UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Parental Involvement

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    THE ROLE OF VIETNAMESE AMERICAN FATHERS’ INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S EDUCATION
    (2016) Ho, Amy; Wigfield, Allan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Research in the field of parental involvement is important to identify ways to help support children’s academic achievement outside of school. This study extended the literature by examining father involvement within a sample of Vietnamese American fathers using mixed methodologies. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 18 fathers; and quantitative data were collected through questionnaires completed by the fathers, mothers, and one school-aged child in the family. The interview data were analyzed using grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and underwent peer review throughout analysis to ensure codes were reliable and valid. The questionnaire data were analyzed using correlations and descriptive statistics. Results from the interviews found two roles that fathers take on in their home involvement, the role of the principal and the role of teacher. Findings also revealed five dimensions to be considered in examining the roles and responsibilities of parents: distribution of roles, flexibility and specificity in the responsibilities of the principal role, and directness and frequency in the responsibilities of the teacher role. Further, results from the qualitative data showed that culture and ethnic identity have influence an on fathers’ beliefs, expectations, and practices. For example, fathers indicated that they prioritize their children’s activities around belief in the Confucius teaching that education is key to upward mobility. The collectivistic views within Asian culture helped fathers to set high expectations and enforce rules for children’s academic achievement as this reflect the achievement of the family and community too. Findings from the quantitative data showed that fathers’ ethnic identity, involvement, beliefs, and expectations, and children’s motivation and achievement were related to each other in various ways. Consistent across both types of data results showed that fathers were more involved at home, specialized and focused on math achievement, and that ethnic identity and culture played a role in the fathers’ beliefs and strategies to parenting. This study provides rich information on the breadth and depth of fathers’ involvement and the process involved in helping their children succeed in school. Future research should continue to examine fathers’ involvement to fully understanding the mechanisms of parental involvement.
  • Thumbnail Image
    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.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    EXPLORING FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE AND CAPITAL: CASE STUDIES OF LATINO IMMIGRANT FAMILIES SUPPORTING THEIR CHILDREN'S EDUCATION, WITH A FOCUS ON MATHEMATICS
    (2014) Napp-Avelli, Carolina A.; Chazan, Daniel; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Latino students are frequently positioned by widespread achievement gap discourse at the bottom of the attainment spectrum. Both students and families are portrayed as inadequate and deficient, and are blamed for their lack of success in mathematics. One recommendation to improve Latino students' educational performance is to increase parental involvement in mathematics among Latinos. However, life conditions of Latino immigrant families include factors that often make it difficult for parents to get involved in the education of their children in the ways that schools expect. This study explores the knowledge and resources two Latino immigrant families have acquired thorough their experiences and how they use them to support their children's education and mathematics education. In order to analyze families' resources, a theoretical framework composed by the concepts of educability, capital, and funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth was developed. The construct of educability, which analyzes the tensions between the limitations that poverty and other life conditions impose on families and the possibilities for students to succeed in school, provides the overarching structure of the framework. Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital and the cycle of reproduction of capital describe why social groups with more capital (middle and upper classes) acquire capital easily, whereas social groups with less capital (low socioeconomic working classes) have fewer opportunities to acquire capital. This piece of the framework explains why it is so difficult for students living in hard conditions to overcome them and succeed academically. The funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth perspectives made it possible to identify the resources and knowledge families have acquired through their experiences and understand their actions and hopes in connection to their life histories. In particular, the study analyzes how families use their resources along three dimensions that affect children's conditions of educability. First, the study looks at how parents influence students' dispositions towards education; second, how parents develop relationships with schools; and third, how parents influence what students do in their leisure time. The researcher's journey as a white middle-class highly educated woman working with Latino working-class families is also analyzed as part of the study.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    PARENTING AND COLLEGE ENROLLMENT: THE EFFECTS OF PARENTING STYLE AND PRACTICES ON COLLEGE ENROLLMENT FOR BLACK, WHITE AND HISPANIC CHILDREN FROM DIFFERENT ECONOMIC AND FAMILY CONTEXTS
    (2011) Mckinney, Erica Shannel; Hughes, Sherick; Goldscheider, Frances; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study used logistic regression to analyze the effects of parenting style and practices on college enrollment for 2116 Hispanic, Black and White respondents from differing economic and family contexts. Using data from the young adult children of women of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, five key findings related to parenting and college enrollment were identified. They include: 1) The effect of parenting practices on college enrollment is not influenced by the parenting style adopted by the parent 2) The authoritarian parenting style is a better predictor of college enrollment than the authoritative parenting style for Hispanic respondents 3) Higher parental involvement at home is associated with higher odds of college enrollment 4) Higher parental involvement at school is associated with higher odds of college enrollment only for White students from single-mother and dual-parent families 5) There is a negative interaction between being Black and higher parental involvement at school The findings of this study contribute to the literature on parenting styles, parental involvement and college enrollment. The implications for practice and research are discussed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    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.