Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item Individual and School Characteristics as Predictors of Parental Involvement(2014) Grossman, Julie Adina; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Parental involvement in children's education is of critical importance in the U.S. educational system. Therefore, it is useful to identify effective predictors of parental involvement. The present study used multi-level analyses to examine how individual and school-level characteristics impact two forms of parental involvement (school-based and home-based parental involvement) in first grade and eighth grade. Several child/parent level characteristics significantly predicted parental involvement. Parent interaction/social capital demonstrated medium to large effects across both forms of parental involvement in both first and eighth grades. Many of the other child/parent level characteristics produced small effect sizes. Across both forms of parental involvement there were few school-level effects that were statistically significant. Those that were statistically significant were very small in magnitude. The results of the present study may serve to inform school practices and research in the field of parental involvement.Item Parental involvement of Asian American immigrant mothers: Investigating social capital, English proficiency, length of U.S. residency, and social class(2009) Shin, HaeJin; Holcomb-McCoy, Cheryl; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The major purpose of the present study was to examine how the parent social and cultural contexts are related to Asian American immigrant mothers' educational involvement. This study investigated four parents' socio-cultural background variables: a) parent's social capital, b) parent's self-perceived English proficiency, c) parent's length of residence in the United States, and d) parent's social class status. In addition, the current study sought to determine the underlying dimensions of Asian American immigrant mothers' parental involvement in order to examine how parent social and cultural background factors influence each of the dimensions differently. The subjects for the current study were 597 nationally representative Asian American immigrant mothers who completed the parent questionnaire of the base-year Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002). Five dimensions of parental involvement were identified in the current study sample of Asian American immigrant mothers. These include parent's engagement in social activities with her child, parent's positive school contact, parent's monitoring, parent's school contact for problems, and parent's participation at school functions. A series of multiple regression and logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationships between parent's social and cultural backgrounds and each of five dimensions of the Asian American parental involvement. The results showed that Asian American immigrant mothers' social capital, English proficiency, and social class were significantly related to parent's engagement in social activities with her child. Further, mother's social capital, English proficiency, and social class status were significantly positively related to parent's monitoring. Of the various parent's social and cultural background variables, only parent's social capital significantly predicted Asian American immigrant mothers' positive school contact and participation at school functions. No relationship was found between parent social and cultural background variables and Asian American immigrant mothers' school contact for problems.Item Addressing the Hispanic Dropout Crisis: Predicting the Educational Persistence of Mexican-Descent Students Using Demographic and Process Variables(2008-12-18) DiPaula, John Joseph; Lucas, Margaretha S; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT While there has been a concerted effort to close the achievement gap and decrease school dropout rates for more than 30 years, Hispanic students are still dropping out of school at two and a half times the rate of black students, four times the rate of white students and almost eight times the rate of Asian students (Kaufman, Alt & Chapman, 2002). The Hispanic dropout crisis has been recognized as a national problem and was addressed by the federal government through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, through its focus on closing the racial gap in graduation rates. Regrettably, data continues to suggest that this situation is not improving (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). A more thorough understanding of the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational persistence is necessary to help create policies and practices to increase Hispanic graduation rates and close the graduation gap. Investigating deeper into this issue of Hispanics drop out, census data disaggregated by national origin, reveal that there are strong differences between nationalities and that Mexicans have the lowest rate of educational attainment among all Hispanic groups (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). Due to the disparity in performance within the larger Hispanic population, this study will focus on the sub-group with the lowest educational attainment and highest drop out rate, Mexican youth. The purpose of this study is to investigate those input and process variables that may be influenced by school personnel in order to help increase Mexican-descent students' ability to persist in school toward graduation. The current study, in essence, will contribute to a better understanding of students' social support from adults at school (social capital) and the effect this has on students' educational expectations, attendance and persistence. The current study utilizes the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002/2004 (ELS:2002/2004) dataset sponsored by NCES.