Parental Involvement in Middle School: A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Strategies That Promote Achievement

Abstract

Early adolescence and entry into middle school reflect change on multiple levels. The middle school years coincide with key changes in adolescent development, including biological and cognitive growth, social development, and renegotiations of family relationships, especially the parent-adolescent relationship (Adams & Berzonsky, 2003; Grolnick, Price, Beiswenger, & Sauck, 2007; Keating, 2004; Lerner & Steinberg, 2004; Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Daddis, 2004; Steinberg & Silk, 2002). Further, the middle school context reflects a significant change compared to elementary school, including a larger, more bureaucratic system with many more teachers, peers, and curricular choices (Dauber & Epstein, 1989; Eccles & Harold, 1996; Hill & Chao, 2009). In the context of such changes and development, adolescents’ academic performance often declines (Barber & Olsen, 2004; Eccles, 2004; Gutman & Midgley, 2000), while at the same time, the long-term implications of achievement for educational and occupational attainment increase (Eccles & Harold, 1993). The confluence of these developmental and contextual changes at early adolescence increases the risk that students may not reach their potential and heightens the need to identify sources of support.

In promoting achievement across elementary and secondary school levels, theories, research, and policies have identified the significant role of families, family-school relations, and parental involvement in education (Fan & Chen, 2001; Hill & Chao, 2009; Seginer, 2006). Indeed, family-school relations and parental involvement in education have been identified as a way to close demographic gaps in achievement and maximize students’ potential (Dearing, Kreider, Simpkins, & Weiss, 2006; Hampton, Mumford, & Bond, 1998; Hara, 1998). As such, federal policies like the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; 2002) mandate parental involvement in education and family-school relations across elementary and secondary school levels. Despite consensus about the importance of families and schools working together across developmental stages, extant theories of parental involvement in education have been based on elementary school students and elementary school contexts and do not account for the changes associated with middle school and early adolescent development (Hill & Taylor, 2004; Hill, Tyson, & Bromell, 2009). Indeed, some research has demonstrated that the strength of the relation between parental involvement and achievement declines between elementary and middle schools (e.g., Singh et al., 1995). Whereas some aspects of parental involvement in education may decline in amount or in effectiveness during middle school, like involvement at school (Singh et al., 1995; Stevenson & Baker, 1987), other aspects of involvement that are not accounted for in extant frameworks may increase in significance (Chao, Kanatsu, Stanoff, Padmawidjaja, & Aque, 2009). Therefore, it is imperative to identify the extent to which parental involvement in education is positively related to achievement for middle school students and which types of involvement are most effective.

In the last two decades, the amount of research on parental involvement in education, especially for middle school, has increased exponentially, but it has produced often competing findings. For example, some research has demonstrated that parental involvement in education is positively associated with adolescents’ academic outcomes throughout middle and high school (e.g., Catsambis, 2001; Hill et al., 2004). However, other research found that parental involvement is not related to achievement (e.g., Balli, Wedman, & Demo, 1997; Bronstein, Ginsberg, & Herrera, 2005). This growing but disaggregated body of research has used a variety of methods, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions for middle school. Although recent meta-analyses have focused on parental involvement (e.g., Fan & Chen, 2001; Jeynes, 2003, 2005), these meta-analyses did not consider the developmental stage of students as a unique factor in their analyses. These studies collapsed across research from prekindergarten through high school. Further, whereas Jeynes (2007) focused on secondary schools, this meta-analysis collapsed across middle and high schools and was limited to urban contexts. Unlike the high school years, when parents have gained experience with supporting more autonomous adolescents and larger, more bureaucratic schools, the middle school years reflect a renegotiation for schools, families, and students. Therefore, identifying the most effective strategies in middle school will guide programs and policies so that they can promote the most effective strategies (Hill et al., 2009). To this end, we conducted a meta-analysis of the existing research on parental involvement in middle school and situate our findings within existing theories and frameworks and within the developmental context of early adolescence. This meta-analysis addressed two broad questions. First, what is the strength of the relation between parental involvement in education and achievement during middle school? Second, which types of involvement have the strongest positive relation with achievement?

Parental Involvement in Education: Definitions and Frameworks

Although there are numerous definitions of parental involvement in education, we define it as “parents’ interactions with schools and with their children to promote academic success” (Hill et al., 2004, p. 1491). This is somewhat broader than the definition articulated in the NCLB, which is “the participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities” (No Child Left Behind Act, 2002, §9101). Consistently included in the extant theories, frameworks, and assessments are home-based and school-based involvement strategies (e.g., Kohl, Lengua, McMahon, & the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2000; Seginer, 2006). Further, such a distinction is useful as it distinguishes policy-relevant realms—home and school. The most widely cited among existing frameworks is Epstein’s (1987; Conners & Epstein, 1995; Epstein & Sanders, 2002), which includes school-based involvement strategies (e.g., volunteering at school, communication between parents and teachers, and involvement in school governance); home-based involvement strategies, including engaging in educational activities at home; school support for parenting (e.g., parent training programs); and involvement between the school and community agencies. Second, the framework undergirding Comer’s (1995) School Development Program has also informed research in this field. Comer’s framework also includes school-based involvement—such as parent-teacher conferences, volunteering and being present in the school, and participation in school governance—and home-based involvement, such as parental reinforcement of learning at home. Finally, Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) articulated a three-pronged framework: First, behavioral involvement includes both home-based and school-based involvement strategies, such as active connections and communication between home and school, volunteering at school, and assisting with homework. Second, cognitive-intellectual involvement reflects home-based involvement and includes parental role in exposing their children to educationally stimulating activities and experiences. Finally, personal involvement includes attitudes and expectations about school and education and conveying the enjoyment of learning, which reflects parental socialization around the value and utility of education.

Within an elementary school context, school-based involvement is associated with children’s achievement, because such involvement is likely to include visits to the classroom and interactions with children’s teachers. Such interactions and exposure increase parents’ knowledge about the curriculum, enhance social capital, and increase the effectiveness of involvement at home (Comer, 1995; Epstein, 2001; Hill & Taylor, 2004). Further, interactions between parents and teachers may increase mutual respect and increase teachers’ perceptions about how much parents value education (Comer, 1995; Epstein, 2001). However, in middle school, school-based involvement has been shown to change from assisting in the classroom to attendance at school activities (Seginer, 2006). This latter type of school-based involvement is less likely to provide middle school parents with information about pedagogy and classroom content or the opportunity to create mutual respect between parents and teachers. Therefore, its relation with academic outcomes may be weaker.

Home-based involvement has been advocated because it affirms the knowledge and instruction received at school (Comer, 1995), provides assistance and clarification with homework (Cooper, 1989), provides structure for free time and homework time (Fan & Chen, 2001), includes visiting museums and other educational venues (Reynolds & Gill, 1994), and enhances and encourages motivations (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995). In addition, as part of home-based involvement, parents can supplement instruction through educationally based, cognitively stimulating activities (Chao, 2000; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994). However, by middle school, many parents feel less able to assist with homework or provide activities and experiences that increase their adolescents’ knowledge or achievement (Dauber & Epstein, 1993). Therefore, the amount and type of home-based involvement that is effective may be reduced during the middle school years (Seginer, 2006). Yet another reason why parental involvement might change in significance is that aspects of the middle school structure do not support home- and school-based involvement strategies in the same way as in elementary school.

Middle School Context and Parental Involvement

The middle school context presents a number of challenges that may undermine parents’ ability to be effectively involved in their adolescents’ education and work productively with schools (Dauber & Epstein, 1989; Hill & Chao, 2009; Sanders & Epstein, 2000). First, middle schools are large and complex, often making it difficult for parents to figure out how to become effectively involved. Second, middle school teachers instruct a large number of students, making it difficult for teachers to develop and maintain productive relations with the parents of each student. Further, the departmentalization or specialization of instruction by academic subject results in teachers having fewer interactions with individual students (Dornbusch & Glasgow, 1996; Eccles & Harold, 1996). Third, and in conjunction with the previous point, the increase in the number of teachers each student has across subjects makes it difficult for parents to know whom to contact to obtain information about their adolescents’ progress. Fourth, the complexity of curricular choices and the often obscured nature of course tracking in middle school further complicate parental involvement (Hill & Taylor, 2004). Not only does the middle school context impact the types of involvement that matter, adolescents’ development itself impacts how parents can maintain involvement and its effectiveness (Hill & Chao, 2009).

Early Adolescent Development and Parental Involvement in Education

The types of parental involvement used and the nature of the relation between parental involvement and achievement may be influenced by characteristics of early adolescent development and family dynamics during adolescence. As has been outlined extensively elsewhere (Adams & Berzonsky, 2003; Lerner & Steinberg, 2004), adolescence is marked by dramatic cognitive development and the development of conceptualizations of the self as an autonomous, efficacious individual. Cognitively, adolescents have an increased ability to consider multiple dimensions of problems simultaneously when making decisions (Keating, 2004). In addition, adolescents have an increased ability to anticipate the results and consequences of their actions and decisions (Halpern-Felsher & Cauffman, 2001), learn from their successes and failures and apply that knowledge to future problem solving, and strategically coordinate the pursuit of multiple goals (Byrnes, Miller, & Reynolds, 1999).

Each of these abilities enables adolescents to play a more active role in their education and educational decisions. These cognitive changes may increase adolescents’ sense of efficacy, ability to make decisions about course selection, and ability to understand how courses and extracurricular activities are related to goals and aspirations in the immediate time frame and for the future and thereby decrease their need for direct parental involvement. That is, more direct involvement strategies, such as school-based involvement and direct homework assistance, may be needed less and thus are less effective (Seginer, 2006). Indeed, students’ increased sense of autonomy is associated with their desire to not have their parents visit the school (Stevenson & Baker, 1987). Often parents interpret students’ desire for autonomy as a cue to reduce more direct forms of parental involvement, such as home- and school-based involvement (Prescott, Pelton, & Dornbusch, 1986).

In addition to cognitive development, parent-adolescent relationships undergo a transformation and renegotiation during adolescence as they become less hierarchical and are characterized by increased bidirectional communication (Collins & Laursen, 2004; Steinberg & Silk, 2002). Early adolescence is marked by the need for a realignment of roles and expectations as adolescents question their parents’ authority (Grolnick et al., 2007; Smetana et al., 2004) and as parents attempt to set boundaries and communicate expectations while promoting healthy independence. Parental influence often becomes more indirect. Parents’ beliefs about adolescents’ abilities, skills, and potential shape adolescents’ own beliefs, which influence their performance (Bleeker & Jacobs, 2004; Jones & Schneider, 2009).

As parental influence becomes more indirect and promotes the use of adolescents’ developing decision-making skills, strategies for involvement in education should change as well. For early adolescence, parental involvement may entail communicating parental expectations for education and its value or utility, linking schoolwork to current events, fostering educational and occupational aspirations, discussing learning strategies with children, and making preparations and plans for the future—that is, academic socialization. We hypothesize that involvement that scaffolds adolescents’ burgeoning decision-making and problem solving skills and elucidates linkages between their schoolwork and future goals may be more strongly linked to achievement in middle school than is home- or school-based involvement. Parental involvement in education that reflects academic socialization allows parents to maintain their involvement while also affirming adolescents’ autonomy, independence, and advancing cognitive abilities.

In this meta-analysis, we examine the relative association between three types of parental involvement in education and academic achievement. Home-based involvement includes strategies like communication between parents’ and children about school, engagement with school work (e.g., homework help), taking children to events and places that foster academic success (i.e., museums, libraries, etc.), and creating a learning environment at home (e.g., making educational materials accessible, such as books, newspapers, educational toys). School-based involvement includes visits to school for school events (e.g., PTA meetings, open houses, etc.), participation in school governance, volunteering at school, and communication between parents and school personnel. Finally, academic socialization includes communicating parental expectations for education and its value or utility, linking school-work to current events, fostering educational and occupational aspirations, discussing learning strategies with children, and making preparations and plans for the future.

Ethnic Variations in Parental Involvement in Education

In addition to outlining types of parental involvement strategies, prior research has demonstrated ethnic differences in mean levels of parental involvement strategies (Baker & Stevenson, 1986; Kohl et al., 2000), parents’ beliefs about involvement (Lareau, 1987; Lynch & Stein, 1987), and the relations between parental involvement and academic outcomes (e.g., Hill et al., 2004; Hill & Craft, 2003). African Americans, in particular, have had a long and tumultuous history with American schools (Cross, 2003; Spencer, Cross, Harpalani, & Goss, 2003). Whereas African American cultural heritage has placed an emphasis on the value and utility of education, discrimination and bias experienced at school by many African Americans has resulted in a mistrust of school and teachers by many African American parents (Lareau, 1987; Ogbu, 1978). These historical and contemporary experiences may influence the nature of parental involvement and its influence. This is heightened during adolescence, because it is a time when African American students are grappling with their own ethnic identity (Hughes et al., 2006).

Prior research on ethnic differences in parental involvement has been mixed. Some research found that the relation between involvement and achievement is stronger for African Americans than European Americans (Hill et al., 2004), whereas others found that the relation is weaker (e.g., Seyfried & Chung, 2002). In a meta-analysis across prekindergarten to 12th grade, ethnicity had a negligible effect (Fan & Chen, 2001). Another meta-analysis found that the relation was positive for ethnic minorities (i.e., collapsing across African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans), but the strength of the relation was not compared across ethnicity (Jeynes, 2007). Although much has been written about ethnic differences in levels and types of involvement, it is unclear whether to expect the relation between involvement and achievement to vary across ethnicity.

The Meta-Analysis

The current investigation used meta-analytic techniques to synthesize the results of the existing empirical literature to determine the extent to which parental involvement is positively associated with achievement outcomes in middle school and which types of involvement have the strongest relation. We expect that involvement characterized as academic socialization will have the strongest positive relation with achievement outcomes as it empowers adolescents to act semiautonomously and understand the consequences and purposes of their actions; home-based and school-based involvement will have smaller relations. To assess the empirical evidence of ethnic variations in the relation between parental involvement and achievement, we examined differences between African Americans and European Americans in an exploratory manner.

Method

Results

Overall Relation Between General Parental Involvement and Achievement

Overall, the meta-analysis of the correlational studies demonstrated a positive relation between general parental involvement and achievement in middle school. The correlations ranged from −.49 to .73; the average weighted correlation across the 32 independent samples was r = .18, 95% confidence interval (CI) = .12, .24, Q(31) = 1,581.10, p < .0001. The distribution of these is represented in the funnel plot in Figure 1. Because the confidence interval does not include zero, we concluded that the relation between general parental involvement and academic achievement is positive and significantly different from zero. However, due to the size and the significance of the Q statistic, which is an assessment of the hetero-geneity of the distribution of correlations, there is likely more than one underlying construct of parental involvement with differing associations with academic outcomes.

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Figure 1

Funnel plot for the random effects model. The trim and fill technique imputes 11 studies to the left of the mean. White circles represent the effect sizes of all samples from studies providing bivariate correlations. Filled circles represent the imputed effect size.

When a meta-analysis is conducted, one common concern is publication bias. That is, the field often has a bias against publishing null results, which may render a meta-analysis based on published studies biased in favor of statistical significance. To prevent this, we attempted to obtain unpublished data from key researchers in the field. However, this is not always possible. To obtain an estimate of the publication bias, the “trim and fill” technique was used to impute potentially missing studies (Duval, 2005; Taylor & Tweedie, 2000). The trim and fill technique is based on the assumption that the full set of possible studies on a topic will be distributed symmetrically around a true mean. To estimate the number of plausibly missing studies, the trim and fill method “trims” the outlying studies that do not have a counterpart on the other side of the mean. The mean effect is recalculated, often resulting in a more conservative effect size; the outlying studies are returned, and their counterparts are estimated based on the new mean level effect size. Using this method, we estimated that 11 studies were potentially missing. These imputed studies were each below the mean and had a negative correlation between parental involvement and achievement (see Figure 1).

Next, we conducted moderator analyses to determine whether the strength of the relation between parental involvement and achievement varied among the three types of involvement.

Discussion

In the face of declines in academic achievement during middle school and increased barriers associated with maintaining parental involvement with adolescents (who are increasingly autonomous and independent) and in middle schools (that are larger and more bureaucratic), the synthesis of the extant literature confirms that parental involvement is positively associated with achievement. Moreover, through this meta-analysis, we identified a specific type of involvement, namely academic socialization, that has the strongest positive relation with achievement during middle school. School-based involvement was also positively related to achievement, but less strongly so. Finally, the results for home-based involvement were mixed. Involvement that entailed assisting with homework was not consistently associated with achievement, whereas other types of home-based involvement were positively related to achievement.

Academic socialization includes parents’ communication of their expectations for achievement and value for education, fostering educational and occupational aspirations in their adolescents, discussing learning strategies with children, and making preparations and plans for the future, including linking material discussed in school with students’ interests and goals. An adolescent’s ability to engage in logical and analytic thinking, problem solving, planning, and decision making increase during adolescence (Halpern-Felsher & Cauffman, 2001; Keating, 2004). Further, it is during adolescence that goals, beliefs, and motivations are internalized and such inner processes shape adolescents’ academic performance and course selection (Wigfield, Byrnes, & Eccles, 2006). Academic socialization includes the types of strategies that will scaffold adolescents’ burgeoning autonomy, independence, and cognitive abilities. In addition, this type of involvement represents developmentally appropriate strategies of involvement, as it fosters and builds upon the development of internalized motivation for achievement, focuses on future plans, provides a link between school work and future goals and aspirations, and is consistent with the needs of middle school students. Further, it provides young adolescents with the tools to make semiautonomous decisions about their academic pursuits.

In addition to being developmentally appropriate for adolescents, academic socialization strategies are developmentally appropriate for middle school contexts. One of the largest challenges for middle school teachers in their attempts to involve parents is the large number of parents with whom they must develop relationships. Middle school teachers instruct many more students than elementary school teachers. Moreover, because students have multiple teachers, it is difficult for parents to develop productive relationships with their adolescent’s teachers (Hill & Chao, 2009). Academic socialization as a parental involvement strategy is adaptive for middle school contexts because it is not dependent on the development of deep, high-quality relationships with each teacher—a goal that is often not feasible even for the most motivated teacher. It is dependent on parents’ knowledge about how to navigate the middle school context, which is information that can more easily be provided to parents through communications between the school and home and through electronic communications (e.g., Bouffard, 2009), and builds upon the relationship between the adolescent and the parent. This type of involvement can be more easily solicited by adolescents as they assess their own needs and direct their interests and trajectories. Further, students’ academic promise may elicit this level of involvement and planning from parents.

School-based involvement was also positively related to achievement, although the relation was weaker than the relation for academic socialization. Whereas prior research and theory have demonstrated the positive effect of school-based involvement (Comer, 1995; Epstein & Sanders, 2002; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Hill, 2001; Hill & Craft, 2003; Lareau, 1987), it is possible that the processes through which school-based involvement has its effect (e.g., increasing social capital or knowledge) are more difficult to realize in middle school. School-based involvement during middle school is less likely to entail involvement directly in one’s child’s classroom. It is more likely to entail assisting teachers with preparation (e.g., bulletin boards, setting up classrooms), fundraising, administrative duties in the office, or committee work. Whereas this type of involvement is important for the functioning of the school, it often does not directly provide parents with knowledge about instructional styles and course content that will facilitate their involvement with their students’ schoolwork. Further, because students have multiple teachers in middle school, parents would need to spend a considerable amount of time at school to build relations with each teacher and spend time in each classroom. Finally, as adolescents become more independent, they do not want their parents to visit the school (Stevenson & Baker, 1987); they want to be trusted that they will manage their responsibilities. That is, adolescents often indicate that they want their parents’ help but do not want their parents to visit the school (Collins & Laursen, 2004; Grotevant, 1998). Given adolescents’ increased sense of efficacy, autonomy, and problem-solving skills, they may have a greater role in soliciting the type of involvement they need from their parents, which would make active school-based involvement less effective than other types of involvement.

Home-based involvement entails a range of activities from supporting achievement by providing appropriate structure and intellectually engaging materials in the home to monitoring and checking homework. The provision of an educationally supportive home environment consistently has been shown to be positively related to achievement (Chao et al., 2009; Reynolds & Gill, 1994). In contrast, helping with homework has been shown to both accelerate and interfere with achievement (Cooper, 1989, 2007; Wolf, 1979). The negative relation may be due to parental interference with students’ autonomy, to excessive parental pressure, or to differences in how parents and schools present the material. On the contrary, supporting a student who is having trouble completing or understanding homework can deepen and further the student’s understanding of the material. The meta-analysis of the extant literature demonstrated that, on the whole, parental assistance with homework is not consistently associated with achievement. It is plausible that, rather than undermining achievement, parental engagement in homework is elicited by poor school performance, which also results in a negative relation between homework help and achievement.

Attempts at disentangling the direction of effect are futile with correlational research. Longitudinal, natural, and experimental designs provide the best context for social scientists to infer causality or direction of effect (Duncan et al., 2004). The synthesis of interventions designed to increase the amount and quality of parental involvement in homework demonstrated only a weak association between homework help and achievement, and in some cases a negative effect. Whereas in some cases parents’ direct involvement in homework may rescue a failing student, the provision of support and structure that enable middle school students to function semiautonomously, understand the value and utility of education for their future, and understand how the knowledge gained at school links to their interests, talents, and current events seems most significant.

In the context of these consistent findings showing that parental involvement in education is positively associated with achievement during middle school (with the exception of homework help), there are a number of limitations to the existing literature that give us some pause in the confidence we have in our conclusions and provide fruitful ground for future research. First, we have attempted to be careful in our discussion of the findings to refrain from making causal inferences. Whereas most theories suggest that parental involvement improves achievement, there is also a growing body of literature that points to the motivating effect of prior achievement in increasing or decreasing levels of parental involvement (Eccles, 2007; Hoover-Dempsey, Ice, & Whitaker, 2009). For example, the negative relation between parental homework help and achievement may reflect parents’ appropriate response for children who are not performing well, rather than demonstrating that parental homework help undermines achievement. Further, adolescents’ increased cognitive abilities, sense of efficacy, and confidence may result in soliciting advice and involvement from parents, which also impacts our understanding of the nature of the dynamic relation between involvement and achievement. Second, the studies included in this meta-analysis reflect incredible heterogeneity in measurement and study design. Indeed, based on our review of the literature, there is not a standard measure of involvement that is used consistently in studies of middle school families. Rarely does one see the same measure used across studies (Hill & Tyson, 2005). The most consistently used measure is from Steinberg et al. (1992; five items). Three studies cited it; however, two studies modified it. Even when researchers used the same national datasets (e.g., NELS-88), different items were used to assess parent involvement across studies. Although such heterogeneity might undermine our ability to identify consistent patterns in the relation between parental involvement and achievement, the meta-analysis still points to the conclusion that parental involvement that reflects academic socialization has the strongest positive relation with achievement.

Finally, the state of the extant literature did not permit a thorough examination of ethnic and socioeconomic variations in involvement and their relation with academic outcomes. The findings suggested that there is no difference in the strength of the relation between involvement and achievement for European Americans compared to African Americans when considering the findings from the random effects models, which extrapolate to the broader literature (i.e., random-effects design). However, the fixed effect models demonstrated that the relation was positive for both African American and Euro-American families, but stronger for European Americans. Some research suggests that parental involvement has different meanings and motivations across ethnicity (Hill & Craft, 2003; Lynch & Stein, 1987), and those from varying economic background engage in parental involvement with different levels of social capital (i.e., resources, knowledge; Hill et al., 2004; Lareau, 2003; Lareau & Horvat, 1999). It is possible that seemingly ethnic differences are ultimately the result of differences in economic resources. Thus, ethnic differences found in the fixed effects model may be due to the potential confounding of ethnicity and other contextual factors in the studies in this meta-analysis. Supporting this contention, Jeynes’s (2005) meta-analysis found no statistical differences in the strength of the relation between studies reflecting “mostly ethnic minority” samples and Euro-American samples when socioeconomic indicators were controlled. Similarly, Fan and Chen (2001) did not find ethnicity to be a significant moderator in their meta-analysis. It is also possible that ethnic differences in beliefs, practices, and processes are not related to involvement as defined in this study. For example, prior research has found that African American parents’ involvement has entailed monitoring the school and teachers rather than forming partnerships with them (Lareau & Horvat, 1999), and African American parents of high achievers have indicated that they are involved at school, in part, to demonstrate to school personnel their commitment to education.

Other than with African Americans, the body of literature on parental involvement in middle school does not include sufficient studies of other sizable ethnic groups, such as Latinos or Asian Americans. Although there is evidence that Asian American students have the highest average achievement levels, their parents are the least involved in education as defined by the prevailing theories (Chao, 2000). Given current demographic trends that predict that Latinos will become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States, it is imperative that psychologists conduct research to understand how Latino families and schools work together most productively. In addition, it is important to identify the types of involvement strategies used by Asian American families. This is particularly important because academic socialization as a parental involvement strategy is more dependent on parents’ knowledge and resources and schools’ ability to provide such information to parents than are other types of involvement.

In the current policy climate—one that requires schools to maintain policies and support parental involvement in education—it is imperative that the scientific field identify developmentally appropriate practical strategies for middle schools. Although the NCLB Act (2002) requires parental involvement in education, largely defined as accountability and communication between families and schools, the results of this meta-analysis suggest that programs and policies need to consider a broader range of involvement strategies. In their mandates, policies such as the NCLB should carefully consider the specific needs of middle school students, including the provision of information about tracking and placement as it effects college access, the ways in which curriculum can be linked to students’ interests and current events, and linkages between the middle school curriculum and students’ long term goals. Lack of guidance was the primary reason that academically able students did not attend postsecondary institutions after high school (Catsambis & Garland, 1997; Conners & Epstein, 1995; Jordan & Plank, 2000). In the current context of increased demand for parental involvement in education (e.g., school choice, tracking, course selection), without effective parental involvement, adolescents’ opportunities are often foreclosed, leading to lost potential, unrealized talent, diminished educational and vocational attainment, and widening demographic gaps in achievement.

Acknowledgments

Footnotes

References