The Relation Between Parents' Involvement Beliefs and Behaviors and Teachers' Perceptions of Parents' Beliefs and Behaviors

This study explored two factors related to parents' involvement in their children's educations- - parents' beliefs about their role in their children's educations and teachers' perceptions of those beliefs. The study extended work on Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler's model of parent involvement by examining whether parents' beliefs and life context mediates the relation between their race/ethnicity and income and parents' home-based involvement and, more specifically, involvement with homework. Parents' beliefs included their self-efficacy and role construction for involvement. Parents' life context included their knowledge and skills, and time and energy. The shared understandings parents and teachers establish during their interactions, or intersubjectivity, was examined in two ways. A model linking parents' race/ethnicity and income to their beliefs, life context, and involvement was compared to a model linking parents' race/ethnicity and income to teachers' perceptions of parents' beliefs, life context and home-based involvement. Also examined was what factors moderate the relation between parents' reported beliefs, life context, and involvement and teachers' perceptions of these factors. Data from 750 African American and European American parents and 47 teachers from a Mid-Atlantic school district were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Parents' race/ethnicity was related to their self-efficacy, role construction, and involvement with their children's homework, with African American parents reporting greater levels of these factors. Parents' race/ethnicity, however, was not related to their general home-based involvement. Three aspects of teachers' practices, their communication with parents, their knowledge of parents, and their expectations for parents' involvement moderated the relation between parents' reports and teachers' perceptions. These relations suggest that some aspects of teachers' practices may influence parent-teacher intersubjectivity and that parent involvement programs that target teachers' knowledge of and communications with parents may be beneficial. The results of this study also suggest that African American parents may view their role in their children's educations differently than European American parents and may be involved in different ways. The results of this study also support the use of Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler's model of parent involvement as a useful research tool