the how, whom, and why of parents' involvement in children's academic lives. more is not...

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Review of Educational Research

DOI: 10.3102/003465430305567 2007; 77; 373 REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Eva M. Pomerantz, Elizabeth A. Moorman and Scott D. Litwack Academic Lives: More Is Not Always Better

The How, Whom, and Why of Parents’ Involvement in Children’s

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Review of Educational ResearchSeptember 2007, Vol. 77, No. 3, pp. 373–410

DOI: 10.3102/003465430305567© 2007 AERA. http://rer.aera.net

The How, Whom, and Why of Parents’Involvement in Children’s Academic Lives:

More Is Not Always Better

Eva M. Pomerantz and Elizabeth A. MoormanUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Scott D. LitwackUniversity of Connecticut

A key goal of much educational policy is to help parents become involved inchildren’s academic lives. The focus of such efforts, as well as much of theextant research, has generally been on increasing the extent of parents’involvement. However, factors beyond the extent of parents’ involvementmay be of import. In this article, the case is made that consideration of thehow, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives iscritical to maximizing its benefits. Evidence is reviewed indicating that howparents become involved determines in large part the success of theirinvolvement. It is argued as well that parents’ involvement may matter morefor some children than for others. The issue of why parents should becomeinvolved is also considered. Implications for future research and interven-tions are discussed.

KEYWORDS: parent involvement, parenting, motivation, acheivement.

Bridging the gap between home and school is a major objective of much educa-tional policy at the federal, state, and local levels. Critical to fulfilling this aim is par-ents’ involvement in children’s academic lives. Indeed, at the federal level, in the NoChild Left Behind Act of 2001, increasing such involvement is one of six targetedareas for reform. Moreover, several national organizations, such as the ParentTeacher Association and the National Coalition for Parental Involvement inEducation, have as a primary goal promoting parents’ involvement in children’s edu-cation. The educational reforms of many states (e.g., California, Illinois, Minnesota,Missouri) also include efforts aimed at heightening parents’ involvement. In addi-tion, many teachers and parents are uniting at the local level to develop programs toincrease parents’ involvement in their schools (e.g., Adams et al., 2004).

The aim of increasing parents’ involvement in children’s schooling is based on a wealth of research suggesting that such involvement is beneficial for children(for reviews, see Fan & Chen, 2001; Hill & Taylor, 2004; Jeynes, 2003, 2005;Pomerantz, Grolnick, & Price, 2005). To date, the research conducted on parents’involvement in children’s education has generally taken the approach of examin-



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ing the extent to which parents are involved, with more involvement on the part ofparents being better for children. Although such an approach is a fundamental firststep, factors beyond the extent of parents’ involvement are of major significance.Indeed, as Epstein and Van Voorhis (2001) argued with regard to the time childrenspend on homework, it is “more than minutes.” In fact, contrary to what is oftenassumed, more involvement on parents’ part may not always be better for children.

The primary goal of this article is to make the case that consideration of thehow, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s education is critical tomaximizing its benefits for children. We set the stage by first discussing differentforms of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives and the mechanisms bywhich such involvement may enhance children’s achievement. We also review theresearch examining the effects on children of the extent to which parents areinvolved in their schooling. We then turn to addressing the how, whom, and whyof parents’ involvement. First, we cover recent evidence indicating that how par-ents are involved is critical to the success of their involvement. Second, we raisethe possibility that parents’ involvement may benefit some children more than others: the whom of parents’ involvement. Third, we focus on the issue of why parents should be involved; we make the case that there are benefits not only forchildren’s achievement but also for their psychological functioning more broadly.We end with a discussion of the implications of these issues for future research andinterventions.

Defining Parents’ Involvement and Its Mechanisms of Influence

What Constitutes Parents’ Involvement?

Drawing on several diverse lines of theory and research, Grolnick andSlowiaczek (1994) defined parents’ involvement in children’s schooling as parents’commitment of resources to the academic arena of children’s lives. Although anumber of meaningful distinctions have been drawn between different forms ofsuch commitment (e.g., Epstein, 1987; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Hickman,Greenwood, & Miller, 1995; Ritblatt, Beatty, Cronan, & Ochoa, 2002), followingseveral investigators (Becker & Epstein, 1982; Epstein, 1990; Hoover-Dempsey &Sandler, 1997; Izzo, Weissberg, Kasprow, & Fendrich, 1999), we make the broaddistinction between involvement based at school and that based at home. We usethis distinction because it is a concrete, parsimonious one that may be used with easeby researchers, policy makers, educators, and parents. As such, it allows for conti-nuity across these often separate, albeit related, stakeholders in children’s lives.Moreover, the distinction between involvement on the school front and that on thehome front is of import because the two may embody distinct ways that parentsbecome involved in children’s schooling, with distinct effects on children.

School-based involvement represents practices on the part of parents thatrequire their making actual contact with schools. Practices in this vein include, butare not limited to, being present at general school meetings, talking with teachers(e.g., attending parent-teacher conferences, initiating contact with teachers),attending school events (e.g., open houses, science fairs), and volunteering atschool. Parents in the United States most commonly become involved on theschool front through their presence at general school meetings and parent-teacherconferences, which national surveys indicate are attended by approximately two



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thirds of parents regardless of their ethnicity (U.S. Department of Education,2006). Such involvement is even higher among parents with heightened socioeco-nomic status and educational attainment. Other forms of involvement also increasewith socioeconomic status and educational attainment. For example, volunteeringat school is less common among less educated (e.g., 16% to 40% in 2003) thanmore educated (e.g., 54% to 62% in 2003) parents (U.S. Department of Education,2006). Volunteering in school is also less common among Hispanic (e.g., 28% in 2003) and African American (e.g., 32% in 2003) parents than their EuropeanAmerican counterparts (e.g., 48% in 2003).

Parents’ school-based involvement may also include involvement at a higherlevel, such as being a member of the school board and attending school board meet-ings. Epstein (1990) labeled this involvement in governance and advocacy, distin-guishing it from school-based involvement at a lower level. In line with themajority of extant research (for some exceptions, see Eccles & Harold, 1996;Epstein, 1987), we do not focus on parents’ involvement in governance and advo-cacy. The direct impact on children may be quite small, given the limited interac-tions parents and children may have in its context. Moreover, only a very smallproportion of parents (5% to 6%) become engaged in such involvement (Ritblattet al., 2002).

Home-based involvement represents parents’ practices related to school thattake place outside of school, usually, though not always, in the home. Such prac-tices can be directly related to school, including assisting children with school-related tasks, such as homework (e.g., creating a quiet place for children to study,helping children in completing homework) and course selection, responding tochildren’s academic endeavors (e.g., choices about the topic of a school project,performance on a test), and talking with children about academic issues (e.g., whathappened in school, the value of doing well in school). In national surveys in theUnited States, parents’ involvement on the home front as manifest in assisting withhomework is relatively frequent, with about 70% of parents helping children atleast once a week, regardless of parents’ socioeconomic status, educational attain-ment, or ethnicity (U.S. Department of Education, 2006).

Also characteristic of parents’ home-based involvement is engaging children inintellectual activities (e.g., reading books with children, taking them to museums)that may not be directly related to school per se. Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994)labeled this cognitive-intellectual involvement. On the basis of national surveys,this form of involvement is most frequently manifest in the United States in termsof visiting the library (e.g., 50% in 2003) but also occurs fairly frequently in termsof taking children to plays (e.g., 36% in 2003) and museums or historical sites (e.g.,22% in 2003), with such involvement more common among wealthier, educated,non-Hispanic parents (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Parents’ involvementon the home front may sometimes be tied to parents’ involvement on the schoolfront. For example, parents may use knowledge gained at parent-teacher confer-ences in assisting children with homework.

By What Mechanisms Does Parents’ Involvement Influence Children?

Parents’ involvement on both the school and home fronts has been argued toenhance children’s achievement in school (Epstein, 1983; Grolnick, Kurowski, & Gurland, 1999; Hill & Taylor, 2004; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001; Pomerantz



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et al., 2005). Two major sets of models have been proposed. In skill developmentmodels, parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives improves children’sachievement because of the skill-related resources it provides children. By “skill-related resources,” we mean cognitive skills, such as receptive language capabil-ity and phonological awareness, as well as metacognitive skills, such as planning,monitoring, and regulating the learning process. There are a number of reasonswhy parents’ involvement may enhance such skills among children. First, whenparents are involved in children’s academic lives, they may gain useful informa-tion about how and what children are learning in school; such information may aidthem in helping children build cognitive and metacognitive skills (see Baker &Stevenson, 1986). Second, when parents are involved in children’s academic lives,parents may gain accurate information about children’s abilities. Holding suchinformation may enable parents to assist children at a level that fosters maximalskill development among children (see Connors & Epstein, 1995; Epstein, 1987).Third, even when parents do not have such knowledge, their home-based involve-ment may provide children with opportunities to learn from practice and instruc-tion (see Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). Fourth, Epstein and Becker (1982) suggestedthat parents’ involvement on the school front is valuable because when teacherssee parents as involved, they give the children of these parents heightened atten-tion toward developing their skills.

The central idea behind motivational development models is that parents’involvement enhances children’s achievement because it provides children with a variety of motivational resources (e.g., intrinsic reasons for pursuing academics,a sense of control over academic performance, positive perceptions of academiccompetence) that foster children’s engagement in school. First, when parents areinvolved in their children’s academic lives, they highlight the value of school to children, which allows children themselves to view school as valuable (e.g.,Epstein, 1988; Hill & Taylor, 2004). Over time, children may internalize the valueof school, so that their academic engagement is driven by intrinsic (e.g., enjoy-ment, personal importance) rather than extrinsic (e.g., avoidance of shame,rewards) forces (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994). Second, parents’ involvement inchildren’s schooling represents an active strategy for dealing with school and thechallenges it presents. Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) argued that by beinginvolved, parents model a strategy in which they take control of the situation, oftento create positive change. Such a strategy may convey to children that they alsohave control over their performance in school. Third, when parents are involved inchildren’s academic lives, they may make children more familiar with school tasks,which may lead children to see themselves as competent in the academic arena(Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994).

It is likely that parents’ involvement in children’s schooling enhances children’sachievement through both skill and motivational development. Parents may pro-vide resources that simultaneously cultivate children’s skills and motivation.Moreover, when parents aid children in developing their skills, children may ben-efit in terms of their motivation. For example, children may learn useful strategiesfrom their parents for doing mathematics; these strategies may enhance children’smathematical skills, which may lead children to feel competent and in control inmathematics. The reverse may also be true: The motivational resources providedby parents’ involvement may aid children in developing their skills. Thus, when

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parents cultivate intrinsic motivation in children for reading, for instance, childrenmay so enjoy reading that they exert heightened effort in this area, thereby enhanc-ing their reading skills.

Effects of Parents’ Involvement

Since the early 1980s, much theoretical and empirical attention has beendirected toward the role of parents’ involvement in children’s achievement. Thisendeavor has manifested itself in two bodies of research, which have covered fam-ilies from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds with children mainly inpreschool through middle school (for research on families with children in highschool, see Brown, Mounts, Lamborn, & Steinberg, 1993; Gonzalez, Holbein, &Quilter, 2002; Taylor, 1996). In one line of research, the focus has been on theeffects of parents’ naturally occurring involvement. Investigators have generallymeasured the extent of a variety of forms of parents’ involvement in children’sschooling using parents’, teachers’, and children’s reports. The associations ofsuch reports with children’s achievement, mainly as reflected in children’s grades,have then been examined concurrently, as well as longitudinally. In a second lineof research, using a variety of designs (e.g., pre- and postassessment, experimen-tal and matched control groups), investigators have examined the effects on chil-dren’s achievement of interventions that are intended to promote parents’involvement in children’s schooling (e.g., a booklet of academic activities for par-ents to encourage children’s reading or a contract between staff members, parents,and children pledging involvement on the part of parents). As will be apparent fromour review of these two lines of research, they yield fairly different conclusions.

Research on Parents’ Naturally Occurring Involvement

There is now a wealth of research linking parents’ naturally occurring involve-ment in children’s schooling to children’s achievement. The findings of the stud-ies examining the effects of parents’ school-based involvement are consistent withthe notion that such involvement is beneficial for children. Much of the researchhas revealed concurrent associations between heightened school-based involve-ment on parents’ part and enhanced achievement on children’s part (e.g., Culp,Hubbs-Tait, Culp, & Starost, 2000; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Hill, 2001; Keith et al., 1993; Miliotis, Sesma, & Masten, 1999). For example, in a nationally representative sample, Stevenson and Baker (1987) linked teachers’ reports of parents’ involvement in school activities with teachers’ reports of children’s performance in school and the extent to which children performed up to their abil-ity during the elementary through high school years. Similarly, focusing on mainlymiddle-class European American early adolescents, Grolnick and Slowiaczek(1994) showed that teachers’ and children’s reports of parents’ involvement inschool activities (e.g., parent-teacher conferences, open houses) were associatedwith children’s grades. The apparent benefits of parents’ involvement are also evi-dent among families of other backgrounds (e.g., d’Ailly, 2003; Jeynes, 2003,2005). For example, Hill and Craft (2003) found that middle-class AfricanAmerican mothers’ involvement in kindergarten children’s school activities (as reported by mothers and teachers) was associated with enhanced gradesamong children.

More notably, longitudinal research indicates that parents’ school-based



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involvement foreshadows children’s later achievement (e.g., Grolnick, Kurowski,Dunlap, & Hevey, 2000; Hill et al., 2004; Miedel & Reynolds, 1999). For exam-ple, in a study of low-income, ethnically diverse families, mothers’ reports of theirinvolvement on the school front (e.g., presence at parent-teacher conferences, vol-unteering in the classroom) when children were in kindergarten predicted height-ened literacy skills among children during the elementary school years, adjustingfor children’s literacy skills during kindergarten (Dearing, Kreider, Simpkins, &Weiss, 2006). In a similar vein, also focusing on low-income, ethnically diversefamilies, Izzo et al. (1999) found that during the elementary school years, parents’participation in school activities foreshadowed heightened math achievementamong children 2 years later, taking into account children’s earlier achievement.In a study of European American and African American adolescents, parents’reports of their school-based involvement (e.g., attendance at school open houses,volunteering in the classroom) predicted increased grades among children 2 yearslater, adjusting for their earlier grades (Gutman & Eccles, 1999).

Less research has been conducted on parents’ home-based involvement. Of theresearch that has been conducted, some of it is consistent with the notion that par-ents’ involvement on the home front has positive effects on children’s academicfunctioning (e.g., Hickman et al., 1995; Hill et al., 2004; Kurdek & Sinclair, 1988).This is particularly true for parents’ practices not directly related to school, that is,practices related to children’s intellectual enrichment. For example, in their studyof mainly middle-class families of European descent, Grolnick and Slowiaczek(1994) found that such involvement (e.g., reading the newspaper with children,taking children to the library) as reported by early adolescents was positively asso-ciated with their grades. In fact, parents’ cognitive-intellectual involvement in ele-mentary school foreshadows children’s grades in reading following the transitionto middle school, adjusting for children’s earlier grades (Grolnick et al., 2000). Inlongitudinal research with mainly middle-class parents of European descent,Senechal and Lefevre (2002) demonstrated that the more exposed children were toreading during the kindergarten years, the better their subsequent reading skills(e.g., receptive language, phonological awareness) in third grade (for similarresults among low-income, ethnically diverse families, see Raikes et al., 2006).

Unfortunately, the effects of parents’ home-based involvement in activities thatare directly related to school are less clear. Several studies looking at such involve-ment among European American and African American parents found little evi-dence of a link with children’s academic functioning (e.g., Halle, Kurtz-Costes, &Mahoney, 1997; Hill & Craft, 2003). Cooper’s (1989) meta-analysis revealed cor-relations between parents’ involvement in children’s homework and children’sachievement ranging from –.22 to .40. Studies since then have not yielded a moreconsistent picture (e.g., Pezdek, Berry, & Renno, 2002; Shumow & Lomax, 2002).Indeed, several concurrent investigations of families from diverse backgroundshave revealed that parents’ assistance with homework is associated with poor per-formance in school among children (e.g., C. Chen & Stevenson, 1989; Cooper,Lindsay, & Nye, 2000; Georgiou, 1999). Although it is possible that this reflectsthe negative effects of parents’ assistance with homework, research conducted byPomerantz and Eaton (2001) suggests that this is unlikely. In this research withmainly middle-class European American families, children’s poor performance in




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school predicted mothers’ heightened assistance with homework 6 months later.Once children’s initial achievement was taken into account, mothers’ assistancepredicted an increase in children’s achievement over time. This implies that par-ents assist children who are having difficulty with homework, which then improveshow these children do in school. Thus, it is likely that the findings of concurrentinvestigations reflect a tendency for parents to respond to children’s poor perfor-mance in school with increased assistance. However, even some longitudinalresearch has failed to find positive effects of parents’ assistance when adjusting forchildren’s prior achievement (Levin et al., 1997).

When parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives on the school andhome fronts does have positive effects, it appears to be due to both skill and moti-vational development. Testing a motivational development model among mainlymiddle-class European American families, Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) linkedparents’ involvement on the school and home (i.e., cognitive-intellectual involve-ment) fronts to heightened positive perceptions of competence among children,which accounted in part for the link between parents’ involvement on these frontsand children’s heightened achievement. Taken along with research linking parents’involvement to children’s skills (e.g., Senechal & LeFevre, 2002; Senechal,LeFevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998), the direct link between parents’ involvementand children’s achievement that remained after taking into account children’s per-ceptions of competence is suggestive of the role of skill development. However,the idea that skill development mediates the link between parents’ involvement andchildren’s grades in school has not received direct attention.

Conclusions

In sum, the research on parents’ involvement on the school front is fairly consistent in suggesting that such involvement benefits children in terms of theirachievement. The effects of parents’ school-based involvement on children’sachievement are compelling in that they do not appear to be accounted for by par-ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment (e.g., Miedel & Reynolds,1999; Miliotis et al., 1999). However, despite the use of longitudinal designs tak-ing into account children’s earlier achievement (e.g., Dearing et al., 2006; Gutman& Eccles, 1999; Hill et al., 2004; Izzo et al., 1999), definitive conclusions aboutthe causal role of parents’ involvement on the school front await experimentaldesigns manipulating parents’ involvement.

The research on parents’ involvement on the home front yields a less consistentpicture. On one hand, parents’ home-based involvement geared toward children’sintellectual enrichment not directly related to school foreshadows enhancedachievement among children. On the other hand, parents’ home-based involvementdirectly linked to school does not always appear to have such benefits. The ambi-guity regarding parents’ home-based involvement raises particular concern,because this is the most frequent form of involvement for most parents (Ritblatt et al., 2002). As we argue later, considering the how and whom of parents’ involve-ment may be critical to understanding why parents’ home-based involvement doesnot have consistently positive effects on children’s achievement.

Research on Interventions to Promote Parents’ Involvement

Although the research on the effects of parents’ naturally occurring involvement



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in children’s academic lives suggests that it often, though not always, has positiveeffects, the research on the effects of interventions to promote parents’ involve-ment is less clear. White, Taylor, and Moss (1992) conducted a meta-analysis ofthe effects of programs intended to promote parents’ involvement in the context ofearly intervention programs, such as Head Start, for disadvantaged, medically atrisk, and handicapped children. The large majority of studies focused on parents’home-based involvement in terms of parents’ teaching children developmentalskills, such as motor, language, and self-help skills. In the context of predictingchildren’s cognitive abilities, when the internal validity of the studies was high, theeffect sizes of early intervention programs without parental involvement wereabout the same as those of programs with parental involvement. Moreover, the fewinternally valid studies manipulating parents’ involvement in the context of earlyintervention programs provided little evidence that parents’ involvement was ben-eficial for children. Since White et al.’s meta-analysis, there has been little researchcontradicting their conclusions.

Meta-analyses examining the effects of programs to promote parents’ involve-ment in children’s schooling during the elementary and middle school years alsodo not support the benefits of such programs (Cooper, Charlton, Valentine, &Muhlenbruck, 2000; Mattingly, Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriguez, & Kayzar, 2002).In 2002, Mattingly et al. conducted a meta-analysis of programs designed to pro-mote parents’ involvement (mostly home based but some school based). The avail-able information, which is quite scarce, suggests that such programs have beenimplemented mainly among low-income families of non-European descent.Although the 17 studies using pre- and postintervention designs without controlgroups yielded positive effects of such programs across a variety of outcomes (e.g.,children’s achievement, parents’ attitudes toward school), this was not the case forthe 14 studies using designs in which the interventions were compared withunmatched or matched control groups. If anything, these more internally validstudies yielded negative effects (but for a different conclusion, see Graue,Weinstein, & Walberg, 1983). However, as Mattingly et al. (2002) emphasized,these findings must be interpreted with caution because of serious methodologicalproblems in many of the studies. A somewhat more positive picture was paintedby a meta-analysis on the effects of summer programs for the remediation of learn-ing deficiencies with parental involvement components (e.g., volunteering in theclassroom, observing in the classroom, attending parent-teacher conferences;Cooper, Charlton, et al., 2000). In this meta-analysis, such programs had largerpositive effects on children’s academic performance on average than similar pro-grams without parental involvement components. However, Cooper, Charlton, et al. (2000) emphasized caution in drawing conclusions from these findingsbecause there were only eight programs with parental involvement components,and there was “great variation in the effect estimates” (p. 74).

Conclusions

In sum, the research on interventions designed to promote parents’ involvement inchildren’s schooling yields a less positive view of the effects of parents’ involvementthan the research on parents’ naturally occurring involvement. On one hand, this isproblematic because intervention studies provide the optimal window into causationby manipulating parents’ involvement. On the other hand, as Mattingly et al. (2002)




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argued, there has not been enough internally valid research on the effectiveness ofinterventions designed to promote parents’ involvement to draw firm conclusionsabout the influence of such interventions (see also White et al., 1992). In addition, par-ents who are naturally involved in children’s academic lives may be involved in a dif-ferent manner than parents induced to be involved (see Zellman & Waterman, 1998).Thus, as discussed in the next section on the how of parents’ involvement, under-standing the quality of parents’ involvement may be crucial to understanding whyintervention programs have generally not succeeded.

The How of Parents’ Involvement: It’s Not Just the Extent

Theory and research on the extent of parents’ involvement in children’s school-ing have proved important in elucidating the role of parents in children’s achieve-ment. However, as may be evident from our review, a second step is necessary tofully realize the benefits of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives. Wenow turn to making the case that how parents are involved in children’s schoolingcontributes to the effectiveness of their involvement (see Darling & Steinberg,1993; Grolnick, 2003; Pomerantz et al., 2005). In doing so, we draw from Darlingand Steinberg’s (1993) proposal that the effects of parents’ practices on childrenare determined by the style with which such practices are used. In the context ofparents’ involvement in children’s schooling, we focus on four qualities of parents’style that have emerged as important in theory and research on parenting (seeDarling & Steinberg, 1993; Dix, 1991; Eccles, 1983; Maccoby & Martin, 1983;Pomerantz et al., 2005): autonomy support vs. control, a process vs. person focus,positive vs. negative affect, and positive vs. negative beliefs about children’s poten-tial (see Table 1). As will be evident from our review below, the research on thesequalities has mainly been on middle-class families of European descent. Althoughmore research is clearly needed, the extant research on families from other back-grounds has yielded findings similar to those described below (e.g., Bean, Bush,McKenry, & Wilson, 2003; Brody & Flor, 1997; d’Ailly, 2003; McGroder, 2000;Simpkins, Weiss, McCartney, Kreider, & Dearing, 2006; Wang, Pomerantz, &Chen, in press).

Controlling Versus Autonomy-Supportive Involvement

There is an extensive body of theory and research on multiple forms of parentalautonomy support and control (for reviews, see Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998a; Rollins& Thomas, 1979; Steinberg, 1990). We draw on Deci and Ryan’s (1987) self-determination theory (see also Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001),in which autonomy support is defined as allowing children to explore their own envi-ronment, initiate their own behavior, and take an active role in solving their ownproblems. Controlling behavior, in contrast, involves the exertion of pressure by par-ents to channel children toward particular outcomes (e.g., doing well in school) byregulating children through such methods as commands, directives, or love with-drawal. In the context of parents’ school-based involvement, autonomy support andcontrol may manifest themselves in a number of ways (see Table 1). For example,when visiting children’s classrooms during a school open-house, parents may beautonomy supportive by allowing children to show them around; parents may be con-trolling by directing the tour themselves. On the home front, autonomy-supportive



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parents may support children in developing their own schedule for completing home-work, whereas controlling parents may do so for children without their input.

When parents become involved in children’s academic lives in an autonomy-

TABLE 1Examples of the different qualities of parents’ school- and home-based involvement

Type of involvement

Quality of involvement School based Home based

Autonomy support Parents encourage children to Parents support children inshow them around during developing their own open houses in children’s schedules for doing their classrooms. homework.

Control When volunteering in Parents make decisions without children’s classrooms, children’s input about the parents monitor children’s topic of their school research work habits. projects.

Process focus When attending open houses While helping children with and seeing children’s work, homework, parents focus on parents focus on what fun the process of mastering the children might have had in work.doing the work.

Person focus After attending parent-teacher In praising children’s success at conferences, parents homework problems, parents emphasize to children emphasize the role of issues regarding children’s children’s innate ability in innate ability. solving them.

Positive affect Parents express enjoyment Parents’ conversations with and love toward their children about their day at children when taking part school are characterized by in school field trips. support and caring on parents’

part.Negative affect Parents become irritated and Parents are hostile and critical

annoyed with children while checking over about having to talk to children’s homework.children’s teachers. .

Positive beliefs about At a parent-teacher conference, While assisting with homework, children’s potential parents are sure to attend to parents convey to children

children’s strengths. that they have the potential to do well.

Negative beliefs about In attending open houses, Parents focus their conversationschildren’s potential parents ignore the difficult with children on avoiding

tasks because they believe complete failure in school children have little potential rather than on how children for such tasks. might achieve success.




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supportive rather than controlling manner, children may benefit in terms of theirachievement for two key reasons. First, in line with the notion that parents’ involve-ment enhances children’s achievement through skill development, autonomy-supportive involvement provides children with the experience of solving chal-lenges on their own, which may enable children to build their skills (e.g., Ng,Kenney-Benson, & Pomerantz, 2004; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wolfson, Mumme, &Guskin, 1995; Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998b). When parents’ involvement is con-trolling, children do not have the experience of solving challenges on their own.Second, consistent with motivational development models, when parents supportchildren’s autonomy, they allow them to take initiative, which may lead childrento feel that they are in charge and capable of influencing their surroundings (e.g.,Deci & Ryan, 1985; Grolnick, Deci, & Ryan, 1997). This may heighten children’sintrinsic interest, leading them to be engaged with their environment in a mannerthat enhances achievement. In contrast, when parents are controlling, they maydeprive children of feeling that they are autonomous, effective agents.

There is now a fairly large body of research using a variety of methods consis-tent with the idea that parents’ autonomy support enhances children’s performancein school, whereas parents’ control inhibits it (for reviews, see Grolnick, 2003;Pomerantz, Grolnick, et al., 2005). These effects appear to begin early in children’slives and extend into the adolescent years (e.g., Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993;Grolnick et al., 2000; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Ng et al., 2004; Steinberg, Elmen,& Mounts, 1989; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992). For exam-ple, among European American families from a range of socioeconomic back-grounds, mothers’ controlling behavior, particularly appeals to authority, with4-year-old children was associated not only with children’s demonstrating poorschool readiness 1 or 2 years later but also with children’s doing poorly in school8 years later (Hess & McDevitt, 1984). In addition, Grolnick, Gurland, DeCourcey,and Jacob (2002) had mainly middle-class children and mothers of Europeandescent work on tasks in a laboratory. In this context, the more autonomy sup-portive and less controlling mothers were, the better their elementary school chil-dren’s performance on the tasks.

The few studies to date that have examined the extent to which parents’ involve-ment is autonomy-supportive versus controlling in children’s schooling per sepaints a similar picture. Middle-class European American parents who adoptautonomy-supportive rather than controlling orientations toward assisting childrenwith homework (e.g., refraining from assisting with work when children do notneed help but assisting when children need help) have children who do well inschool during the elementary and middle school years (Cooper, Lindsay, et al.,2000). In a similar vein, longitudinal research conducted by Steinberg et al. (1992)showed that parents’ involvement in adolescents’ schooling (e.g., assisting withhomework, attending school programs, helping with course selection), as reportedby adolescents from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, predicts heightened achieve-ment among children when parents were perceived by adolescents as authoritative(i.e., high in autonomy support, structure, and warmth) rather than authoritarian(i.e., high in control and structure and low in warmth).

It appears that one reason that parents’ autonomy support versus control maybenefit children’s achievement is because it provides motivational resources thatfoster positive engagement in school. A number of studies have shown that the



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more autonomy supportive and less controlling parents are, the more positive chil-dren are in their perceptions of their academic competence (e.g., Grolnick & Ryan,1989; Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1991; Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, &Dornbusch, 1994; Wagner & Phillips, 1992) and the more positive their attribu-tions for their performance (Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998b). The children of such par-ents also appear to be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated in the schoolcontext (e.g., d’Ailly, 2003; Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989)and demonstrate heightened persistence in the face of challenge (Nolen-Hoeksemaet al., 1995). Notably, the link between elementary school children’s views of theirparents as autonomy supportive rather than controlling and children’s enhancedachievement is accounted for in part by their elevated perceptions of competenceand intrinsic motivation (Grolnick et al., 1991). In a similar vein, adolescents’heightened psychosocial maturity (e.g., positive orientation toward school, self-reliance) mediates the tendency for adolescents’ perceptions of their parents asautonomy supportive versus controlling to predict an increase in children’s gradesover time (Steinberg et al., 1989). It is not clear if children’s skill development isimproved as a consequence of parents’ autonomy support versus control, given thatthis issue has not received empirical attention.

Process- Versus Person-Focused Involvement

Several lines of theory and research suggest that the extent to which parentsfocus on the process of learning versus innate ability or performance is an impor-tant dimension of parenting (e.g., Dweck & Lennon, 2001; Gottfried, Fleming, &Gottfried, 1994; Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Pomerantz, Ng, & Wang, 2006). Werefer to this dimension of parents’ involvement as process versus person focused(see Dweck & Lennon, 2001). However, other characterizations, such as masteryversus performance orientation (Hokoda & Fincham, 1995) and task endogeny ver-sus exogeny (Gottfried et al., 1994), have also been used. A process focus empha-sizes the importance and pleasure of effort and learning (see Gottfried et al., 1994;Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998; Pomerantz et al., 2006). A per-son focus, in contrast, emphasizes the importance of stable attributes, such as intel-ligence, and outcomes, such as performance (Gottfried et al., 1994; Kamins &Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998; Pomerantz et al., 2006). An example of aprocess (vs. person) focus in the context of school-based involvement is whenattending an open house and seeing children’s work, parents discuss children’seffort rather than ability (see Table 1). In the context of home-based involvement,while helping children with homework, parents may direct children’s attention tothe process of learning rather than their performance.

When parents are process focused in the context of their involvement in children’sacademic lives, they may enhance children’s performance through skill and motiva-tional development. In terms of skill development, part of being involved in a process-focused manner includes highlighting the importance of effort or learning, which mayfoster the development of children’s skills (Pomerantz et al., 2006). In contrast, whenparents’ involvement is person focused, little attention may be directed to effort andlearning, because importance is placed on the attributes children already possess.Thus, such involvement may not provide children with an opportunity for develop-ing skills. Consistent with motivational development models, the emphasis on effortand learning characteristic of a process focus may lead children to be motivated for




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intrinsic reasons such as mastery (Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Mueller & Dweck,1998). However, when parents are person focused, children may concentrate ondemonstrating their intelligence (Mueller & Dweck, 1998), which may foster extrin-sic motivation.

Although no research to date has examined the effects of parents’ process ver-sus person focus on children’s performance in school, there is a growing body ofresearch suggesting that parents’ process-focused involvement enhances children’sschool performance. For example, Mueller and Dweck (1998) had an unknownadult give elementary school children from diverse ethnic backgrounds eitherprocess-focused (i.e., “You must have worked hard at these problems”) or person-focused (e.g., “You must be smart at these problems”) praise in a laboratory.Children given process-focused praise were more likely to view ability as mal-leable, adopt mastery over performance goals, and attribute their failure to effortinstead of ability than were children given person-focused praise. Children givenprocess-focused praise also persisted to a greater extent, expressed more positiveaffect, and performed better in the face of failure. Similarly, preschool childrenasked to imagine their teachers giving them process-oriented criticism (i.e.,“Maybe you could think of another way to do it”) were less likely than their coun-terparts imagining person-oriented criticism (e.g., “I am very disappointed in you”)to draw negative conclusions about their abilities, experience negative affect, andgive up (Kamins & Dweck, 1999).

Similar effects are evident for parents’ process- and person-focused practices.Using observational methods in the context of a laboratory task with qualities sim-ilar to those of homework, Hokoda and Fincham (1995), studying mainly middle-class European American mothers and their elementary school children, found thatmothers who reacted to children’s performance-oriented behavior (e.g., concen-trating on how much time is left) with process-focused practices (“That’s okay;you did your best”) were particularly likely to have mastery-oriented children (seealso Gottfried et al., 1994). Research in which mainly middle-class EuropeanAmerican mothers reported daily on their responses to their elementary schoolchildren’s academic successes indicates that when mothers refrain from using person-focused praise, 6 months later, children hold incremental views of abilityand embrace challenging tasks (Kempner & Pomerantz, 2003). Middle-classEuropean American mothers’ process focus in the context of their assistance withchildren’s homework predicted enhanced perceptions of competence and masteryorientation 6 months later, but only for children with negative perceptions of com-petence (Pomerantz et al., 2006).

Involvement Characterized by Positive Versus Negative Affect

As Dix (1991) emphasized, parenting is an inherently affective endeavor (seealso Larson & Gillman, 1999). This may be particularly true of parents’ involve-ment in children’s schooling (Reay, 2000). On the positive side, one reason thatparents may assist children with homework is to establish a sense of connected-ness with them (Pomerantz, Wang, & Ng, 2005a). Thus, when involved in chil-dren’s schooling, many parents may attempt to maintain positive affect by makingtheir interactions with children enjoyable, loving, and supportive. Indeed, on thebasis of her interviews with a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample ofmothers of elementary school children, Reay (2000) described mothers as provid-



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ing encouragement and empathy to children in the context of their involvement inchildren’s schooling. On the negative side, despite attempts to be positive, parentsmay experience negative affect because children themselves experience negativeaffect around academic activities (Fuligni, Yip, & Tseng, 2002; Leone & Richards,1989), leading parents to become irritated and annoyed or even hostile and critical(Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). Moreover, parents’ involvement may be coloredby negative affect because of the stress of other commitments (Reay, 2000). Asillustrated in Table 1, parents’ positive versus negative affect may manifest itselfin school-based involvement in a variety of ways (see also Reay, 2000). For exam-ple, parents may express enjoyment rather than irritation while talking to teachersor volunteering in the classroom. In the context of involvement on the home front,parents may be supportive and caring rather than hostile and critical during con-versations with children about their day at school.

When parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives is characterized bymore positive than negative affect, it may promote children’s achievement throughthe development of their skills and motivation (see Estrada, Arsenio, Hess, &Holloway, 1987; Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1995;Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a; for a different view, see Reay, 2000). In terms ofskill development, parents’ positive affect may foster positive affect in childrenthat counters the negative affect they often experience in the homework context(Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a), allowing them to focus on cultivating their skills.Fredrickson (1998, 2001) argued that the experience of positive emotions may cre-ate openness to novel ideas and courses of action. In contrast, when parents trans-mit negative affect to children, such affect may interfere with children’s attentionto their work and ultimately their development of skills. Consistent with motiva-tional development models, by keeping their involvement enjoyable and loving,parents may convey to children that although schoolwork can be frustrating, it isan enjoyable endeavor, thereby fostering an intrinsic orientation. However, whenparents are involved in an irritable, critical manner, they may convey that doingschoolwork is an unpleasant task. Parents’ positive (vs. negative) affect may alsosignal parents’ support of children during times of difficulty, enabling children toconfront challenge constructively (see Estrada et al., 1987; Nolen-Hoeksema,1987; Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).

Much of the research on parents’ affect has focused on its role in children’smotivation and engagement rather than achievement. For example, in laboratoryresearch in which mainly middle-class European American children just enteringelementary school and their mothers worked on an unsolvable task, when mothersexpressed negative affect (e.g., hostility, criticism) toward children during thistask, children were less persistent in the face of challenge in the laboratory andschool (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1995). Also looking mainly at middle-classEuropean Americans, Hokoda and Fincham (1995) found similar effects of moth-ers’ negative affect (e.g., pouting, anger) in their laboratory research with elemen-tary school children: When mothers responded with positive affect (e.g.,enjoyment, laughter) to tasks that were particularly difficult for children, childrenexhibited less of a helpless orientation. Moreover, in a low-income, ethnicallydiverse sample, Simpkins et al. (2006) found that the more mothers characterizedtheir relationships with their kindergarten children as warm, the more positive theeffects of mothers’ school-based involvement for children’s achievement (see also




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Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).

Involvement Characterized by Positive Versus Negative Beliefs AboutChildren’s Potential

There is now evidence suggesting that how parents think about children’spotential to do well in school influences how children actually do (for recentreviews, see Pomerantz et al., 2005; Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, Roeser, & Davis-Kean, 2006). Parents’ beliefs about children’s potential can take a variety of forms.However, the most well studied beliefs in this vein have been parents’ perceptionsof children’s competence and expectations for children’s performance.1 Althoughsuch beliefs are often based on children’s actual performance, there is much vari-ability in this. Some parents are accurate, whereas others underestimate or overes-timate children’s potential (e.g., Frome & Eccles, 1998; Miller, Manhal, & Mee,1991; Parsons, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982). The beliefs parents have about children’spotential may determine the character of their involvement in children’s schooling(see Table 1). On the school front, parents who believe in children’s potential may,for example, be attentive at parent-teacher conferences to what difficulties childrenare having but not let this hinder their attention to children’s strengths, whereasparents who doubt their children’s potential may focus solely on children’s diffi-culties. On the home front, while assisting with homework, parents with positivebeliefs may attribute children’s difficulties to a lack of effort or the difficulty of thehomework, whereas parents with negative beliefs may attribute children’s diffi-culties to a lack of ability on children’s part.

Like the other qualities of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, par-ents’ beliefs may enhance children’s achievement through skill and motivationaldevelopment. First, when parents hold positive beliefs about children’s potential,they may foster children’s skills by becoming involved in a way that challengeschildren (e.g., providing advanced explanations, choosing difficult tasks, provid-ing assistance onlywhen the work is hard; see Eccles, 1983). In contrast, when par-ents hold negative beliefs, their involvement may occur at a lower level thatprovides only the basics in terms of skill development. Second, when parents’involvement is accompanied by positive beliefs about children’s potential, parentsmay enhance children’s motivation by communicating to them that they are capa-ble of doing well in school (see Eccles, 1983). This may fuel children’s effort,which may enhance their achievement. In contrast, when parents hold negativebeliefs, they may detract from children’s motivational development.

Consistent with the notion that parents’ beliefs benefit children’s achievement,lower- and middle-class European American and African American parents’ per-ceptions of children’s academic competence foreshadow children’s achievement6 months to as long as 1 year later, even when children’s earlier achievement istaken into account (Halle et al., 1997; Pomerantz, 2005b). The heightened achieve-ment of children whose parents’ perceive their competence positively appears tobe due, at least in part, to the role of parents’ perceptions in children’s own perceptions (e.g., Frome & Eccles, 1998; Jodl, Michael, Malanchuk, Eccles, &Sameroff, 2001; Parsons et al., 1982). Almost no research has examined howparents’ beliefs actually color their involvement. However, in one study, whenmothers’ assistance with children’s homework was accompanied by positive per-ceptions of children’s competence, children’s worrying about school was particu-



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larly low 6 months later, adjusting for their earlier worrying (Pomerantz, 2005a).

Conclusions

Taken together, the findings on the quality of parents’ involvement indicate thatalthough getting parents involved in children’s schooling is an important first stepfor enhancing children’s achievement, how parents become involved is also impor-tant. Parents’ involvement may be particularly beneficial for children when it isautonomy supportive, process focused, characterized by positive affect, or accom-panied by positive beliefs. However, parents’ involvement may have costs for chil-dren if it is controlling, person focused, characterized by negative affect, oraccompanied by negative beliefs. Understanding how the quality of parents’involvement in children’s academic lives moderates the effects of such involve-ment is important because it can provide insight into the inconsistencies we high-lighted earlier in the research on the effects on children of parents’ involvementboth in terms of school- versus home-based involvement and naturally occurringversus intervention-induced involvement.

It is possible that the inconsistency with regard to the effects of parents’ natu-rally occurring involvement on the school and home fronts may be due to how par-ents become involved (see Cooper, Lindsay, et al., 2000; Pomerantz et al., 2006;Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). On the school front, the events in which parentsbecome involved are often structured in a manner that facilitates parents’ positiveinvolvement. Many school-based events (e.g., open houses, festivals, plays, bakesales) are designed by school personnel to be enjoyable for families. As such, theymay capitalize on parents’ desire to become involved in children’s academic livesto establish a sense of connectedness with children. Moreover, such events oftenplace little emphasis on children’s performance. Because of their low demands ontime, the pressure on parents is also minimized. Thus, parents may find it relativelyeasy to be autonomy supportive, focused on the process of children’s learning, andaffectively positive in their interactions with children. Even when school-basedevents are not enjoyable, are focused on children’s performance, or involve somepressure on parents, as may be the case for parent-teacher conferences, parents maybecome positively involved because school personnel provide guidance about howto do so. For example, when parents learn at a parent-teacher conference that chil-dren are having difficulty with math, teachers may give advice on how parents canbe autonomy supportive in assisting with math.

In contrast, on the home front, although it may be easy for parents to becomepositively involved around activities that are not directly related to school (e.g.,reading to children, taking them to museums), this may be difficult around activi-ties directly related to school (e.g., assisting with homework, responding to per-formance). Involvement in such activities may be viewed by parents as particularlyimportant to children’s performance. Thus, it may be driven by parents’ belief thatit is their obligation to become involved, parents’ attempts to remedy children’spoor performance, or parents feelings that their own self-worth is contingent onchildren’s performance (Levin et al., 1997; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001; Pomerantz,Wang, et al., 2005a). As a consequence, parents may sometimes feel pressured,frustrated, and overly concerned with their children’s performance in the contextof their home-based involvement directly related to school. This may cause thisform of involvement to be controlling, person focused, and characterized by neg-




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ative affect (see Grolnick et al., 2002; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001; Pomerantz, Wang,et al., 2005a) more often than are other forms. Indeed, when parents feel pressureto ensure children perform up to standards, they exert heightened control over chil-dren (Grolnick et al., 2002; Gurland & Grolnick, 2005). Negative involvement mayalso arise because parents experience themselves as lacking the skills to construc-tively assist children (Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, & Brissie, 1992; Levin et al.,1997); this may be common among uneducated parents (Lareau, 1987), as well aseducated parents given changes in pedagogy since they were in school (Kay,Fitzgerald, Paradee, & Mellencamp, 1994).

Parents’ involvement on the home front in activities directly related to schoolmay also be negative because children may find a number of such activities dis-agreeable. As a consequence, many parents may not become positively involved.Regardless of their achievement level, children frequently experience negativeaffect while doing homework (Fuligni et al., 2002; Leone & Richards, 1989). Suchnegative affect may not only funnel down to parents so that they also experiencenegative affect (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a) but also lead parents to becomemore controlling as they attempt to contain children’s negative affect. Moreover,parents are particularly likely to assist children with homework when children areuncertain about how to do the work (Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001) and become frus-trated (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). Research by Pomerantz, Wang, et al.(2005a) suggested that a major reason mothers experience heightened negativeaffect on days they help children with homework is because children are frustrated.Children’s frustration may increase the chances that mothers are controlling,unable to focus on the learning process, and perceive children as lacking ability.

The issues we have raised suggest that parents’ heightened involvement on theschool front may generally create an environment for children that fosters theirskill and motivational development. In contrast, parents’ involvement on the homefront may not always do so. Although some parents may become involved in activ-ities directly related to school on the home front in a positive manner, this may notbe the case for other parents; in fact, as we have just highlighted, some parents’involvement on the home front may be quite negative. It is thus not surprising thatresearch has yielded consistent positive effects of parents’ school-based but nothome-based involvement. The effects of parents’ home-based involvement may beparticularly important because this is not only the most frequent form of parents’involvement (Ritblatt et al., 2002) but also likely to entail more interaction betweenparents and children than does parents’ school-based involvement. As a conse-quence, there may be greater opportunity for the environment created by parents’home-based (vs. school-based) involvement to enhance or detract from children’sskill and motivational development.

It is also possible that the ineffectiveness of interventions designed to pro-mote parents’ involvement may be due to the quality of involvement induced.Unfortunately, such interventions often focus on the quantity instead of quality ofparents’ involvement. It may be that parents who become involved on their owngenerally do so in a higher quality manner than those who need prodding (seeZellman & Waterman, 1998). Moreover, as White et al. (1992) emphasized, parentsneed to feel empowered, but intervention programs may leave them feeling just theopposite, often heightening feelings of pressure and frustration among parents.Because interventions are designed to boost children’s achievement through par-



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ents’ involvement, parents may also become overly focused on children’s perfor-mance and their role in promoting it. For example, in one intervention intended tohighlight children’s effort to children and parents, parents were told regularly notonly about children’s effort but also about their performance (Fantuzzo, Davis, &Ginsburg, 1995). Moreover, parents were provided with a list of celebration activ-ities and required to report back about how they celebrated children’s efforts andperformance. As with parents’ naturally occurring involvement, the pressure, frus-tration, and concern with children’s performance that may be induced by inter-ventions may produce poor-quality involvement. This may be further compoundedby the fact that the majority of involvement that is promoted by interventions is onthe home front. Indeed, as noted earlier in our review of the effects of interventionsto promote parents’ involvement, the most effective interventions have been in thecontext of remedial summer school programs, which, unlike many other interven-tions, focus on parents’ school-based rather than home-based involvement (Cooper,Charlton, et al., 2000).

The Whom of Parents’ Involvement: The Child-Environment Fit

Increasingly, investigators concerned with the role of parents in children’sdevelopment are adopting models of socialization in which the effects of parent-ing on children’s development are determined in part by the characteristics ofchildren (e.g., Colder, Lochman, & Wells, 1997; Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg,Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000; Grusec, 2002; Kochanska, 1993). Such Parent ×Child models of socialization may be of particular import to understanding theeffects on children of parents’ involvement in their academic lives. We focus hereon one attribute of children that may play a particularly significant role in deter-mining the effects of the quality of parents’ involvement: children’s competenceexperiences (e.g., their achievement and perceptions of their ability). As a conse-quence of a variety of influences (e.g., peer socialization, cognitive abilities), chil-dren may come to their interactions with parents differing in their competenceexperiences. Although all children may benefit from parents’ involvement in theiracademic lives when it is characterized by such positive qualities as autonomy sup-port, a process focus, positive affect, and positive beliefs, the benefits of suchpositive involvement may be moderated by children’s competence experiences inschool (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005b).

Children with negative experiences may be particularly sensitive to the qualityof parents’ involvement because such children have a heightened need for theresources important to skill and motivational development (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005b). Thus, children with negative competence experiences may derive par-ticular benefit when parents’ involvement in their academic lives is autonomy sup-portive, process focused, affectively positive, or accompanied by positive beliefs.Through skill and motivational development, positive parental involvement mayfoster achievement gains among children with negative competence experiences.Unfortunately, such children may be particularly vulnerable when parents’involvement is controlling, person focused, affectively negative, or accompaniedby negative beliefs, because it deprives them of the resources of which they are soin need. In contrast, children with positive competence experiences may not be assensitive to how parents become involved because they already possess theresources important to skill and motivational development.




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Several longitudinal studies are consistent with the notion that children withnegative competence experiences are more sensitive than children with positiveexperiences to how parents become involved. As will be evident in our reviewbelow, the research to date has been focused almost exclusively on middle-classfamilies of European descent. Children with negative experiences are particularlylikely to benefit when parents become involved in their academic lives in an autonomy-supportive rather than controlling manner. In one study, mainly middle-classEuropean American mothers’ responses to their elementary and middle schoolchildren’s failure in a variety of areas, including academics, were assessed witha daily checklist (Study 2 in Ng et al., 2004). Mothers’ autonomy-supportiveresponses (i.e., discussing children’s failure with them) predicted increased per-formance in school, and their controlling responses (i.e., reprimanding children fortheir failure or punishing children for their failure) predicted decreased perfor-mance the next day and 6 months later more for low- than high-achieving children.In a second study, also on mainly middle-class European American families, mothers’involvement with their elementary school children was observed in a laboratory inthe context of a challenging task designed to reflect the homework situation (Study1 in Ng et al., 2004). Over the course of their interactions with children, mothers’autonomy support predicted enhanced subsequent performance, and their controlpredicted diminished subsequent engagement more for low- than high-achievingchildren.

A similar pattern is evident for mothers’ process-focused involvement in chil-dren’s schooling, although the effect of such involvement on children’s achieve-ment per se has not been examined. In daily telephone interviews, mainlymiddle-class European American mothers’ process focus (i.e., encouraging chil-dren to understand their work and to do their work on their own) was examined inthe context of their assistance with elementary and middle school children’s home-work (Pomerantz et al., 2006). When mothers adopted a process focus, childrenwith negative perceptions of their academic competence were more likely thanchildren with positive perceptions to benefit 6 months later in terms of their per-ceptions of competence, thereby narrowing the difference over time in such per-ceptions. In addition, when mothers were process oriented, children initiallyperceiving themselves as lacking competence experienced gains over time in theirmastery focus, so that they were no less mastery oriented than their counterpartswith positive perceptions.

When mothers’ involvement in children’s academic lives is characterized bypositive affect, children with negative competence experiences also appear to be particularly likely to benefit. Using the daily interview method with mainly middle-class European American families, Pomerantz, Wang, et al. (2005a) focusedon mothers’ affect on the days their elementary and middle school children hadhomework. In this study, the focus was on children’s competence experiences asmanifested in helplessness (i.e., frustration and giving up) in the academic context.When mothers’ affect was positive on days when they were involved in children’shomework, children demonstrating high levels of helplessness while completinghomework experienced heightened mastery orientation over the course of 6 monthsto a greater extent than children demonstrating low levels of helplessness. The bene-fit was to such a great extent that when mothers were particularly high in positive



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affect, helpless children’s mastery orientation was not lower than that of childrenwho were not helpless.

Children with negative competence experiences are also more likely than chil-dren with positive competence experiences to benefit when their parents hold pos-itive beliefs about their potential. Consistent with prior research, examining amainly middle-class European American sample, Pomerantz (2005b) demon-strated that when mothers perceived their children’s academic competence in apositive light, children benefited in terms of their grades 1 year later, even aftertaking into account their earlier grades. However, among these elementary schoolchildren, mothers’ beliefs about children’s potential predicted a greater increaseover time in grades for children who did not (vs. did) perceive their academic com-petence in a highly positive light. Unfortunately, the increase in these children’sachievement was accompanied by an increase in their worrying about school, sug-gesting that they may have been concerned about whether they could actually liveup to their parents’ beliefs.

At first blush, one might conclude from the research to date that parents’involvement in the academic lives of children with positive competence experi-ences does not matter. However, such a conclusion is not warranted. Although howparents become involved in their children’s academic lives appears to have littleinfluence on such children, there is evidence suggesting that they benefit, at leastemotionally, from parents simply being involved. Indeed, the frequency of moth-ers’ assistance with homework predicts dampened negative emotional functioningamong children over the course of 6 months, regardless of their competence-relatedexperiences (Pomerantz et al., 2006). Grolnick et al. (1997) made the case that parents’ involvement may provide children with a sense of feeling connected tosignificant others. When parents simply sit with children while they are doing theirhomework, for example, parents may provide children with a sense of connected-ness from which children with positive competence experiences may benefit justas much as those with negative competence experiences.

Children’s competence experiences may underlie other potential moderators ofparents’ role in children’s achievement. A common theme in studying parents’involvement in children’s schooling has been its effects among families with chil-dren at risk for achievement problems because of their families’ socioeconomicstatus, educational attainment, or ethnicity (e.g., Anderson & Keith, 1997; Dearinget al., 2006; Englund, Luckner, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004; Gutman & Eccles,1999; Hill et al., 2004). Hill et al. (2004) suggested that parents’ involvement inchildren’s schooling may be more beneficial for African American than EuropeanAmerican children because African American children are more likely to live in environments characterized by forces that detract from their academic lives,often promoting negative competence experiences. The same may be true of childrengrowing up in poor, uneducated families.

In line with this idea, parents’ involvement sometimes matters more for AfricanAmerican than European American children (Hill et al., 2004); there is also evi-dence that parents’ involvement plays a particularly large role in the achievementof children with relatively uneducated parents (e.g., Dearing, McCartney, Weiss,Kreider, & Simpkins, 2004). For example, in their study of low-income ethnicallydiverse families, Dearing et al. (2006) found that mothers’ involvement on theschool front (e.g., presence at parent-teacher conferences, volunteering in the class-




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room) when children were in kindergarten most strongly predicted heightened lit-eracy skills among children during the elementary school years when mothers’educational attainment was low (vs. high). Such effects are particularly strikingbecause not only are less (vs. more) educated African American (vs. EuropeanAmerican) parents often less involved in their children’s academic lives (U.S.Department of Education, 2006), but some investigators have argued that such par-ents are often less effectively involved in their children’s academic lives, at leaston the school front, where school personnel have expectations for appropriateinvolvement (e.g., Horvat, Weininger, & Lareau, 2003; Lareau, 1987, 1996).

Children’s competence experiences are also suggestive of other moderators. Forexample, as children become older, parents generally decrease their involvementin children’s schooling (e.g., Cooper, Lindsay, et al., 2000; Dearing et al., 2006;Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a; U.S. Department of Education, 2006). As childrenget older, they may develop the skills necessary for doing their schoolwork inde-pendently. For example, children may become increasingly skilled at planning,monitoring, and regulating their learning process. Because such developments maypromote more positive competence experiences among children, parents’ involve-ment may become less necessary as children progress through the school system.However, this may depend on the form of involvement: Perhaps all children needtheir parents to show interest in their lives by inquiring about school, but with age,children no longer need their parents to sit down and help them go through theirhomework problem by problem.

Children’s gender may also be of import in determining the effects on children’sachievement of parents’ involvement in their schooling. Such involvement may beless important to the academic functioning of girls (vs. boys). Because girls aremore self-disciplined and mastery oriented in the academic context than boys, theyoften outperform boys in terms of grades (e.g., Duckworth & Seligman, 2006;Kenney-Benson, Pomerantz, Ryan, & Patrick, 2006). As a consequence of suchpositive competence experiences, although girls may benefit just as much as theirmale counterparts from forms of parents’ involvement that reflect interest in theirlives, they may not reap the same benefits as boys from forms that mainly fosterskills and motivation, given that they are not in need of such resources to the sameextent as boys.

Conclusions

Research indicates that Parent × Child models are relevant to understanding theeffects of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. Research to date is consis-tent with the idea that children with negative competence experiences are the mostlikely to benefit from involvement characterized by autonomy support, a processfocus, positive affect, or positive beliefs about children’s potential. However, thesechildren are also most likely to suffer when parents’ involvement is not character-ized by these qualities. The heightened sensitivity of children with negative com-petence experiences to parents’ involvement is particularly noteworthy becausethese are often the children who are in particular need of aid. As Cooper, Lindsay,et al. (2000) have noted, parents’ involvement may be most beneficial when parentsadjust it to children’s competence experiences. All of the research to date on themoderating role of children’s competence experiences has focused on home-basedinvolvement directly linked to school in middle-class European American families.



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It will be important to determine if a similar pattern exists for other forms of par-ents’ involvement among families of diverse backgrounds. However, the moderat-ing role of children’s competence experiences suggests that one reason parents’home-based involvement directly linked to school may not have the same consis-tently positive effects as other forms of parents’ involvement is because its effectsare contingent to a larger extent on what children bring to the interaction (seePomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). This may be particularly true given the heightenedamount of interaction between parents and children that occurs in the context ofsuch involvement. The moderating role of children’s competence experiences sug-gests the role of other potential moderators, such as socioeconomic status, that mustbe considered in identifying when parents’ involvement will benefit children.

The Why of Parents’ Involvement: Looking Beyond Enhancing Children’s Achievement

Because promoting children’s achievement is one of the most central goals ofeducational policy, the key reason for increasing parents’ involvement in chil-dren’s academic lives has generally been that of enhancing children’s achievement(for some exceptions, see Eccles & Harold, 1996; Epstein, 1990). In line with thisconcern, most of the research on parents’ involvement has focused on its effectson children’s motivation, engagement, and performance in school. Advancing chil-dren’s achievement is clearly an essential endeavor. On the individual level, aschildren make their way into adulthood, enhanced achievement provides childrenwith important opportunities in pursuing higher education and ultimately a choiceof careers that can afford a high quality of life (Hill et al., 2004; Young & Friesen,1992). On the societal level, developing children’s academic skills is beneficial fornational advancement given that such skills are often important to areas (e.g., tech-nology, science, education) critical to the successful functioning of society.

An equally important reason for promoting parents’ involvement in children’sacademic lives is that it has benefits for children’s mental health. Promoting chil-dren’s mental health is a significant goal of much recent social policy (see McCabe,2004). For example, the enhancement of children’s mental health is a key aim ofthe report of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, releasedin 2003, with specific recommendations pertaining to the mental health of children.The goal of promoting children’s mental health is also becoming increasingly sig-nificant in educational settings. At the broadest level, the No Child Left BehindAct of 2001 explicitly includes children with serious emotional disturbances.Schools are required to work with such children to eliminate the emotional barri-ers that interfere with their success in school.

Investigators have also argued that the educational setting is an important con-text for the development of children’s emotional (Eccles, Lord, Roeser, Barber, &Jozefowicz, 1997; Ladd, 1996; Noddings, 2003; Roeser & Eccles, 2000; Rudolph,2005) as well as social (Noddings, 2003; Slavin, 1996; Slavin & Cooper, 1999)functioning. As an extension of the educational setting, parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives may shape such functioning among children (seePomerantz et al., 2006; Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).

To the extent that parents become involved in children’s schooling in a positivemanner, parents’ involvement may be a significant school-related context for thedevelopment of children’s emotional functioning (Pomerantz et al., 2006;




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Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). For one, the enhanced skills and subsequentachievement that parents’ involvement fosters may improve children’s emotionalfunctioning as children respond positively to their success. Children’s basic com-petencies, such as intelligence, appear to foster emotional resiliency in childrenencountering adversity (for a review, see Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Moreover,there is a strong association between children’s achievement in school and theiremotional functioning, with some evidence suggesting that when children do wellin school, they experience reductions in emotional distress (e.g., X. Chen & Li,2000; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998). Second, by promoting children’s moti-vational development, parents’ involvement may improve not only academic butalso emotional functioning among children. Indeed, positive perceptions of com-petence, an orientation toward mastery, and heightened engagement in school, particularly when it is accompanied by persistence, predict decreased emotionaldistress among elementary and middle school children (e.g., Cole, Martin, Peeke,Seroczynski, & Fier, 1999; Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, & Seligman, 1992;Pomerantz & Rudolph, 2003; Roeser et al., 1998; Rudolph, 2005). Third, parents’involvement in children’s schooling may directly shape children’s emotional func-tioning because of the affective nature of such involvement (see Pomerantz et al.,2006; Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a, 2005b).

To date, there has been relatively little research linking parents’ involvement inchildren’s schooling to children’s emotional functioning. However, the extantresearch is generally consistent with the notion that parents’ involvement serves asan important context for the development of children’s emotional functioning (e.g.,Grolnick et al., 2000). For example, examining low-income ethnically diverse fam-ilies, Shumow and Lomax (2002) reported that parents’ heightened involvementmainly on the school front (e.g., attendance at school events, talking to children’steacher) was associated with heightened self-esteem among adolescents. Hill andCraft (2003) demonstrated that the more middle-class European American andAfrican American parents were involved in kindergarten children’s school activi-ties (as reported by mothers and teachers), the better children’s emotion regulationskills. On the home front, mainly middle-class European American mothers’heightened assistance with homework predicted dampened negative emotionalfunctioning (i.e., experience of negative emotions, depressive symptoms, and anx-iety symptoms) among elementary and middle school children over 6 months,adjusting for their earlier negative emotional functioning (Pomerantz et al., 2006).However, such involvement on mothers’ part was not predictive of children’s sub-sequent positive emotional functioning (i.e., experience of positive emotions, self-esteem, and life satisfaction).

The little research taking the quality of parents’ involvement into account extendsthe idea that parents’ involvement plays a role in children’s emotional functioning,by suggesting that parents must be involved in a positive manner. Kenney-Bensonand Pomerantz (2005) created a situation in the laboratory designed to mirror thehomework situation. Middle-class European American elementary school childrenwhose mothers were involved in the task in an autonomy-supportive manner wereless vulnerable to depressive symptoms than their counterparts whose mothers wereinvolved in a controlling manner. This was accounted for by the tendency for chil-dren with autonomy-supportive mothers to report feeling less external pressure tomeet perfectionist standards than children with controlling mothers. In addition,



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among mainly middle-class families of European descent, children perceiving theiracademic competence negatively were particularly likely to benefit in terms of theirpositive, but not negative, emotional functioning over 6 months when mothersassisted with homework in a process-oriented manner (Pomerantz et al., 2006).Moreover, also in mainly middle-class European American families, children’s pos-itive, but not negative, emotional functioning suffered over 6 months when mothersaccompanied their assistance with negative affect and failed to counter this with pos-itive affect (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).

Parents’ involvement in children’s schooling can also enhance children’s socialfunctioning; that is, it may improve their behavioral conduct (e.g., following the rulesin school, refraining from aggressive behavior) and relationships with their peers.For one, the skills and motivation that children develop when their parents are posi-tively involved in their academic lives, along with the ensuing enhanced achieve-ment, may place children in a leadership role in which they take positive initiative inthe classroom with their peers, refraining from violating classroom norms. Suchbehavior may foster positive peer relationships because children not only becomerole models but also engage in positive interactions with their peers. In a differentvein, when parents’ are positively involved in children’s academic lives, they maycommunicate to children that they care about them (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994),which may ultimately contribute to a secure attachment between parents and chil-dren. The positive relationship between parents and children may serve as a modelfor children in developing relationships with others, thereby promoting positive rela-tionships with peers (e.g., Bowlby, 1988; Cohn, 1990).

Evidence for the idea that parents’ involvement in children’s schooling plays arole in children’s social functioning comes from a number of studies on the issue.Several studies focusing on families from a variety of backgrounds have linkedparents’ involvement in children’s schooling to decreased behavior problems (e.g.,acting out, delinquency, substance abuse) among children (e.g., Jenkins, 1995;Reynolds, Weissberg, & Kasprow, 1992; Scheer, Borden, & Donnermeyer, 2000;but see also Stewart, 2003). For example, among a Head Start sample of mainlylow-income African American families, parents’ home-based involvement (e.g.,the creation of a space for learning activities, the provision of learning opportuni-ties in the community), as reported by parents at the beginning of the school year,predicted diminished classroom behavior problems among children as reported byteachers at the end of the school year (Fantuzzo, McWayne, Perry, & Childs, 2004;see also Hill & Craft, 2003). A similar relation has been established for early ado-lescents, for whom parents’ involvement on both the school (e.g., contact withteachers, attendance at school open houses) and home (e.g., assistance in choos-ing classes, discussion with children about what they are doing in school) fronts inseventh grade predicted decreased school behavior problems in eighth gradeamong middle-class, but not lower-class, children (Hill et al., 2004). Several stud-ies have also found that the more involved parents are in children’s schooling, themore positive children’s social skills. In one such study of mainly low-incomeAfrican American families, parents’ involvement on both the school (e.g., the cre-ation of opportunities to get to know children’s teachers, participation in parenteducation programs at school) and home (e.g., the provision of educationalmaterials, the routine reviewing of schoolwork) fronts was associated with kinder-garten children’s social skills that contribute to successful interaction with peers




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(McWayne, Hampton, Fantuzzo, Cohen, & Sekino, 2004). However, parents’heightened involvement sometimes is associated with dampened social functioning(e.g., Izzo et al., 1999). For example, in a mainly middle-class European Americansample, Grolnick et al. (2000) found that increases in parents’ school involvementacross the transition to junior high school were associated with increased acting-outbehaviors among children. It could be that parents heighten their involvement onthe school front when children experience social difficulties, often in response tocalls from school personnel (Grolnick et al., 2000; Izzo et al., 1999).

As is the case for academic and emotional functioning, how parents becomeinvolved in children’s schooling appears to be important for children’s social func-tioning. Reynolds et al. (1992) assessed the extent of low-income, ethnicallydiverse parents’ school-based involvement when children were in kindergarten byhaving teachers report on the frequency with which it occurred. The quality of par-ents’ school-based involvement was reflected in teachers’ reports of their satis-faction with such involvement as well as how constructive they thought it was.Teachers’ ratings of the quality were a stronger (negative) predictor of children’sbehavior problems (e.g., acting-out behavior and poor relations with peers) 1 yearlater than the extent, adjusting for children’s earlier behavioral problems. Focusingon low-income families from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, Izzo et al. (1999)also showed that the quality of parent-teacher interactions (i.e., teachers’ percep-tions that they have a constructive relationship with parents and sufficient contactwith them) predicted over time more positive social skills among elementaryschool children, adjusting for their earlier social skills. In a similar vein, amongjunior high school students from mainly middle-class European American fami-lies, what Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) called parents’ personal involvementin children’s schooling (i.e., children’s perceptions of their parents as supportiveof their academic endeavors) foreshadowed decreased acting-out behavior amongchildren. This is particularly notable given that changes in the extent of parents’school and cognitive-intellectual involvement did not predict such behavior(Grolnick et al., 2000). Taken together, these findings highlight the importance ofthe quality of parents’ involvement in children’s social functioning.

Conclusions

The question of why parents should become involved in their children’s school-ing has almost always been answered by emphasizing the benefits for children’sschool achievement. Relatively little attention has been given to the possibility thatparents’ involvement may serve as a context for the development of children’smental health, that is, children’s emotional and social functioning. However, recentresearch suggests that this is the case, with the quality of parents’ involvement mat-tering. Given the import of promoting children’s mental health, this benefit of par-ents’ involvement in children’s schooling needs more attention. It is quite possiblethat even when parents’ involvement does not have immediate consequences forchildren’s achievement, it does have valuable consequences for their mental health,which may ultimately improve their achievement. It is quite likely that parents whoare involved in children’s academic lives may also be involved in other areas oftheir lives. Thus, it will be critical for future research to establish that it is reallyparents’ involvement in the academic arena, not in other arenas such as the socialone, that drive the effects.



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Implications: The Next Stage of Research and Intervention

Research

Considering the how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’sschooling sets the stage for a second wave of research that has the potential to iden-tify the factors that can maximize the benefits of parents’ involvement. A focus onhow parents become involved in children’s schooling underscores the importanceof studying the quality of parents’ involvement rather than simply the extent of parents’ involvement. In this article, drawing from general theory and research onparenting, we highlighted four dimensions of how parents become involved inchildren’s academic lives: autonomy support versus control, process versus personfocus, positive versus negative affect, and positive versus negative beliefs aboutchildren’s potential. Although empirical support is emerging for the importance ofthese dimensions of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, there is still muchto be done along these lines. All of these dimensions have generally been examinedin the context of parents’ home-based involvement directly linked to school, yield-ing the significant conclusion that one reason such involvement may have incon-sistent effects is that it depends on how parents provide assistance (see Cooper,Lindsay, et al., 2000). However, other forms of parents’ involvement have gener-ally not received such attention (for an exception, see Simpkins et al., 2006). Futureresearch will need to examine the quality of parents’ school-based involvement andother forms of their home-based involvement. In addition, there may be dimensionsother than those discussed here that are influential. For example, several investiga-tors have focused on parents’ creation of a structured rather than chaotic environmentfor children (e.g., Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001). Otherresearch has attended to the extent to which parents emphasize vs. de-emphasize chil-dren’s success and failure in school (Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam, in press)

Studying the quality of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling will entailthe development of methods that go beyond simply asking parents, children, andschool personnel to make ratings of the frequency of parents’ involvement.Because it may be more difficult to obtain objective reports of the quality (vs. theextent) of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, alternative methods willbe necessary. These may include observations in the home and school of interac-tions between parents and children as well as between parents and teachers. Suchmethods have already been used successfully in qualitative research (e.g., Xu &Corno, 1998) but need to be extended to quantitative research. Borrowing fromresearch in the laboratory using observational methods to examine parent-childinteractions (Grolnick et al., 2002; Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Ng et al., 2004;Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1995) will be essential. Because of the daily nature of par-ents’ involvement in children’s schooling, the collection of data on parent-childinteractions on a day-to-day basis is also of import. Such a method has been usedsuccessfully in studying parents’ assistance with children’s homework andresponses to children’s performance (e.g., Ng et al., 2004; Pomerantz & Eaton,2001; Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998b). It has also been used in examining thenature of such involvement (Pomerantz et al., 2006; Pomerantz, Wang, et al.,2005a). However, more efforts in this vein are needed. Moreover, experimentaldesigns successfully manipulating parents’ involvement in children’s academiclives are critical to establishing the causal role of such involvement.




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A significant direction for future research on parents’ involvement in children’sschooling will be to take into account the characteristics children bring to their inter-actions with parents. Consideration of the match between children’s characteristicsand the manner in which parents become involved is a critical endeavor. In this arti-cle, we focused mainly on how children’s competence experiences moderate theeffects of parents’ involvement characterized by autonomy support versus control,a process versus person focus, positive versus negative affect, and positive versusnegative beliefs about children’s potential. All four of these dimensions appear toaffect children with negative competence experiences more than children with pos-itive experiences. Two key issues still need attention. First, how can parents becomeinvolved in the academic lives of children with positive competence experiences ina manner that will be particularly beneficial for such children? Research by Higginsand colleagues (Bianco, Higgins, & Klem, 2003; Spiegel, Grant-Pillow, & Higgins,2004) underscores the importance of the fit between individuals’ goals and those oftheir environment. Elucidating the goals children with positive competence experi-ences hold in the academic context may be critical to identifying the dimensions ofparents’ involvement that may be beneficial for such children. Second, other char-acteristics of children may influence the success of how parents become involved.We discussed children’s age and gender. However, future research also needs to besensitive to more psychological characteristics of children, such as their desire forcloseness with parents and their preference for working independently. At a broaderlevel, recent efforts to elucidate the moderating role of children’s socioeconomicand cultural backgrounds (e.g., Dearing et al., 2006; Gutman & Eccles, 1999; Hillet al., 2004) need to be continued, particularly because these are often the childrentargeted by interventions.

Understanding the consequences of parents’ involvement in children’s school-ing for children’s achievement in school is of much worth. However, a focus onthe consequences for children’s mental health is also important. As noted earlier,more research on the link between parents’ involvement in children’s schoolingand children’s emotional and social functioning is needed, particularly becauseonly limited types of parents’ involvement have been studied in relation to suchfunctioning. Moreover, it would be fruitful to study the effects of parents’ involve-ment in children’s schooling on children’s functioning in other arenas, such as themoral, spiritual, and civic. This is a promising line of inquiry as parents’ involve-ment in children’s schooling has been linked to heightened participation in reli-gious and civic activities (Smith, 1999; Trusty & Watts, 1999). However, as notedearlier, this endeavor must take into account parents’ involvement outside the aca-demic arena to confirm that it is parents’ involvement in this arena, not others suchas the social, that is driving the effects.

Interventions

Issues related to the how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’sschooling also have implications for designing interventions to promote parents’involvement, which to date have generally not been successful in enhancing children’sachievement. Perhaps most notably, in designing interventions, attention needs to begiven to fostering involvement that is autonomy supportive rather than controlling,process rather than person focused, characterized by positive rather than negativeaffect, and accompanied by positive rather than negative beliefs about children’s



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potential. Several steps can be taken to promote such involvement on parents’ part.First, arguments have been made for the importance of ensuring that parents feel

empowered in the school context, because such feelings may heighten the extentof parents’ involvement in children’s schooling (White et al., 1992). Much of thefocus on parents’ empowerment has focused on their feelings of being influentialin the school system. An aspect of parents’ empowerment that may be of particu-lar import to the quality of their involvement in children’s schooling is parents’sense of control over their children’s development, particularly in the academicarena. Beginning early on in children’s lives, parents who experience themselvesas lacking control over their children engage in poorer quality parenting, especiallywhen they perceive their children as difficult (e.g., Bugental, Lyon, Krantz, &Cortez, 1997; Guzell & Vernon-Feagans, 2004). Thus, establishing in parents asense of control over children’s development may be of particular import in pro-moting quality involvement among parents. It may be possible to establish a senseof control in parents by providing them with information about the malleability ofchildren’s ability along with the skills to assist children in developing their ability.Doing so may aid parents in becoming involved in an autonomy-supportive andprocess-focused manner. Parents may also be better able to maintain positive affectif they feel equipped to deal with the challenges of school.

Second, several lines of research suggest that fostering positive involvement inchildren’s schooling among parents entails creating an environment in which par-ents do not feel too much pressure to ensure that children perform up to standards.Grolnick et al. (2002) suggested that when parents see children’s performance ashaving ramifications for their own worth, they experience pressure, which theytransfer onto children. When these investigators led mothers to believe that theywere responsible for children meeting particular performance standards in the con-text of homework-like tasks, mothers became less autonomy supportive and morecontrolling with children. It is also possible that when parents feel such pressure,they may engage in more person- than process-focused involvement, because theyare concerned with children’s performance rather than with children’s learning.Essentially, although interventions need to be designed to give parents a sense ofcontrol over their children’s academic development, the focus should be on theprocess of learning rather than solely on performance.

Third, interventions need to be designed with an understanding of the importanceof maintaining parents’ positive affect and beliefs about children’s potential in thecontext of their involvement in children’s schooling. This objective may be met inpart by providing parents with a sense of control and focusing them on the processof learning rather than on performance. However, other steps may be taken as well.For example, when teachers assign homework that is interactive in that it allowschildren to share what they are learning in school with their parents, it may promotepositive affect on the part of parents (see Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001). Wheninterventions use workshops, creating an environment characterized by high posi-tive affect may be of import because such affect may funnel down to parents’ inter-actions with their children. Moreover, highlighting to parents their own children’simprovement over time, rather than highlighting how their children compare withother children, may allow parents to perceive their children’s potential positivelyeven while acknowledging that children have difficulties that need to be addressed.



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Conclusions

Although the research to date on the effects of the extent of parents’ involve-ment in children’s schooling has proved fruitful, it is time to move on to a secondstage of research considering the how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement.The first steps of this research suggest that how parents become involved makes adifference, so that more involvement on parents’ part is not always better for chil-dren. It is also the case that children are differentially responsive to how parentsbecome involved, so that the benefits of parents’ involvement depend on what chil-dren themselves bring to their interactions with parents. The answer to the ques-tion of why parents should become involved in the first place needs to movebeyond the idea that parents’ involvement promotes children’s achievement to thepossibility that it may serve more broadly as a context for children’s mental healthdevelopment. As investigators explore issues of the how, whom, and why of par-ents’ involvement in children’s schooling, a clearer picture of the benefits of suchinvolvement will emerge. As one does, it is likely that this will make interventionsaimed at promoting parents’ involvement successful.

Notes

We appreciate the constructive comments provided by Allison Ryan and the membersof the Center for Parent-Child Studies on an earlier version of this article. The writing ofthis article was supported by a grant from NIMH (#R01 MH57505). Eva M. Pomerantzwas a visiting scholar at Victoria University in the initial writing of this article.

1Some investigators (e.g., Fan & Chen, 2001; Keith et al., 1993) have included par-ents’ beliefs about children’s potential (e.g., expectations for performance, educationalaspirations) in the category of involvement, with the idea that more positive beliefsreflect greater involvement. Although the two may be related, we define involvementin behavioral terms. Moreover, many parents may be very involved in their children’sschooling but actually hold negative beliefs about their children’s potential. Indeed,such beliefs may fuel parents’ involvement (see Pomerantz, Wang, & Ng, 2005b).

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AuthorsEVA M. POMERANTZ is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820; e-mail:[email protected]. The main focus of her research is on the role of parents in children’smotivation and achievement. Recent publications include “The Role of Children’sCompetence Experiences in the Socialization Process: A Dynamic Process Frameworkfor the Academic Arena” (with Q. Wang and F. F. Ng; in Advances in Child Developmentand Behavior, edited by R. Kail, Academic Press, 2005). Forthcoming articles will appearin Developmental Psychology and Child Development.

ELIZABETH A. MOORMAN is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820;e-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests are in the area of parents’ involve-ment in children’s academic lives.

SCOTT D. LITWACK is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the Universityof Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT 06269; e-mail: [email protected]. His research interests are in the area of developmental psychopathology, with afocus on children’s social functioning.



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