Howard M. Sandler

Why Do Parents Become Involved in Their Children’s Education?

This article reviews psychological theory and research critical to understanding why parents become involved in their children’s elementary and secondary education. Three major constructs are believed to be central to parents’ basic involvement decisions. First, parents’ role construction defines parents’ beliefs about what they are supposed to do in their children’s education and appears to establish the basic range of activities that parents construe as important, necessary, and permissible for their own actions with and on behalf of children. Second, parents’ sense of efficacy for helping their children succeed in school focuses on the extent to which parents believe that through their involvement they can exert positive influence on their children’s educational outcomes. Third, general invitations, demands, and opportunities for involvement refer to parents’ perceptions that the child and school want them to be involved. Hypotheses concerning the functioning of the three constructs in an additive model are suggested, as are implications for research and practice. Overall, the review suggests that even well-designed school programs inviting involvement will meet with only limited success if they do not address issues of parental role construction and parental sense of efficacy for helping children succeed in school.

Why Do Parents Become Involved? Research Findings and Implications.

A decade ago, Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler offered a model of the parental involvement process that focused on understanding why parents become involved in their children’s education and how their involvement influences student outcomes. Since then, we and others have conducted conceptual and empirical work to enhance understanding of processes examined in the model. In this article (companion to Walker and colleagues’ article about scale development on the model in this issue), we review recent work on constructs central to the model’s initial question: Why do parents become involved in children’s education? Based on this review, we offer suggestions for (1) research that may deepen understanding of parents’ motivations for involvement and (2) school and family practices that may strengthen the incidence and effectiveness of parental involvement across varied school communities.

Parental Involvement: Model Revision through Scale Development

In 1995 and 1997 Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler proposed a theoretical model of the parental involvement process. Taking a psychological perspective, the model explained why parents become involved in their children’s education and how their involvement makes a difference in student outcomes. In this article we describe our efforts to operationalize Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler’s explanation and how, in turn, those efforts led to revisions in their theoretical model. Because investigations of the full model are ongoing, in this article we discuss only revisions in the original model’s first 2 levels, which focus on psychological and contextual contributors to forms of parent involvement. We conclude with a discussion of how our work exemplifies the reciprocal relation between theory and measurement and suggest how other researchers might use our scales to assess links between parents’ psychological motivations for involvement and their involvement behavior.

A Meta-Analysis of Measures of Self-Esteem for Young Children: A Framework for Future Measures.

The objective of this study was to synthesize information from literature on measures of the self in young children to create an empirical framework for developing future methods for measuring this construct. For this meta-analysis, all available preschool and early elementary school self-esteem studies were reviewed. Reliability was used as the criterion variable and the predictor variables represented different aspects of methodology that are used in testing an instrument: study characteristics, method characteristics, subject characteristics, measure characteristics, and measure design characteristics. Using information from two analyses, the results indicate that the reliability of self-esteem measures for young children can be predicted by the setting of the study, number of items in the scale, the age of the children being studied, the method of data collection (questionnaires or pictures), and the socioeconomic status of the children. Age and number of items were found to be critical features in the development of reliable measures for young children. Future studies need to focus on the issues of age and developmental limitations on the complicated problem of how young children actually think about the self and what methods and techniques can aid in gathering this information more accurately.

Prediction of child maltreatment during pregnancy.

Abstract Fourteen hundred expectant mothers volunteered to be interviewed about their attitudes, experiences, and knowledge of child rearing. The purpose of the interview was to identify parental predictors of child maltreatment. Based upon answers, 273 were expected to be at high risk for parenting disorders. After delivery, their infants and 225 selected randomly from all remaining mothers were followed in a double-blind fashion for evidence of child abuse, neglect, and nonorganic failure to thrive. All three parenting disorders were found significantly more often in the high-risk families.

Social-psychological characteristics of adolescent mothers and behavioral characteristics of their first-born infants

This study examined the child-rearing attitudes perceptions of infant temperament and mother-infant interactional behaviour of primiparous adolescent mothers in comparison to mothers having their first infant post-adolescence as well as the newborn behaviour of the infants born to these women. The total number of mother-infant pairs in the study was 317. Measures were taken of maternal attitudes maternal perceptions of infant temperament and behavioural characteristics of the infant. An observational system was also used. The lack of differences between adolescent and post-adolescent mothers was attributed to the prescence of a comprehensive prenatal care program. (authors)

Transactional approach to prediction of child maltreatment

The transactional-developmental approach was applied to a prospective longitudinal study of child maltreatment. Maternal background, infant constitutional, mother-infant interactional and maternal perception of infant temperament measures were entered into a multiple linear regression equation to predict child maltreatment. The results provide support for the transactional perspective in understanding the multiple determinants of early child maltreatment.

Effects of Mass-Media and Group Instruction On Increasing Parent Awareness of Early Identification:

The differential outcomes produced by mass-media and group instruction campaigns on immediate and long-term changes in parent attitudes and knowledge regarding early identification were examined. During Phase I, for 3 months, parents in 1 community were exposed to Child Check through mass-media instruction, and in the other community, through group instruction. During Phase II, the campaigns in each community were reversed. A third community received no exposure. Pre- and post-Phase I and post-Phase II surveys were conducted. Group instruction increased parent knowledge of legal rights and services, ensured parents use of the Child Check Diary, and temporarily changed parent attitudes. Mass media did not have an effect on either parent attitudes and knowledge or their use of the Diary.

23 PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF FACTORS PREDISPOSING TO NON-ORGANIC FAILURE-TO-THRIVE (NOFT)

A 40 minute standarized interview (INT) based on factors previously associated with child neglect and abuse, was given to 1400 consecutive low income prenatal patients after informed consent. Using arbitrary criteria, 273 were selected as high risk (HR). NOFT (< 2/3 average weight gain due to inadequate feeding) was diagnosed and managed without knowledge of HR status. The incidence of NOFT in 228 infants born to HR mothers was compared to 200 infants selected randomly from all remaining mothers (LR). NOFT occurred in: 20 of 197 HR and 5 of 180 LR infants at age 2-18 weeks (p < .01): 16 of 159 HR and 4 of 132 LR at 8-18 weeks (p < .05): 14 of 110 HR and 3 of 110 LR at 18-32 weeks (p < .01). The correlations (r) of individual INT parameters with NOFT were determined in 274 mothers selected randomly from all 1400. Family life stress, and maternal (MAT) nurturance as child, support from others and parenting discipline skills had highest r (p < .05): MAT pregnancy attitude, personality traits and child development knowledge had lower r (p < .05). Non-INT parameters with highest r were poor MAT child-rearing attitudes at 8 months gestation and perception of her child as difficult to care for a 1 and 3 months; r approached p .05 for low birth weight and female sex of infant, and low MAT education. MAT age parity race and pregnancy complications, and Brazelton scores, had low r (p > .05).

86 RESPONSIVITY OF MOTHER-INFANT INTERACTION (MIA) AFTER EXTENDED POSTPARTUM CONTACT (EPP)

Mother-infant EPP in other studies enhanced parenting quality. To study how EPP might do this, low-income women were randomly assigned to EPP (n=62) or control (C, n=90) postpartum (pp) beds. EPP pairs averaged 9.3 more hours together during the first 48 than C. MIA observation data collected @ 1,3,6,12 & 18 months (m) pp were examined for probability of transition @ 5 sec. intervals between 4 dyadic states of interaction: both (B), infant (I), mother (M), or neither (N) responding. 14 of 60 comparisons of EPP vs C response transition (RT) probabilities by ANOVA were reliably different @ .05 or less. RT more likely among C were: partner acting in isolation (M→I; 1,12 m), M dropping out (B→I; 3,6,12 m), M not responding (I→I; 3 m), cessation of exchange (B→N; 6,12 m) & M stops signaling (M→N; 6,12,18 m). RT more likely among EPP were continuation & initiation of coacting (B→B, 12 m; M→B, 12,18 m). Two prevalent C RT {B→I (M drops out), M→N (M ceases)} in this study characterized in other research early MIA of nonorganic failure-to-thrive dyads. Of the other RT distinguishing EPP & C dyadic exchange, the 2 (B→B, M→B) more prevalent in the EPP group reflect continuation of or transition into coacting. Conversely, RT more frequent in the C group were: partner acting in isolation (M→I), M failing to respond (I→I), & discontinuation of exchange (B→N). EPP appears to enhance parenting through an intermediary influence upon responsivity of MIA.