Parent involvement is overrated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So why is there a different in child outcomes amongst races then? Genetics? Considering they have the same teachers, it can't be that.

From another study by the same authors, "Racial and Social Class Differences in How Parents Respond to Inadequate Achievement: Consequences for Children's Future Achievement†"

The article is behind a paywall ( http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12007/abstract ) but the abstract is available and quoted here:

Objective
Despite numerous studies on parental involvement in children's academic schooling, there is a dearth of knowledge on how parents respond specifically to inadequate academic performance. This study examines whether (1) racial differences exist in parenting philosophy for addressing inadequate achievement, (2) social class has implications for parenting philosophy, and (3) parents’ philosophies are consequential for children's academic achievement.

Methods
Using data from the Child Development Supplement (N = 1,041) to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we sort parents into two categories—those whose parenting repertoires for addressing poor achievement include punitive responses and those whose repertoires do not. We then determine whether racial differences exist between these categories and how various responses within the aforementioned categories are related to students’ academic achievement.

Results
The findings show that white and black parents have markedly different philosophies on how to respond to inadequate performance, and these differences appear to impact children's achievement in dramatically different ways.

Conclusion
Educators and policymakers should pay particular attention to how parents respond to inadequate achievement as imploring parents of inadequately performing students to be more involved without providing them with some guidance might exacerbate the problem.

[Anonymous]

There is a better synopsis at the Atlantic from last month.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/and-dont-help-your-kids-with-their-homework/358636/

"Robinson and Harris posit that greater financial and educational resources allow some parents to embed their children in neighborhoods and social settings in which they meet many college-educated adults with interesting careers. Upper-middle-class kids aren’t just told a good education will help them succeed in life. They are surrounded by family and friends who work as doctors, lawyers, and engineers and who reminisce about their college years around the dinner table. Asian parents are an interesting exception; even when they are poor and unable to provide these types of social settings, they seem to be able to communicate the value and appeal of education in a similarly effective manner."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the whole article. The specific conclusions are that being involved in PTA, attending parent teacher conferences, helping with homework etc. don't really impact academic achievement.

I doubt that one. Sorry, they were not specific enough. I know some parents sit down with their children and walk through every question and point out the steps the children are missing, and manage each question along the way filling in all the gaps. Others will look it over after it's complete, indicate the wrong answers, and say "you'll need to do these over." Others will help their child get online to find practice exercises and then step back and have the child complete them on their own. My father used to take me to the library, and then give me free reign from there. When I had trouble in Algebra, he sat down and drew the quadratic equation and walked me through each step until I fully comprehended it. I went on to win an award for being the best Honors Algebra student in my class of 500. Homework help can indeed help - but we don't all agree on what "help" fully means and equally important, what it does not mean.

The authors of the article would seem to agree with you. The fact that demographics skew tells you that the definition of "involvement" varies wildly.

When the author says, "set the stage," the kind of help you describe is precisely what is implied. That is, give them the information they need, but make sure they do the work on their own, make their own decisions, and make their own mistakes. Freeing them up allows them to reach greater heights.

I don't think the authors agree that setting the stage involves helping with the quadratic equation. Instead of saying that they need to do further work to understand the qualitative differences in involvement of each type (PTA, homework help etc.) They conclude since there is variation between races/groups parental involvement is not important.
Their conclusion (below) is really dangerous in that is says to parents "if your kid is doing bad it has little to do with your involvement and hey we know because we "studied" this.

From the article, "There is a strong sentiment in this country that parents matter in every respect relating to their children’s academic success, but we need to let go of this sentiment and begin to pay attention to what the evidence is telling us."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the whole article. The specific conclusions are that being involved in PTA, attending parent teacher conferences, helping with homework etc. don't really impact academic achievement.

I doubt that one. Sorry, they were not specific enough. I know some parents sit down with their children and walk through every question and point out the steps the children are missing, and manage each question along the way filling in all the gaps. Others will look it over after it's complete, indicate the wrong answers, and say "you'll need to do these over." Others will help their child get online to find practice exercises and then step back and have the child complete them on their own. My father used to take me to the library, and then give me free reign from there. When I had trouble in Algebra, he sat down and drew the quadratic equation and walked me through each step until I fully comprehended it. I went on to win an award for being the best Honors Algebra student in my class of 500. Homework help can indeed help - but we don't all agree on what "help" fully means and equally important, what it does not mean.

The authors of the article would seem to agree with you. The fact that demographics skew tells you that the definition of "involvement" varies wildly.

When the author says, "set the stage," the kind of help you describe is precisely what is implied. That is, give them the information they need, but make sure they do the work on their own, make their own decisions, and make their own mistakes. Freeing them up allows them to reach greater heights.

I don't think the authors agree that setting the stage involves helping with the quadratic equation. Instead of saying that they need to do further work to understand the qualitative differences in involvement of each type (PTA, homework help etc.) They conclude since there is variation between races/groups parental involvement is not important.
Their conclusion (below) is really dangerous in that is says to parents "if your kid is doing bad it has little to do with your involvement and hey we know because we "studied" this.

From the article, "There is a strong sentiment in this country that parents matter in every respect relating to their children’s academic success, but we need to let go of this sentiment and begin to pay attention to what the evidence is telling us."

+++1 I couldn't agree more. It is a dangerous message indeed to tell parents that their involvement cannot assist their child, struggling or not. The conclusion is overly broad. I find it difficult to believe there are legions of people with successful academic histories who had no parental guidance or assistance. In my experience at a Top 10 university, almost everyone I met was there because their family placed a high value on education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love how all these white parents love posting these articles so that they can give themselves a pat on the back. And no, not all DCUM followers are white including myself. Contrary to what you might believe, people of color love their children too.

+1000

[Anonymous]

I think it all boils down to expectations, and desire to succeed. A parent can set high expectations for a child without actually being involved in their school life. It is all behavior based. You expect your child to wipe themself after they use the bathroom, so you taught them to do that. It doesn't mean that you have to go into the bathroom with them everytime they use it. Its the same for school/education. If you expect your child to go to school and do their homework and behave it is because you taught them to do so. You don't need to be involved in everything at their school to make sure that it gets done.

[Anonymous]

I just want to reiterate something from the article:

One group of parents, including blacks and Hispanics, as well as some Asians (like Cambodians, Vietnamese and Pacific Islanders), appeared quite similar to a second group, made up of white parents and other Asians (like Chinese, Koreans and Indians) in the frequency of their involvement. A common reason given for why the children of the first group performed worse academically on average was that their parents did not value education to the same extent. But our research shows that these parents tried to help their children in school just as much as the parents in the second group.

Can we please let go of the notion that low-income parents don't value education? Pleeeeeease?

In my experience, it's the school systems that don't value education for these kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the whole article. The specific conclusions are that being involved in PTA, attending parent teacher conferences, helping with homework etc. don't really impact academic achievement.

I doubt that one. Sorry, they were not specific enough. I know some parents sit down with their children and walk through every question and point out the steps the children are missing, and manage each question along the way filling in all the gaps. Others will look it over after it's complete, indicate the wrong answers, and say "you'll need to do these over." Others will help their child get online to find practice exercises and then step back and have the child complete them on their own. My father used to take me to the library, and then give me free reign from there. When I had trouble in Algebra, he sat down and drew the quadratic equation and walked me through each step until I fully comprehended it. I went on to win an award for being the best Honors Algebra student in my class of 500. Homework help can indeed help - but we don't all agree on what "help" fully means and equally important, what it does not mean.

The authors of the article would seem to agree with you. The fact that demographics skew tells you that the definition of "involvement" varies wildly.

When the author says, "set the stage," the kind of help you describe is precisely what is implied. That is, give them the information they need, but make sure they do the work on their own, make their own decisions, and make their own mistakes. Freeing them up allows them to reach greater heights.

I don't think the authors agree that setting the stage involves helping with the quadratic equation. Instead of saying that they need to do further work to understand the qualitative differences in involvement of each type (PTA, homework help etc.) They conclude since there is variation between races/groups parental involvement is not important.
Their conclusion (below) is really dangerous in that is says to parents "if your kid is doing bad it has little to do with your involvement and hey we know because we "studied" this.

From the article, "There is a strong sentiment in this country that parents matter in every respect relating to their children’s academic success, but we need to let go of this sentiment and begin to pay attention to what the evidence is telling us."

+++1 I couldn't agree more. It is a dangerous message indeed to tell parents that their involvement cannot assist their child, struggling or not. The conclusion is overly broad. I find it difficult to believe there are legions of people with successful academic histories who had no parental guidance or assistance. In my experience at a Top 10 university, almost everyone I met was there because their family placed a high value on education.

Couldn't disagree more. Their conclusion is not overly broad. They never insinuate that there is no parental involvement with successful academics.

To read it that way, you have to WANT to read it that way. They clearly say the type of involvement matters. This isn't the first study to show that involvement alone is not the answer.

Cases:

"...most parental behavior has no benefit on academic performance" - Note the use of the word "most"
"...there are some forms of parental involvement that do appear to have a positive impact on children academically" - clear, unequivocal -- there are some good forms of involvement
"Do our findings suggest that parents are not important for children’s academic success? Our answer is no." -- again, there are good forms of involvement

The clear point is to move away from helicoptering to try to force success, and instead, set the child up with the right opportunities to succeed.

Guidance, encouragement, and teaching help. Otherwise, participation is irrelevant at best.

[Anonymous]

Guidance, participation, encouragement and involvement are all luxuries. When you're a single parent who's barely scraping by, your watchword is survival, regardless of race. Your goal is getting your family to the next day in one piece. Poor Asian immigrant mothers are almost never single parents in this country, giving them a leg up over other groups. KIPP, SEED, Democracy Prep and other programs offering extended school day, short school vacations, Saturday school and so forth are on the right track, keeping kids away from environments where survival is the focus to a greater extent than traditional schools do. Full-day early childhood programs don't hurt either. Poor AA parents see the benefit and flock to such programs. I like to think that a new generation of low-income young people are growing up wiser to the constraints single parenting imposes than an earlier generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the whole article. The specific conclusions are that being involved in PTA, attending parent teacher conferences, helping with homework etc. don't really impact academic achievement.

I doubt that one. Sorry, they were not specific enough. I know some parents sit down with their children and walk through every question and point out the steps the children are missing, and manage each question along the way filling in all the gaps. Others will look it over after it's complete, indicate the wrong answers, and say "you'll need to do these over." Others will help their child get online to find practice exercises and then step back and have the child complete them on their own. My father used to take me to the library, and then give me free reign from there. When I had trouble in Algebra, he sat down and drew the quadratic equation and walked me through each step until I fully comprehended it. I went on to win an award for being the best Honors Algebra student in my class of 500. Homework help can indeed help - but we don't all agree on what "help" fully means and equally important, what it does not mean.

The authors of the article would seem to agree with you. The fact that demographics skew tells you that the definition of "involvement" varies wildly.

When the author says, "set the stage," the kind of help you describe is precisely what is implied. That is, give them the information they need, but make sure they do the work on their own, make their own decisions, and make their own mistakes. Freeing them up allows them to reach greater heights.

I don't think the authors agree that setting the stage involves helping with the quadratic equation. Instead of saying that they need to do further work to understand the qualitative differences in involvement of each type (PTA, homework help etc.) They conclude since there is variation between races/groups parental involvement is not important.
Their conclusion (below) is really dangerous in that is says to parents "if your kid is doing bad it has little to do with your involvement and hey we know because we "studied" this.

From the article, "There is a strong sentiment in this country that parents matter in every respect relating to their children’s academic success, but we need to let go of this sentiment and begin to pay attention to what the evidence is telling us."

+++1 I couldn't agree more. It is a dangerous message indeed to tell parents that their involvement cannot assist their child, struggling or not. The conclusion is overly broad. I find it difficult to believe there are legions of people with successful academic histories who had no parental guidance or assistance. In my experience at a Top 10 university, almost everyone I met was there because their family placed a high value on education.

but it does make me feel better about neglecting my fourth child lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to reiterate something from the article:

One group of parents, including blacks and Hispanics, as well as some Asians (like Cambodians, Vietnamese and Pacific Islanders), appeared quite similar to a second group, made up of white parents and other Asians (like Chinese, Koreans and Indians) in the frequency of their involvement. A common reason given for why the children of the first group performed worse academically on average was that their parents did not value education to the same extent. But our research shows that these parents tried to help their children in school just as much as the parents in the second group.

Can we please let go of the notion that low-income parents don't value education? Pleeeeeease?

In my experience, it's the school systems that don't value education for these kids.

+1