Chinese Parenting Styles and Parental Involvement on Adolescents’ School Success

Abstract

Academic burnout and engagement are important indicators of students’ school success.

Studies have revealed that parenting styles and parental involvement have significant

influences on students’ academic burnout and engagement. However, few studies have

explored the mechanism of how parenting styles and parental involvement impact

students’ academic burnout and engagement, especially among Chinese high school

students. This study examined whether parenting styles and parental involvement (based

on parental report) influenced high school students’ academic burnout and engagement

via perceived parental support (based on adolescent report). A total of 285 Chinese high

school students and their fathers and mothers participated in the current study. Results

indicated that paternal authoritative parenting negatively related to academic burnout, and

maternal authoritarian parenting positively related to academic burnout. Additionally, in

both paternal and maternal models, perceived parental support mediated the relations

between authoritative parenting and knowledge and skills involvement and students’

academic engagement. Moreover, the study also indicated that fathers and mothers may

influence boys’ and girls’ academic burnout and engagement differently. Parents and

schools can use the findings to increase high students’ academic engagement and

decrease students’ academic burnout.