Dear Sticky Wicket
Why is there the pervasive perception that white parents are more involved in their child’s education than minority parents?
~ James B., St. Paul, MN
Dear James,
There is no easy answer, but a multitude of societal factors must be considered – among them are parents' socioeconomic status; minority culture and attitudes toward education; and performance of a community's school system.
Studies show that children are apt to improve in school when parents participate in their education. The literature of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 states, "[t]hree decades of research provide convincing evidence that … [w]hen schools collaborate with parents to help their children learn, and when parents participate in school activities and decision-making about their children’s education, children achieve at higher levels." In 2004, the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in Austin, Texas, found that "regardless of family income or background," students with involved parents are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, attend school regularly, have better social skills, and graduate and advance to postsecondary education.
Despite the concerted efforts of educators, community outreach workers, and education policy makers to communicate these findings and encourage parental involvement, there remain gaps in participation, especially among minority parents.
In 2007, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a research report detailing parent and family involvement in education. It determined that 83 percent of white students at the K through 8th-grade level had parents who reported attending a school or class event as compared to 69 percent black, 75 percent Asian, and 68 percent Hispanic. Sixty-one percent of white students had parents who reported volunteering or serving on a school committee as opposed to 41 percent black, 49 percent Asian, and 37 percent Hispanic.
It's important to recognize that these activities took place outside the home. Possible barriers to involvement – like parents' access to transportation; their time constraints (is it a two-parent family where income is derived from a single breadwinner, thereby allowing the other parent to participate; a two-parent family in which both parents work multiple jobs; or a single-parent household which likely restricts that parent's participation?); and the quality of the schools' communication with minority parents – may account for the disparity.
When NCES measured participation in activities inside the home, 98 percent of black students at the K through 8th-grade level had homework checked by an adult in comparison with 94 percent white, 88 percent Asian, and 96 percent Hispanic. The report also found that at the 9th- through12th-grade level, 83 percent of black students had homework checked by an adult as opposed to 57 percent white, and 59 percent Asian. (Hispanics were not included in this segment.)
"Educators often complain that minority parents do not care about their children's education," the Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center (EMSTAC) cites in "Research Highlights: Working with Families." "But the lack of participation among culturally and linguistically diverse parents does not necessarily indicate a lack of interest in their children's progress."
For instance, in Cambodian culture "teachers tend to be viewed as authoritarian figures, and parents tend to defer to the teacher's expertise in the education of their children … As a result, Cambodian parents have a tendency to not be actively involved in teacher-parent collaboration."
A similar disposition occurs with regard to Latino parents, who "spoke of the school and its programs in a reverent manner, and respected the teacher's educational expertise. With this cultural model in mind, they entrusted the school with decision making related to their child. This trust in the school as the expert dispenser of knowledge minimizes the parents' own roles and does not bode well for a strong family-school partnership."
Perceived disproportions in parents' participation continues to be a subject of inquiry for researchers, educators, and scholars – and it remains an unsettled debate.