Patterns of Parent Involvement in Elementary School: A Latent Class Analysis

Background/Purpose: School reform initiatives often prioritize parent involvement (PI) and for good reason. When PI increases, positive educational and developmental outcomes tend to follow it.

The consistent positive relationship between PI and children’s academic achievement has led to the development of practice models that are designed to enhance parent involvement and participation in their children’s schooling.  Led by researcher Joyce Epstein, these models typically focus on involving parents in school governance and decision making councils, volunteering in the classroom, and participating in the PTA.

While Epstein’s PI model remains in good currency in many research and practice circles, some scholars have widened the lens of their research to include analyses of PI in home and community settings.  These studies have found that parents who engage regularly with their children in “constructive leisure activities” (e.g., reading, singing songs, playing games, exercising at home and in the community) are often the best positioned to forge the kinds of parent-child attachments and bonds that facilitate children’s optimal social, emotional, cognitive, and educational development.

The purpose of the present study is to model different patterns or profiles of parent involvement across various home, school, and community activities and settings.  To analyze these PI patterns, we use a particular kind of statistical method called Latent Class Analysis (LCA).  This LCA approach provides researchers, practitioners, and policy makers with a unique portrait of how different sub-populations of parents leverage their strengths and resources to support their children’s social, emotional, and developmental needs.  Results from this study are therefore important for school social workers and other helping professionals who are charged with helping families support their children’s social-educational welfare and overall well-being.

Methods:  Data & Sample:  Our data are drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLSK:2011) which is a nationally representative cohort study of elementary school children and their parents in the United States.  Our sample is delimited to include 15,000 families with children who attend public elementary schools in the US.

Measures:  A total of 18 binary and ordinal indicators of PI activity at home, school, and community were used as “manifest variables” for our LCA models.  These variables included PI measures that reflect Epstein’s PI model as well as measures of PI in home-community activities.

Results:  Our LCA models yielded six characteristically distinct profiles of PI.  These profiles included parent sub-groups who were involved in the full constellation of PI activities as well as a small subgroup that were largely “uninvolved” at the school.  Significantly, our latent class regression models indicated that the vast majority of low-income parents engage in PI activities that support their children’s social, emotional, and educational development at home and in the community.

Conclusions and Implications:  School social workers can use our PI profile findings to develop school-community programs that fit the strengths, needs, and challenges of each parent sub-population.   Above all, they highlight needs for school improvement models that provide a more expansive reach into children’s family and community ecologies.