Frederik Smit

Parental Involvement and Educational Achievement

Parental involvement is seen as an important strategy for the advancement of the quality of education. The ultimate objective of this is to expand the social and cognitive capacities of pupils. In addition, special attention is paid to the children of low-educated and ethnic minority parents. Various forms of both parental and school-initiated involvement are examined. On the one hand, the connections between a number of characteristics of parents and schools such as the social and ethnic background of the parents and the composition of the school population will be examined. On the other hand, the connections between a number of outcome measures such as the language and mathematics skills of the pupils will be examined. Data will be drawn from the large-scale Dutch PRIMA (primary education) cohort study, which contains information on more than 500 schools and 12,000 pupils in the last year of primary school and their parents. An important finding is that predominantly schools with numerous minority pupils appear to provide a considerable amount of extra effort with respect to parental involvement, but that a direct effect of such involvement cannot be demonstrated.

Effects of Immigrant Parents' Participation in Society on Their Children's School Performance

Integration of ethnic minorities into society is often operationalized as participation in various societal institutions. Examples are cultural, political and labour participation. On the basis of the theoretical concepts of social and cultural capital as proposed by sociologists Bourdieu and Coleman, it is often hypothesized that greater parental participation in society will generally lead to a better educational position for the children of such parents. To test this hypothesis, descriptive and multi-level analyses were conducted using data from the Dutch cohort study Primary Education. The sample included information on nearly 11,000 kindergarten students (6-year-olds) from almost 600 primary schools. In the analyses, ethnic minority parents and their children were compared to native Dutch parents and their children. After controlling for parental socio-economic and ethnic background, the results showed an effect of cultural participation only on language and mathematics skills. No effects on non-cognitive outcomes, such as social position, individual well-being or self-confidence, were found.

Scrutinizing the balance: parental care versus educational responsibilities in a changing society

This paper focuses on the pedagogical responsibilities of parents and schools, as well as the care provided by socializing agencies and local communities. A review of the literature has been carried out on the tasks of schools and parents and the relations between education, parenting and care in a changing society in eight countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Sweden and the United States. In addition, an email survey among international experts in Europe and the United States through the European Research Network about Parents in Education and the International Network of Scholars was conducted. This paper presents the results of both studies.