Suazo-Garcia
(1998), Desimone(2001), Fan(2001), Muller 2000; Muller1998; Singh et al. 1995). The
(1993), and Ho and Willms(1996) all reported only relativelyrecent study that analyzedthe
a significant,negativeassociationbetweenpar- involvementof parentsof elementaryschool
ents' educationalcontacts with schools and students using quantitativemethods (Miedel
children'seducationaloutcomes. and Reynolds 1999) found that parental
Studiesthat have used other methodolo- involvementimprovesthe readingscores of
gies have yielded similarlyambiguous find- kindergarteners but has no effecton the read-
ings. Among qualitative studies, Comer ing scores of high school students.
(1980), Comer and Haynes(1991), Epstein Furthermore, most parental-involvement pol-
(2001), and Lareau(1989) reportedpositive icy-makingactivityhas focused on increasing
effects of parentalinvolvement.Fine (1993) the involvement of children in elementary
and Reay (1998), however, argued that school (Chenand Chandler2001). It is possi-
observedassociationsbetween parentalpar- ble that these initiativescould be effective,
ticipationand children'seducationalperfor- even if the effectsof parentalinvolvementon
mance are really artifactsof the class and
racialadvantagesthat involvedparentsbring high school-agedchildrenare negligible.This
article addressesthis oversightin the litera-
to the table.The evidencefromevaluationsof ture by estimating the implications of
parental-involvement programshas been no parental-involvement activitiesfor a sampleof
more encouraging. Mattinglyet al. (2002)
reviewedthe evaluationsof 41 school- and elementaryschool students.
district-levelparental-involvementprograms
and concluded that there is little empirical Conceptualizing Parental
evidence to support the claim that schools' Involvement and Its Effects
effortsto improveparentalinvolvementulti- Influencedby Epstein's(1992) typology of
mately improve students' outcomes. Only
half the parental-involvementstudies that parental involvement-a typology that
includesbasicparentalroleslikekeepingchil-
Mattinglyet al. consideredto be adequately dren safe, as well as higher-levelinvolvement
designed found positive effects of parental- activities,such as collaboratingwith commu-
involvementprograms.
nity organizations-researcherson parental
involvement have considered a variety of
activities as examples of parental involve-
EXPLANATIONSFOR THE ment. By contrast, analyses of the implica-
UNEVENEFFECTS tions of involvement have been narrowly
focused on children'scognitiveand academic
Giventhe resourcesthat have been dedicated achievement.As McNeal(1999) pointedout,
to parentalinvolvement,thesefindingsaredis- this tight analyticfocus may come at a cost.
couraging. However, previous research on McNeal argued that the conceptual ties
parentalinvolvementmay have underestimat- between most formsof parentalinvolvement
ed its effect by neglectingthe followingfour and children'slearningareweakcomparedto
considerations. the ties between parental involvement and
children's behavior.
DifferentialEffectsby Students'Ages Involvement may be expected to influence
children's outcomes via three mechanisms:
Nearly all past research on the effectiveness of
parental involvement has been conducted on * Parentalinvolvementsocializes.When,for exam-
236 Domina

pie, parentssupervisetheirchildren's home- Separating the Causes and Effects

work,theyconveythe importance of school- of Involvement
ing.
* Second,parentalinvolvement Researchershave often explained negative
generatessocial and
control.Parents who attend PTAmeetings and nonsignificantassociationsbetween par-
volunteer with
in schooldeveloprelationships ents' involvement in school and children's
theirchildren's teachersand the parentsof outcomes by arguing that the directionof
theirchildren'sclassmates.Theserelationships causal effects between involvementand edu-
makeiteasierforparents to monitorchildren's cational outcomes is ambiguous.According
behavior andteachers'practices. to this argument,when childrenare experi-
* Parentalinvolvementgives parentsaccessto encing difficultiesin school, theirparentsare
insiderinformation.Whenchildren haveprob- more likelyto schedule meetingswith teach-
lemsat school,involvedparentslearnabout ers and to become involved,but when chil-
theseproblems earlierandknowmoreabout dren are succeeding in school, their parents
availablesolutions. tend to relax their involvement in school
(Crosnoe2001a; McNeal1999; Muller1998;
McNeal argued that since the mechanisms Sanders1998).Thisexplanationsuggeststhat
vary,differenttypes of parentalinvolvement cross-sectional estimates of the effect of
will have differenteffectson children'scogni- involvementare biased, since they neglect
tive and behavioraloutcomes. Socialization the cross-cuttinginfluence of prior perfor-
primarily affects children's behavior and mance.'
engagement. Similarly,the social-control A handfulof studieshaveadopteda longi-
aspects of parentalinvolvementtend to curb tudinalsurveydesign to addresscausaldirec-
children'sproblembehaviors,but do relative- tion. Singh et al.'s (1995) study tested the
ly littleto influencechildren'slearning.Only effect of parentalinvolvementon students'
the insider-information element of parental eighth-gradeacademic achievementwith a
involvement, McNeal contended, directly control for priorgrades. Muller(1998) and
influences both children's cognitive and Fan (2001) used a more-rigorous,repeated-
behavioraloutcomes. measures approach. Their analyses took
Researchers who havefocused on the cog- advantageof the repeatedmeasuresavailable
nitive effects of parental involvement may in the NationalEducationLongitudinal Study
have overlookedmore dramaticimplications (NELS)of 1988 to model the effect of
of involvementfor children'sbehavior.This parental involvement on high school stu-
article models the effect of six parental- dents' achievement,net of priorachievement
involvement activities on children'sbehav- scores. These studies controlledfor potential
ioral and cognitive development. Following reverse-causality bias, but their estimatesof
McNeal(1999), I arguethat the six parental- the effect of parentalinvolvementwere no
involvement activities influence children's less ambiguous than were those of earlier
outcomes in different ways: Two of the studies. Mullerfound that childrenwho dis-
parental-involvement variables that are cuss school with theirparentsexperiencerel-
included in my analysesmeasurethe extent atively rapid growth in math achievement,
to which parents are engaged in students' but otherwise, both Mullerand Fan found
homework,an activitythat primarilyaffects that most parental-involvementactivities
students'outcomesvia socialization.Threeof have, at best, no effect on the cognitive
the involvement measures-attending PTA developmentof high school students.
meetingsand volunteeringinsideand outside This article also adopts a repeated-mea-
the classroom-tap involvement in activities sures approach, using NLSYdata for elemen-
that allow parents to exercise social control tary school students. The approach tests the
over their children. In addition, my analysis hypothesis that parental involvement is both
includes a measure of attendance at parent- the cause and the effect of children'selemen-
teacher conferences, an activity that exposes tary school performance by examining the
parents to insider information. effects of parental involvement net of chil-
Levelingthe HomeAdvantage 237

dren's prior cognitive achievement and children'scognitive and behavioraldevelop-

behavior. ment. The NLSY79began in 1979, collecting
data on the familybackground,labormarket
Heterogeneity of Causal Effects experience,and educationalhistoryof a sam-
ple of 12,686 Americanchildrenand young
Recent theoretical and empiricalwork has adultsaged 14-22. Annualfollow-upsurveys
pointed to the possibilitythat the efficacyof trackedthe school-to-worktransitionof this
particular parental-involvement activities originalcohort,and in 1986, the NLSY79ini-
varies according to parents' race, ethnicity, tiated a mother-childsample,focusingon the
and class background (Desimone 2001; childrenof the NSLY79respondents.In addi-
Lareauand Horvat 1999; McNeal 1999). tion to surveyingmothersand childrenabout
Takenas a whole, this line of inquirysuggests their families, friends, and schooling, the
that the involvementefforts of middle-class NLSY79has administereda batteryof cogni-
and white parents may meet with greater tive and socioemotionalassessmentsto the
educationalrewardsthan may the involve- children biannually(Bakeret al. 1993; U.S.
ment effortsof poor and minorityparents. Departmentof Labor2001).
Potential heterogeneity in the causal Researchers have reliedheavilyon NLSY79
effects of parentalinvolvementhas profound data to analyze the influence of parents'
implicationsfor the effectivenessof parental socioeconomic characteristicson children's
involvementas a school reformstrategy. If educationaldevelopment (see, e.g., Duncan
Desimone(2001), Lareauand Horvat(1999), and Brooks-Gunn1997; Mayer1997; Parcel
and McNeal (1999) were correct that the and Menaghan 1994). However,I know of
positive effects of parentalinvolvementare only one study that used NLSY79mother-
the strongestfor the most-advantagedfami- child data to assess the influenceof parental
lies, a general increase in parental-involve- involvement,and that study was limitedto a
ment activitiesmay actuallywiden gaps in smallsubsampleof respondentchildrenwho
educationalachievement,ratherthan amelio- were enrolled in the Head Start program
ratethem. (Cohen2002). The NLSY79is uniquelysuited
To addressthese issues,I used time-lagged to researchon parentalinvolvement,since it
models to investigatethe possibilitythat the provides rich data on parentalinvolvement
effects of parentalinvolvementvary by par- and multiple children's educational and
ents' socioeconomic backgroundby testing behavioraloutcome measures.In addition,it
for interactions between the effects of provides repeated observationsof children
involvementactivities and parents' SES.2If while they are still in elementary school,
these analyses show greater returnsto the which distinguishesit from the NELS,the
involvementof high-SESparents,the progno- data set that has most often been used in
sis for parental-involvementprogramsas a recent researchon parentalinvolvement.
tool forgeneratingeducationalequityis grim. I studied1,445 childrenof NLSY79respon-
If, on the other hand, they show that the dents. These childrenwere enrolled in ele-
involvementof disadvantagedparentshas a mentaryschool in 1996 and completed the
strongereffect than the involvementof rela- NLSY79'sPeabody IndividualAchievement
tivelyaffluentparents,even modest effectsof Test (PIAT)and the BehaviorProblemsIndex
parentalinvolvementcould have majorcon- (BPI)in 1996 and 2000.4 All the childrenin
sequencesfor improvingeducationalequity. this samplewere in the fourthor lowergrades
in 1996, and the median student was
enrolledin the second grade. Ifollowedthese
DATA AND METHODS children through three survey rounds, look-
ing at the effect of parents' school-involve-
I used longitudinal data from the mother- ment activities in 1996 on the children's 2000
child sample of the NLSY793to sort out the PIATand BPIscores. Since the NLSYpurpose-
relationship between several parental school- ly oversampled the economically disadvan-
involvement activities and elementary school taged, African Americans, and Hispanics in
238 Domina

the constructionof the initial 1979 cohort
and since response rates in the screening
process and in subsequentinterviewsvaried
by race and other characteristics,I used the
NLSY's2000 child weights to correct for
potential biases.5Although rates of nonre-
sponse were low, listwisedeletionwould dis-
card nearlyone thirdof the cases in my sam-
ple. As Kinget al. (2001) demonstrated,the
resultwould be the loss of valuableinforma-
tion and could cause severeselectionbias.To
avoid these problems, I filled missing data
using Amelia multiple imputation, a tech-
nique that has been demonstratedto pro-
duce more reliable data than other tech-
niquesfor dealingwith missingdata (Honaker
et al. zUUI; King et al. LuuI). iaodle I pre-
sents weighted descriptive statistics for each
variable that was used in the analyses.
Dependent Variables
Usingordinaryleast-squares(OLS)regression
models, I assessed the effect of the six
parentalschool-involvementactivitieson two
outcomes: the PIATand the BPI.The PIAT
measures children'sacademic achievement
(Dunnand Markwardt 1970). Thiscomposite
score is the mean of the child'sage-standard-
ized percentilescores on subtests in mathe-
matics, reading recognition, and reading
comprehension,each of which consistsof 84

Table1. VariablesUsed in the Analyses:DescriptiveStatisticsof NLSY79ElementarySchool

Children

Variables Range Mean SD

DependentVariables
2000 CompositePIATpercentilescore 0-100 57.88 24.84
2000 BPIpercentilescore 0-100 56.83 28.03

Variables
ParentalInvolvement
attendedPTAmeeting,1996
Parents 0-1 .550 .498
Parentsattended one-on-one meeting with
teacheror school official,1996 0-1 .937 .242
Parentsvolunteeredin classroom,1996 0-1 .608 .488
Parents
volunteered 1996
outsidethe classroom, 0-1 .641 .480
How often parentshelped with homework,1996 0-5 3.11 1.72
How often parentscheckedhomework,1996 0-5 3.88 1.65

BackgroundControlVariables
Black 0-1 .140 .347
Hispanic 0-1 .071 .258
Other 0-1 .073 .260
Male 0-1 .518 .500
Dummy,childattended publicschool, 1996 0-1 .855 .353
Dummy,child livedwith motherand her
spouse/partner,1996 0-1 .791 .407
Child'sgrade in 1996 0-4 1.82 1.38
FamilySES,1996 -2.26-2.46 0 .69

ControlVariables
PriorPerformance
1996 CompositePIAT score
percentile 0-100 51.66 18.11
1996 BPIpercentilescore 0-100 57.79 27.43
Childrepeateda grade before 1996 0-1 .052 .222
Levelingthe HomeAdvantage 239

multiple-choiceitems.7These three subtests parental-involvement activitieson children's

have high reliabilityand correlatecloselywith outcomes: how often the parentshelped the
a varietyof other cognitivemeasures.8 childrenwith homeworkand how often the
The BPImeasures the frequency, range, parents checked the children's homework.
and type of childhood behavioralproblems. These measures of home involvement are
This measure is derived from mothers' scale variables,rangingfrom 0 (for children
responsesto 28 questions about their chil- whose parentsnevercheckedor helped with
dren's behaviorin the three months before homework)to 5 (for childrenwhose parents
they were surveyed. Among the behaviors checked or helped with homework every
included in the BPIare cheating and lying, day). Althoughthese two variablescorrelate
argumentativeness,difficultyconcentrating, with one anotherat .52, they do not correlate
bullying, disobedience at home and at closelywith the school-involvementvariables,
school, troublegetting along with other chil- and post-hocmulticollinearity tests suggested
dren, trouble getting along with teachers, that they do not createmulticollinearity issues
and impulsiveness.9The BPI is a negative in the regressionmodels.11
measure;a high score on the BPIindicates It should be noted that these measuresof
many behavioralproblems. parental involvement are less precise than
one may like.12Thefour measuresof parental
Measures of Parental Involvement participationin school activitiesare blunt;as
dichotomousmeasures,they blurthe distinc-
I used six NLSYvariablesto measureaspects tion between parentswho regularlypartici-
of parentalinvolvement.Fourof these vari- pate in school activitiesand those who do so
ables measure parental participation in infrequently.Likewise,by focusingexclusively
school-basedparental-involvement activities, on help with homework,the measuresof at-
and two measureat-home parentalinvolve- home parental involvement miss more-
ment in the educationalprocess. The NLSY nuancedformsof parentalinvolvement,such
includes several more-general questions as discussingschool lessonsand engaging in
about parent-childrelations, but these six informalacademiccoaching.These data limi-
questions most directlytap the involvement tationslikelyhave a conservativeeffect on the
of parentsin children'seducation. reportedfindings;since the data imperfectly
The four school-involvementmeasuresare capture parental involvement, estimates of
attendance at parent-teacherconferences, the effectiveness of involvement could be
participationin the PTA,volunteeringin the understated.
classroom, and volunteering outside the
classroom (such as supervising lunch and Control Variables
chaperoningfield trips).These items are all
dichotomous, and each is based on inter- Socioeconomic Background I took several
views with the mothers. Motherswho said characteristicsof children'ssocial, economic,
that they or their husbandsor partnerspar- and familybackgroundsinto accountto con-
ticipated in the school activity in question trolfor possiblespuriouscorrelationsbetween
were coded 1, and those who said that they parental school-involvement activities and
did not were coded 0. To eliminate simul- children'soutcomes. Eachof these character-
taneityand time-orderissues, I used data on isticshas been shown elsewhereto be related
parents' school involvementfrom 1996 to to both parents'school involvementand chil-
predict children'soutcomes in 2000. While dren'seducationaland behavioraloutcomes.
the fouritemsare correlated,10multicollinear- The controlvariablesare child'sraceand gen-
ity diagnostics on the OLS regression models der (measured in a series of dummy vari-
suggested that including all four types of ables), child's grade, type of child's school,
involvement in one regression model does two-parent family, and family SES(created by
not introduce collinearity problems. taking the mean of the standardized logged
In addition, I used two child-reported vari- family income-to-needs ratio, mother's and
ables to measure the effect of at-home father's highest grade completed, and moth-
240 Domina

er's and father'soccupationalprestige level). the child'spriorscore on the dependentvari-

Eachof these controlswas measuredin 1996, able.
when the parental-involvementmeasures The base PIATmodel indicatesthat several
were taken. parental-involvement activitiesaresignificant-
ly related to high academic achievement.
Prior Performance To assess the possible Attending parent-teacherconferences and
reciprocal causal relationship between PTAmeetings, volunteeringboth in and out
parental involvement and children's out- of the classroom,and checking homework
comes, I added measuresto controlfor chil- are all positivelyassociatedwith subsequent
dren's priorperformanceon relevantassess- scores on academic achievement tests.
ments. Withthe additionof these priorper- Furthermore, these effects are not insubstan-
formancevariables,the PIATand BPIanalyses tial: Childrenwhose parents participatedin
became time-lagged growth analyses.While each of these five involvement activities
the earlier models predict the effect of scoredan averageof 15.35 percentagepoints
parentalinvolvementon children's2000 PIAT higher on the 2000 standardizedcomposite
and BPIassessmentvalues,these time-lagged PIATexamination.Homeworkhelp is nega-
models predictthe changein assessmentval- tively associatedwith academicachievement
ues overthese fouryears.Controllingfor prior in this model. The six parentalinvolvement
valuesin the PIAT and BPImodelsreducesthe variablesexplain less than 5 percentof the
model'svariabilityconsiderably;the students' variance in PIATscores. Nonetheless, this
1996 PIATscores correlatewith their 2000 model clearly shows that children with
scores at .72, and the 1996 BPIscores corre- involvedparentstend to have higheracade-
late with the 2000 BPIscoresat .65. mic achievement.
The second PIATmodel suggests that
Interaction Effects some of this positive association between
parentalinvolvementand academicachieve-
The final step of the analysiswas to investi- ment is spurious.Attending PTAmeetings,
gate heterogeneityin the effects of parental volunteering outside the classroom, and
involvementby parent'sSES,using interac- checking on homeworkare all significantly
tion terms created by multiplyingthe SES and positively associated with academic
scale by each of the parental-involvement achievement, even after race, family back-
activities.The two outcome variableswere ground, and school sector are controlled.
then regressedon each of these interaction However,the coefficient for attendance at
terms, along with controlsfor SESand the parent-teacherconferences becomes nega-
other background and prior performance tive in this model, the coefficientfor class-
controls.Forclarity'ssake,each of these inter- room volunteering becomes statistically
action analyseswas runseparately. insignificant,and the positiveand statistically
significant coefficients for attending PTA
meetings and volunteeringoutsidethe class-
FINDINGS room shrinkconsiderably.Controllingfor a
child'sbackgroundcharacteristics revealsthat
Table 2 presents the effects of parental- at least some of the positive association
involvementactivitiesin 1996 on children's between each parental-involvement measure
academicachievementand behavioralprob- and academic achievement that was
lems in 2000. Threemodels are reportedfor observed in the base model is an artifactof
each dependent variable:The base model the mutualdependence of parentalinvolve-
looks at the effects of parental involvement ment and academic achievement on back-
without any controls, the second addresses ground characteristics. Like much of the
the issue of spurious causality by controlling research on the link between parental
for the child's socioeconomic background, involvement and academic achievement, the
and the third addresses the issue of time overall picture that emerges from the second
order and causal direction by controlling for PIATmodel is ambiguous. Net of race and
Table 2. UnstandardizedOLSCoefficients:Effectof 1996 ParentalInvolvementon 2000 PIATand B

2000 PIAT

Variables 1 2 3

Parentsattendedone-on-onemeetingwith teacher,1996 2.94* -3.99*** -1.21

Parentsattended PTAmeeting, 1996 3.32*** 1.92*** .47
Parentsvolunteeredin classroom,1996 1.71* -.48 .37
Parentsvolunteeredoutsidethe classroom,1996 6.56*** 2.67*** .27
Howoften parentscheckedhomework,1996 .82*** 1.02*** -.34*
Howoften parentshelpedwith homework,1996 -2.16*** -1.61"*** -.33*
Black 11.80*** -5.81***
Hispanic -5.02*** -1.00
Other -3.61*** -2.05**
Male .59 .71
Dummy,childattendedpublicschool, 1996 -3.26*** -1.14*
Dummy,childlivedwith motherand herspouse/partner,1996 .80 .85
Child'sgrade in 1996 -.15 -2.78***
FamilySES,1996 15.76*** 6.91***
PIAT,1996 .90***
BPI,1996 -
Constant 51.38*** 62.78*** 19.61***
AdjustedR2 .049 .294 .601

*p < .05, **p< .01, ***p< .001.

242 Domina

family background, some parental-involve- background are controlled in the second

ment activitiesare positivelyrelatedto acade- model. Net of controls,parents'volunteering
mic achievement;others are negatively or in school (both inside and outside the class-
nonsignificantlyrelated. room) and homeworkcheckingare strongly
Butlikemost researchon parentalinvolve- associated with lower levels of childhood
ment, this second PIATmodelfailsto account behavioralproblems.As was the case in the
for reciprocal causality between parental PIAT models, some of the association
involvementand achievement. In the third between involvement and BPI that was
and final model, I allowedfor the possibility observedin the base model is spurious;net of
that parents will adjust their involvement backgroundcharacteristics,the three signifi-
accordingto theirchildren'sneeds by adding cant parental-involvement variablesare asso-
a control for a child's 1996 PIATscore. The ciated with a decline in BPIof just 6.6 per-
coefficients reported in this model can be centage points. Nonetheless,the second BPI
understoodas the effect of parentalinvolve- model suggests that the independentinflu-
ment on the rate of children'simprovement ence of parental-involvementactivities on
in academicachievementbetween 1996 and children's behavior is much clearer and
2000. In this model, the only parental- stronger than is the influence of parental
involvement practices that are significantly involvementon academicachievement.
associated with academic achievement- The thirdmodel confirmsthis point,show-
attendingparent-teacherconferences, check- ing that parents'volunteeringoutsideschool,
ing homework, and helping with home- homeworkchecking,and homeworkhelp all
work-are negativelyassociated.Thisfinding reducedchildren's2000 behavioralproblems,
suggests that once the effect of prioracade- even afterbackgroundvariablesand 1996 BPI
mic achievement on parents' educational- scoreswere controlled.It is worthnotingthat
involvementactivitiesis accounted for, the the effect of homework help on BPI has
positive association between involvement reversed to become statisticallysignificant
and achievement melts away. It lends sup- and negative in this third model. In other
portsto McNeal's(1999) contentionthat the words,althoughthe firsttwo modelsshowed
link between parentalinvolvementand chil- no relationshipbetween homeworkhelp and
dren's cognitive outcomes is tenuous. BPI,the third model shows that homework
Furthermore,it substantiallychallenges the help preventschildren'sbehavioralproblems.
notion that parentalinvolvementboosts chil- In sum, the observed effect of parental
dren's academic achievement. Unless involvementon children'sbehavioralprob-
parental-involvement programsimprovethe lems is relativelymodest; together,the three
effectiveness of parental involvement, this significant parental-involvementvariables
finding should raise seriousquestions about account for a change of 2.6 percentage
these initiatives'efficacy as a strategy to points in the standardizedBPIscale. Despite
improvestudents'learning. the weak causal link between parental
The analysis of the effect of parental involvementand children'scognitive devel-
involvementon children'sbehavioralprob- opment, these analysesshow that parental-
lems yields more encouragingresults.In the involvementactivitiescan be effectivein pre-
base model, four of the six parental-involve- venting children'sproblem behaviors.The
ment activities are associated with fewer effect of parentalinvolvementon children's
behavioral problems. This model demon- behaviorseems to come primarilythrough
strates that children whose parents attend socializationand the exercise of social con-
PTAmeetings, volunteer inside and outside trol.
the classroom, and check their homework The last question to be answered is
score 17 percentage points lower on the stan- whether the effects of parental involvement
dardized BPIdistribution. vary on the basis of the parents' socioeco-
Three of the four desirable parental- nomic background. Table 3 uses multiplica-
involvement effects remain significant after tive interaction terms to address this ques-
child's school, family, and socioeconomic tion. It reports a series of two-step regressions
Levelingthe HomeAdvantage 243

Table 3. OLSand LogisticRegressionCoefficients:Heterogeneity in the Causal Effectsof Parental

Involvement, by ParentalSES(standard errors in parentheses)
2000 PIAT 2000 BPI

1 2 1 2

ParentsAttendedOne-on-OneMeeting,1996 -1.19 -1.64 .53 1.29

(.77) (.84) (1.03) (1.12)
SES 7.00*** 8.70*** -2.91*** -5.84**
(.33) (1.29) (.42) (1.72)
Interaction - -1.78 - 3.06
(1.30) (1.74)
R-square .604 .604 .432 .432

ParentsAttendedPTAMeeting,1996 .35 0.37 -.18 -.25

(.38) (.38) (.50) (.51)
SES 6.90*** 7.02*** -2.87*** -3.43***
(.33) (.47) (.42) (.62)
Interaction - -0.20 - .94
(.56) (.75)
R-square .604 .604 .432 .432

in the Classroom,1996
ParentsVolunteered .42 0.38 -.71 -.70
(.39) (.39) (.52) (.52)
SES 6.90*** 6.38*** -2.83*** -2.75***
(.33) (.50) (.42) (.64)
Interaction - 0.80 - -1.30
(.57) (.77)
R-square .604 .604 .432 .432

Outsidethe Classroom,1996
ParentsVolunteered .40 0.44 -1.66** -1.77**
(.40) (.40) (.53) (.53)
SES 6.91*** 7.70*** -2.77*** -5.00***
(.33) (.49) (.42) (.63)
Interaction - -1.25* - 3.59***
(.57) (.76)
R-square .604 .604 .433 .435

HowOftenParentsCheckedHomework,1996 -.52*** -0.48*** -.59*** -.56***

(.12) (.12) (.15) (.16)
SES 6.89*** 7.92*** -2.90*** -1.96*
(.33) (.72) (.42) (.95)
Interaction - -0.27 - -.24
(.17) (.22)
R-square .605 .605 .433 .433

HowOftenParentsHelpedwithHomework,1996 -.50*** -0.52*** -.61*** -.57***

(.11) (.11) (.15) (.15)
SES 6.98*** 6.49*** -2.87*** -1.59*
(.33) (.57) (.42) (.75)
Interaction - .16 - -.42*
(.15) (.20)
R-square .605 .605 .434 .434

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p< .001.

244 Domina

predicting students' 2000 PIATand BPI scores-the statisticallysignificantinteraction

scores.Inthe firstset of each of these models, termssuggest that the involvementactivities
the dependent variable is regressed on a of low-SESparents have a more favorable
parental-involvement activity,SES,student's influenceon their children'soutcomes than
race and gender,school sector,familystatus, do the activitiesof high-SESparents.
grade, and score on the 1996 administration Table4 illustrates thisfindingby calculating
of the outcome. In the second set of these the predictedoutcome scoresfor each of the
models, an interactionterm, createdby mul- regressionsin Table3 that indicatedsignificant
tiplying the parental-involvementvariable interaction effects.Thistablecomparesthe pre-
times familySES,is added. (Forease of inter- dicted effectsof parental-involvementactivities
pretation, only the involvement, SES, and fora hypotheticalstudent whose parents'SESis
interactioncoefficientsare reportedhere.) one standarddeviationabove the meanvalue
This table provideslimited evidence that withthe predictedparental-involvement effects
the effectivenessof parentalinvolvementis for another hypotheticalstudent whose par-
conditionalon parentalSES.Threeof the 12 ents' SESis one standarddeviationbelow the
models reportedhereshow statisticallysignif- mean.Itshowsthatthe PIAT returnto parental
icant interactionsbetween parental-involve- volunteeringis nearlytwiceas highforlow-SES
ment activitiesand SES.Two of these signifi- childrenas it is for high-SESchildren.Even
cant interactionspoint in a surprisingdirec- morestrikingis the effectof parentalvolunteer-
tion, in light of the evidence presented in ing on students' BPI;while volunteeringat
Desimone(2001), Lareauand Horvat(1999), school is associatedwith a small increasein
and McNeal (1999). With one exception-- behavioral problemsamongaffluentchildren;it
the significantnegative interactionbetween substantially reduces behavioral problems
homework help and SES on children'sBPI among poorchildren.

Table 4. PredictedValueson Children'sOutcomes for ParentalInvolvementa

Parent ParentDid Not

ParentalInvolvement Participated Participate Difference

Outcome:2000 PIAT
Volunteeroutsidethe classroom
HighSES 58.17 57.58 0.58
LowSES 49.66 48.50 1.16

Outcome:2000 BPI
Volunteeroutsideof classroom
HighSES 55.14 54.52 .62
LowSES 56.98 60.94 -3.96
Homeworkhelp
HighSES 57.18 58.18 -1.00
LowSES 60.56 61.33 -.77
a Thesevalueswerecalculatedby substituting
valuesintothe regressionequationssummarized
in Table4. Predictedvalueswere calculatedfor fourhypotheticalstudents:two studentswhose
valueson the SESscalewere one standarddeviationabovethe mean,one whose parentpartici-
patedinthe parental-involvementactivityandone whoseparentdidnot,andtwo studentswhose
valueson the SESscalewere one standarddeviationbelowthe mean,one whose parentpartici-
activityand one whose parentdid not. Foreach of the remain-
patedin the parental-involvement
ing predictors,samplemeans were substitutedin the regressionequation.
Levelingthe HomeAdvantage
These findings are directly contrary to
Lareauand Horvat's(1999) qualitativeanaly-
ses and McNeal's(1999) quantitativeanaly-
ses, both of whichsuggestedthat the involve-
ment effortsof high-SESparentswere more
effective than those of low-SESparents. In
light of earlier research, the interactions
reported here, which suggest that the
involvement of low-SES parents may pay
greater cognitive and behavioraldividends
than the involvementof high-SESparents,
should be regardedwith caution.One impor-
tant differencebetween my analysesand the
previousanalysesmay explainthis difference:
My analyseswere time lagged to controlfor
students' prior achievement and therefore
separate the effect of socioeconomic back-
groundon the effectivenessof parentalinter-
ventions from the confoundingeffect of its
academic and behavioralcontext. Thus, it is
possible that earlier findings that showed
greaterparental-involvement returnsfor afflu-
ent students may have been biased by the
correlation between students' skills and
behavior and their families' SES and that
these interactionsshow the true relationship
between familySESand the effectivenessof
parental-involvement activities.On the other
hand, it is also possiblethat the interactions
reported in Tables3 and 4 simple reflect a
ceiling effect. If the children of highly
involved high-SESparents began the study
with optimal PIATand BPIscores, they may
have experienced little change over the
course of the study, regardlessof their par-
ents' school-involvementactivities.
DISCUSSION
The idea that parentscan change their chil-
dren's educationaltrajectoriesby engaging
with their children'sschooling has inspireda
generationof school reformpolicies. In the
two decades since the Reagan administra-
tion's Goals 2000, parentalinvolvementhas
become a catchphrase in educational policy
making, and school outreach efforts, such as
open houses, PTAs,and parent coordinators,
have become increasingly common in U.S.
elementary schools. In the public discourse,
parental involvement has come to be regard-
245
ed as a panacea-policy makersbill parental-
involvementinitiativesas a tool to reformfail-
ing schools, improvestudents' learning,and
reduceclass-and race-basedgaps in skills.
This study has suggested that some-but
not all-of this faith may have been mis-
placed.Attendanceat parent-teacherconfer-
ences, PTA membership, volunteering at
school, homeworkchecking,and homework
help are, indeed, associatedwith high scores
on achievementtests and a low incidenceof
behavioralproblems for elementary school
children. However, after school and family
background and child's prior academic
achievementare controlled,the effectof each
of theseinvolvement aca-
activitieson children's
demic achievementis negative or nonsignifi-
cant. Ratherthan advance children'scogni-
tive development, some forms of parental
involvementmay actuallyhurt.Althoughthis
findingis discouragingand difficultto recon-
cile with the theoreticalworkthat associated
involvementwith academicadvantages,it is
consistentwith muchof the previousresearch
on the link between parental involvement
and children'scognitiveoutcomes.
Bycontrast,this studyfound a clearcausal
link between parentalinvolvementand chil-
dren's behavioral problems. Even after I
appliedstringentcontrolsfor children'sfami-
ly and school backgroundsand scores on an
earliermeasure of behavioralproblems,the
analyses demonstratedthat parentsprevent
children'sbehavioralproblemswhen they vol-
unteerat school,help theirchildrenwith their
homework,and check their children'shome-
work.
McNeal's (1999) treatment of parental
involvementas a form of social capitalhelps
to make sense of the contrast between the
demonstrated effectiveness of parental
involvement in the domain of children's
behaviorand its relativeineffectivenessin the
area of cognition. McNeal argued that
involved parents influence their children in
three ways: First,they socializetheir children
by demonstrating their interest in their chil-
dren's education (as they do when they pay
close attention to their children's homework).
Second, they exercise social control by spend-
ing time at school, getting to know teachers
and other parents, and using these ties to
246 Domina

monitor their children's schooling. Finally, may translateinto cognitive advantagesin

they gain access to insider informationby the long run. As students progressthrough
meeting and sharinginformationwith teach- school, theirattitudesand behaviorcan have
ers, administrators, and other parents.Forthe important implicationsfor their academic
firstand second of these mechanisms,in par- engagement and success. For example,
ticular, the link between involvement and McLeodand Kaiser(2004) demonstratedthat
children'sbehavioris more direct than the young children'sbehavior(as measuredby
linkbetween involvementand children'scog- the BPI)influencestheir odds of later com-
nition. My findings are consistent with this pleting high school and enrollingin college.
analysis, showing that socializing activities Furtherresearchis needed to understandhow
like homeworkhelp and checkingand social parental-involvementactivities that occur
controlactivitieslikeschool volunteeringpre- when students are in elementaryschool pay
vent children's behavioral problems, even off as studentsmove into middleschool,high
though they have little direct influence on school, and beyond.
academicachievement.
The findingsin this articleunderminethe
traditionalcaseforincreasingparentalinvolve- NOTES
ment in schools,suggestingthat involvement
is ultimatelyunrelatedto students'academic 1. However,this is not the only way in
performance.It should be noted, however, which reciprocalcausalitycan bias estima-
that the article did not directly assess the tions of the effect of parentalinvolvementon
effectivenessof parental-involvement policies. children'soutcomes.Crosnoe's(2001b) study
Although many of the parental-involvementof Californiahigh school students showed
activitiesthat I studiedlikelytook place in the that classroomsuccesstends to stimulatethe
context of schools' parental-involvement ini- late high school involvement of parents
tiatives, many others took place in the whose childrenareenrolledin the noncollege
absence of programmaticintervention.This preparatorytracks.
distinctioncould have importantimplications 2. Becauseof the smallsamplesize, I was
for the effectivenessof parental-involvement unableto replicateDesimone's(2001) analy-
activitiesand shouldbe examinedmore care- sis by race using the NLSYelementaryschool
fully in future research.On the one hand, children.
parental-involvement initiativesmay improve 3. The NLSY79is sponsored by the U.S.
the effectivenessof involvementby teaching Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor
parentshow to intervenesuccessfullyin their Statisticsand administeredin collaboration
children'sschoolingand by sensitizingschool with the Center for Human Resource
personnel to parents' needs. On the other Research, Ohio State University,and the
hand, if school-involvementprogramsflood NationalOpinionResearchCenter,University
schools with eager parents,they could dilute of Chicago.
the effectiveness of individualinvolvement 4. I used NLSYdata only from 1996 to
activities. Unless school policies make 2000 because these are the only years for
parental-involvement activitiesmoreeffective, which data on parents'school involvement
the findingsof thisstudysuggestthatthey will are available.
do little to improveelementaryschool chil- 5. It should be noted, however,that even
dren'slearning. when weighted, this NLSYsubsampleshould
However, the findings suggest a new, not be considered representative of all
more circumscribed,rationalefor supporting American elementary school students.
parental-involvement programs: Involvement Instead, the children I analyzed are represen-
may do little to encourage students' learning tative of the elementary school-aged children
in the short run, but it effectively prevents of all American women aged 35-42 in 2000.
students' misbehavior. This is no small However, there is no evidence of any system-
achievement. The behavioral improvements atic difference between these children and all
that are associated with parental involvement elementary school children.
Levelingthe HomeAdvantage
6. For each case that is missing, Amelia
generates five estimated values using data
from valueson nonmissingvariablesand the
EMis expectation maximizationalgorithm.
The resultis five separatedata sets, in which
nonmissingvalues remain unchanged (and
are identicalacrossdata sets) and previously
missingvariablesare filled.
7. In models that I do not reporthere, I
analyzedthe three PIATsubtests separately;
the findings are substantivelysimilarto the
summaryfindingsreportedhere.
8. One-month test-retest reliabilitiesvary
betweenthe threePIAT subtests,rangingfrom
.64 for the readingcomprehensionsubtestto
.74 for the mathematicssubtest and .89 for
the readingrecognitionsubtest (Bakeret al.
1993; Dunnand Markwardt 1970). The three
subtestsscale well with one another-for the
2000 subtests,Cronbach'salpha= .83.
9. AlthoughindividualBPIitems have low
test-retest reliability, scaled values have
provedto be more stable,with a one-month
test-retestreliabilityof .63 (Bakeret al. 1993).
The Cronbach'salpha for the 28 2000 BPI
items is .88.
10. Volunteeringin the classroomand vol-
unteeringoutside the classroomare correlat-
ed at .46. This is the highest correlation
between the four school-involvementvari-
ables and the only correlationabove the con-
ventional.4 threshold.
11. Varianceinflationfactors(VIF)were run
on all the reportedregressionmodelsand are
availableon request.Accordingto the rulesof
thumb presented by Chatterjee,Hadi, and
Price(2000), collinearityis an issue if any VIF
is greaterthan 10 and if the mean of all VIFs
is considerablylargerthan 1. No VIFin the
modelsreportedherewas greaterthan 2, and
the mean VIFsfor these models rangedfrom
1.28 to 1.30.
12. Adequately measuring parental
involvementis a problemthat is repeatedly
encounteredin the quantitativeliteratureon
the consequences of parentalinvolvement.
An ideal data set may provide measures of
parental involvement from parents, students,
and teachers, as well as measures of the
intensity of involvement and information
about the context of and motivations for
parental-involvement activities.
247
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ThurstonDomina is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the GraduateSchool and UniversityCenter,

City Universityof New York.His dissertationinvestigates the causes and consequences of recent
increases in residentialsegregation between college graduates and people with lower levels of edu-
cation.

Theauthor is gratefulto PaulAttewell,David Lavin,and JuliaWrigleyfor theirhelpfulcomments on

earlierversionsof this article.Thisresearchwas supportedby a Socialjustice and SocialDevelopment
in EducationalStudiestraininggrant, codirectedby ColetteDaiute and MichelleFineand fundedby
the SpencerFoundation.Addresscorrespondenceto ThurstonDomina, Ph.D. Programin Sociology,
CUNYGraduateCenter,365 FifthAvenue,6109, New York,NY 10016; e-mail:tdomina@gc.cuny.edu.