Parent expectations, knowledge of student performance, and school involvement: Links to the achievement of African American and Latino children

• Main Author: Dimmler, Miriam Rode Hernandez
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2007
• Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black studies; Educational psychology; Elementary education; Families & family life; Hispanic American studies; Individual & family studies; Personal relationships; Sociology
• ISBN: 9780549167365; 0549167366

A robust body of research with middle-class, European American families supports the relationship between higher parent expectations and higher student achievement. However, research with low-income, ethnic minority families is lacking and the few, existing studies indicate that the expectations of these parents are less predictive of achievement. Using a sample of low-income African American (AA) (n =36) and Latino (n = 47) parents with children in 1 st–5th grades at an urban, elementary school, this study explored ethnic differences between AA and Latino parents in expectancy formation, predictors of parent-teacher conferencing, and the role of parental expectations, knowledge of children's grades, and conferencing in predicting children's achievement gains. It was expected that Latino parents' expectations would be informed by children's achievement whereas AA parents' expectations would be high regardless of children's performance, but this hypothesis was not confirmed. Moreover, neither AA nor Latino parents considered students' prior achievement in the formation of expectations of grades. It was predicted, and confirmed, that parents with more frequent parent-teacher conferencing had both significantly higher expectations and greater knowledge of grades. With regard to predictors of student achievement, parent expectations significantly predicted reading grades, after controlling for prior achievement; this held true for the AA but not Latino student subsample. Beyond prior achievement and parent expectations, parent knowledge of grades was a significant predictor of student math and reading grades. At a subsample level, this held true for AA students in reading and math grades and on math standardized tests and for Latino student in math grades. Parent-teacher conferencing was not found to be a significant predictor of gains in student achievement. Results suggest (1) broadening the exploration of parent expectations in future research to include parent knowledge of children's performance when testing for expectancy effects in disadvantaged groups and (2) exploring how parents acquire knowledge of performance and use it to inform achievement-supporting practices. Implications for interventions suggest enhancing parents' awareness of children's school performance to improve student achievement.