Lamborn, Dornbusch: Article Analysis

Noel, A., Stark, P., Redford, J. (2013). Parent and Family Involvement in Education, From the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012 (NCES 2013-028), National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.

How does parent involvement affect children’s academic success in low socioeconomic areas? Does socioeconomic status and parental involvement play a major role in the academic success of teens? Many reasons can contribute to the low level of success of some teens. The thrilling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, provides readers with two scenarios, one resulting in success, and one resulting in failure. Teen’s who are raised in low socioeconomic areas, and who have a minimal level of parental involvement, tend to perform poorly in academic settings.

We live in a culture where success is increasingly defined by a paycheck and is seemingly as important to the parent as the child. Raising children to be “successful” is increasingly becoming an obsession for upper-middle-class-parents, who encourage certain activities and scores to provide their child with the best chances of attending elite schools. The article focuses on the inherent advantage upper-middle-class parents provide but fails to mention those who the parent’s action affects: their children.

The authors raise the importance of using scientific methods of inquiry in non-scientific fields in drawing valid conclusions. This is exemplified by the negligible influence that actions taken by parents have on children's' academic outcomes. Utilizing data from the U.S. Department of Education, the authors examined the correlative relationship between a child's academic success and a plethora of variables related to the child's life; race and economic status of the parents, birth weight, and hours of television watched, to name a few. The authors concluded that the variables most directly correlated with academic success were what the parents were, such as how intelligent they were, and less what the parents did, like reading to children. This conflicts with what normative reasoning would argue: of course parenting should affect a child's outcome. However, the authors used regression analysis, which artificially holds constant every variable except the two they wished to focus on, and it displayed a different story. This illustrates the difference between the analyzing the world as it is and analyzing it with previously held notions of how it should

Department of Education called the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS); ECLS sought to measure the academic success of a randomly selected group of American schooled kindergarten students through the fifth grade (162). From this study, Levitt and Dubner came to the conclusion good parenting “techniques” have to do more with the parents themselves and less with the parent’s actions (177). Data collected from this study suggests that the success of a child is more dependent of who the parents is than what the parent does for the child. Even though it may seem parenting is not fully in the parents control, it is actually the

In chapter 5 the author summarizes the results of studies by his coauthors, as well as other studies, that examine the influence demographic, cultural and other variables have on the performance of school-age children on standardized tests. In a now familiar theme, the results are plangently counterintuitive. Based on a mountain of school children’s test scores, a successful child appears to be more “made” than nurtured, more mused than molded. The chapter begins by reviewing how many parents get educated on raising their children and how parenting experts swing from one extreme

The book Unequal Childhoods explains a study conducted to prove the significance of social class. Annette Lareau presents the study highlighting two primary ways of parenting that ultimately affect how successful the child becomes as they transition into adulthood. These styles of parenting include Concerted Cultivation which is where parents put through kids through structured activities, and Accomplishment of Natural Growth which is emphasized through freedom and directives. While both styles of parenting have their benefits and their weaknesses, the educational system of the United States is built predominantly on Concerted Cultivation and middle class values, which in turn may negatively affect how children prepare for their transitions into adulthood. This imbalance in education can put students farther ahead and at the same time neglect children who don’t have the resources they need to keep up with the other students. There are a multitude of variables involved with helping students reach their full potential and become successful. Some of the big factors to a student’s success include the student 's socioeconomic background, how they “fit” into the educational system, how strong their relationships are with other people, and their ability to access resources. Creating an education that can accommodate students from all different backgrounds will empower students to reach their full potential.

School and education happens to be one of the main things affected in the lives of both African American males and females living in single parent households. Parents tend to become less involved in the childs academics and social activities in school from the stress of being a single parent and having so much responsibility on them. It seemingly gets worse by the time the child reaches high school. One survey asked high school students whether their parents helped them with their school work and supervised their social activities. Students whose parents separated between the sophomore and senior years reported a loss of involvement and supervision compared to students whose parents stayed together (Mclanahan, n.d.). This usually leads to the child performing poorly in the classroom and on assignments. The child becomes less motivated to attend school, which leads to poor attendance. Poor attendance and lack of motivation sometimes results in the child dropping out of school. If the parents live apart, the probability that their children will drop out of high school rises by 11 percentage points. And for every child who actually drops out of school, there are likely to be three or four more whose performance is affected even though they manage to graduate (Mclanahan, n.d). Children born to unmarried parents are slightly more likely to drop out of school and become teen mothers than children born to married parents who divorce. But the difference is small compared to the

Parent involvement in schools is positive to the extent that the child is encouraged and getting help on their homework when they need it. If the child is neglected the influence that they need from their parents, they would think that there would be no use to study and get good grades. The letter from a ”Concerned Mother” and the article, ”In Defense of Helicopter Parents” by Lisa Belkin from the New York Times, show evidence of parent influence being beneficial to a child. The influence of parents will help encourage their children to not give up, causing their determination to grow. Parent involvement from an early age will affect how they grow up academically.

More recently, the United States Department of Education, by submitting the 1996 proposal for National Education Goals, addressed the issue of parental involvement. The official U.S. government stood by the research of three decades that “parental participation in schooling improves student learning,” (U.S. Department of Education). Based on government research, family involvement programs don’t always need additional money to be successful, but leaders should stretch their own creativity to expand the programs that encourage community and family support. Parental involvement is found to be beneficial through high school, not stopping after elementary school, and parents that evolve as leaders should be encouraged to continue their role in their child’s education. The most successful parent leaders are found to play four roles in their child’s education: those roles are teacher, supporter, advocate and decision maker. The teacher-role supplements the child’s education at home, the supporter contributes his/her skills to the school, the advocate helps children receive fair treatment at home, and the decision maker participates in joint problem-solving with

It is apparent throughout research parents have a high impact on the outcomes of adolescent emotional regulations and the behavior during adolescents (Feldman, 2011; Jabeen, Haque, & Riaz, 2013; Millings et al., 2012). Jabeen et al. (2013) states "parents play a crucial role in the social and emotional development of children" (pg.85). This part parent's play can be effected as stated above and the fluidity of parenting styles and their effects on adolescents should be observed. Through research looking at performance in school by Areepattamannil (2010), finds that supportive parenting yields higher achievement in school and is nearly as close in relationship to socioeconomic status.

The socioeconomic status of a child’s parents has always been of one the strongest predictors of the child’s academic performance. Wealthier parents are capable of providing enriched learning opportunities such as tutoring sessions, advanced curriculums and more experienced teachers. Additionally, students are only allowed to attend schools within their districts. This means that the students in low-income regions, such as School D, would never be able to attend a better, newer school. As a result, desirable schools are surrounded by expensive residences. Furthermore, higher-income families are more likely to invest in their children’s cognitive development. These families enroll their children in sports and community activities, and are able to teach their children essential skills such as time management. The children whose parents have higher-income jobs tend to work less. The reduced amount of time required for the parent to work enables them to spend more time with their children and offer important insight to their children. For example, low-income mothers are typically young, unemployed, single or divorced, and have low levels of education. Dissimilarly, high-income mothers are likely older, employed, and married thus allowing them to aid their child’s cognitive development and displays the rift between the ability of higher and lower income

While the aforementioned themes were reoccurred among many of the articles, the presentations of these themes differed. For example, several articles discussed the educational attainment of adolescent parents. Some of these articles, such as those written by Dunkle (1990), Weatherley (1991), Zachry (2005), Benson (2004), and Braubaker & Wright (2006) provided data which indicated that adolescent parents, mothers in particular, experienced difficulty in continuing their high school education after birth. These articles provided background surrounding the educational aspirations of adolescent parents, but also providing the negative consequences some adolescent mothers experienced while attempting to continue their education. Nonetheless, these articles described the desire of adolescent parents to obtain a high school education, although doing so was not a reality for some of the subjects in these articles. Benson (2004), Braubaker & Wright (2006), Zachry (2005) each used qualitative methods, while Dunkle (1990) & Weatherley (1991) used quantitative methods. Articles written by Berry, Shillington, Peak, & Hohman (2000) and Campa &

Collective research focusing on family-school partnerships provide an extensive examination of parent involvement. Smith et al., (2011) referred to parent involvement as school, family, and community partnerships for the purpose of shared expectations, responsibilities, interests, and correlating influences of family, school, and community. Epstein’s (2008) framework of parent involvement approached parent involvement typologies from an institutional perspective; the framework for this literature review was conducted with a parental perspective that may positively affect academic achievement among students in 6th – 12th grades attending high poverty, rural schools. An explanation of Epstein’s six categories of parent involvement follows:

These articles provided background surrounding the educational aspirations of adolescent parents, but also providing the negative consequences some adolescent mothers experienced while attempting to continue their education. Nonetheless, these articles described the desire of adolescent parents to obtain a high school education, although doing so was not a reality for some of the subjects in these articles. Benson (2004), Braubaker & Wright (2006), Zachry (2005) each used qualitative methods, while Dunkle (1990) & Weatherley (1991) used quantitative methods. Articles written by Berry, Shillington, Peak, & Hohman (2000) and Campa & Eckenrode (2006) also addressed the high school attainment of adolescent parents; however, these articles were less positive in their descriptions of adolescent parents. These articles, Berry et. al in particular, described the continued education of adolescent parents as almost impossible and a milestone that was not desired of adolescent parents.