Pomerantz 2007

Review of Educational
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The How, Whom, and Why of Parents' Involvement in Children's Academic

Lives: More Is Not Always Better
Eva M. Pomerantz, Elizabeth A. Moorman and Scott D. Litwack
REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 2007 77: 373
DOI: 10.3102/003465430305567
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Review of Educational Research
September 2007, Vol. 77, No. 3, pp. 373–410
DOI: 10.3102/003465430305567
© 2007 AERA. http://rer.aera.net
The How, Whom, and Why of Parents’

Involvement in Children’s Academic Lives:
More Is Not Always Better
Eva M. Pomerantz and Elizabeth A. Moorman

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Scott D. Litwack
University of Connecticut
A key goal of much educational policy is to help parents become involved in

children’s academic lives. The focus of such efforts, as well as much of the
extant research, has generally been on increasing the extent of parents’
involvement. However, factors beyond the extent of parents’ involvement
may be of import. In this article, the case is made that consideration of the
how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives is
critical to maximizing its benefits. Evidence is reviewed indicating that how
parents become involved determines in large part the success of their
involvement. It is argued as well that parents’ involvement may matter more
for some children than for others. The issue of why parents should become
involved is also considered. Implications for future research and interven-
tions are discussed.
KEYWORDS: parent involvement, parenting, motivation, acheivement.

Bridging the gap between home and school is a major objective of much educa-
tional policy at the federal, state, and local levels. Critical to fulfilling this aim is par-
ents’ involvement in children’s academic lives. Indeed, at the federal level, in the No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001, increasing such involvement is one of six targeted
areas for reform. Moreover, several national organizations, such as the Parent
Teacher Association and the National Coalition for Parental Involvement in
Education, have as a primary goal promoting parents’ involvement in children’s edu-
cation. The educational reforms of many states (e.g., California, Illinois, Minnesota,
Missouri) also include efforts aimed at heightening parents’ involvement. In addi-
tion, many teachers and parents are uniting at the local level to develop programs to
increase parents’ involvement in their schools (e.g., Adams et al., 2004).
The aim of increasing parents’ involvement in children’s schooling is based
on a wealth of research suggesting that such involvement is beneficial for children
(for reviews, see Fan & Chen, 2001; Hill & Taylor, 2004; Jeynes, 2003, 2005;
Pomerantz, Grolnick, & Price, 2005). To date, the research conducted on parents’
involvement in children’s education has generally taken the approach of examin-
373
Pomerantz et al.
ing the extent to which parents are involved, with more involvement on the part of
parents being better for children. Although such an approach is a fundamental first
step, factors beyond the extent of parents’ involvement are of major significance.
Indeed, as Epstein and Van Voorhis (2001) argued with regard to the time children
spend on homework, it is “more than minutes.” In fact, contrary to what is often
assumed, more involvement on parents’ part may not always be better for children.
The primary goal of this article is to make the case that consideration of the
how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s education is critical to
maximizing its benefits for children. We set the stage by first discussing different
forms of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives and the mechanisms by
which such involvement may enhance children’s achievement. We also review the
research examining the effects on children of the extent to which parents are
involved in their schooling. We then turn to addressing the how, whom, and why
of parents’ involvement. First, we cover recent evidence indicating that how par-
ents are involved is critical to the success of their involvement. Second, we raise
the possibility that parents’ involvement may benefit some children more than
others: the whom of parents’ involvement. Third, we focus on the issue of why
parents should be involved; we make the case that there are benefits not only for
children’s achievement but also for their psychological functioning more broadly.
We end with a discussion of the implications of these issues for future research and
interventions.
Defining Parents’ Involvement and Its Mechanisms of Influence
What Constitutes Parents’ Involvement?

Drawing on several diverse lines of theory and research, Grolnick and
Slowiaczek (1994) defined parents’ involvement in children’s schooling as parents’
commitment of resources to the academic arena of children’s lives. Although a
number of meaningful distinctions have been drawn between different forms of
such commitment (e.g., Epstein, 1987; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Hickman,
Greenwood, & Miller, 1995; Ritblatt, Beatty, Cronan, & Ochoa, 2002), following
several investigators (Becker & Epstein, 1982; Epstein, 1990; Hoover-Dempsey &
Sandler, 1997; Izzo, Weissberg, Kasprow, & Fendrich, 1999), we make the broad
distinction between involvement based at school and that based at home. We use
this distinction because it is a concrete, parsimonious one that may be used with ease
by researchers, policy makers, educators, and parents. As such, it allows for conti-
nuity across these often separate, albeit related, stakeholders in children’s lives.
Moreover, the distinction between involvement on the school front and that on the
home front is of import because the two may embody distinct ways that parents
become involved in children’s schooling, with distinct effects on children.
School-based involvement represents practices on the part of parents that
require their making actual contact with schools. Practices in this vein include, but
are not limited to, being present at general school meetings, talking with teachers
(e.g., attending parent-teacher conferences, initiating contact with teachers),
attending school events (e.g., open houses, science fairs), and volunteering at
school. Parents in the United States most commonly become involved on the
school front through their presence at general school meetings and parent-teacher
conferences, which national surveys indicate are attended by approximately two
374
Parents’ Involvement
thirds of parents regardless of their ethnicity (U.S. Department of Education,
2006). Such involvement is even higher among parents with heightened socioeco-
nomic status and educational attainment. Other forms of involvement also increase
with socioeconomic status and educational attainment. For example, volunteering
at school is less common among less educated (e.g., 16% to 40% in 2003) than
more educated (e.g., 54% to 62% in 2003) parents (U.S. Department of Education,
2006). Volunteering in school is also less common among Hispanic (e.g., 28%
in 2003) and African American (e.g., 32% in 2003) parents than their European
American counterparts (e.g., 48% in 2003).
Parents’ school-based involvement may also include involvement at a higher
level, such as being a member of the school board and attending school board meet-
ings. Epstein (1990) labeled this involvement in governance and advocacy, distin-
guishing it from school-based involvement at a lower level. In line with the
majority of extant research (for some exceptions, see Eccles & Harold, 1996;
Epstein, 1987), we do not focus on parents’ involvement in governance and advo-
cacy. The direct impact on children may be quite small, given the limited interac-
tions parents and children may have in its context. Moreover, only a very small
proportion of parents (5% to 6%) become engaged in such involvement (Ritblatt
et al., 2002).
Home-based involvement represents parents’ practices related to school that
take place outside of school, usually, though not always, in the home. Such prac-
tices can be directly related to school, including assisting children with school-
related tasks, such as homework (e.g., creating a quiet place for children to study,
helping children in completing homework) and course selection, responding to
children’s academic endeavors (e.g., choices about the topic of a school project,
performance on a test), and talking with children about academic issues (e.g., what
happened in school, the value of doing well in school). In national surveys in the
United States, parents’ involvement on the home front as manifest in assisting with
homework is relatively frequent, with about 70% of parents helping children at
least once a week, regardless of parents’ socioeconomic status, educational attain-
ment, or ethnicity (U.S. Department of Education, 2006).
Also characteristic of parents’ home-based involvement is engaging children in
intellectual activities (e.g., reading books with children, taking them to museums)
that may not be directly related to school per se. Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994)
labeled this cognitive-intellectual involvement. On the basis of national surveys,
this form of involvement is most frequently manifest in the United States in terms
of visiting the library (e.g., 50% in 2003) but also occurs fairly frequently in terms
of taking children to plays (e.g., 36% in 2003) and museums or historical sites (e.g.,
22% in 2003), with such involvement more common among wealthier, educated,
non-Hispanic parents (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Parents’ involvement
on the home front may sometimes be tied to parents’ involvement on the school
front. For example, parents may use knowledge gained at parent-teacher confer-
ences in assisting children with homework.
By What Mechanisms Does Parents’ Involvement Influence Children?
Parents’ involvement on both the school and home fronts has been argued to
enhance children’s achievement in school (Epstein, 1983; Grolnick, Kurowski,
& Gurland, 1999; Hill & Taylor, 2004; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001; Pomerantz
375
Pomerantz et al.
et al., 2005). Two major sets of models have been proposed. In skill development
models, parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives improves children’s
achievement because of the skill-related resources it provides children. By “skill-
related resources,” we mean cognitive skills, such as receptive language capabil-
ity and phonological awareness, as well as metacognitive skills, such as planning,
monitoring, and regulating the learning process. There are a number of reasons
why parents’ involvement may enhance such skills among children. First, when
parents are involved in children’s academic lives, they may gain useful informa-
tion about how and what children are learning in school; such information may aid
them in helping children build cognitive and metacognitive skills (see Baker &
Stevenson, 1986). Second, when parents are involved in children’s academic lives,
parents may gain accurate information about children’s abilities. Holding such
information may enable parents to assist children at a level that fosters maximal
skill development among children (see Connors & Epstein, 1995; Epstein, 1987).
Third, even when parents do not have such knowledge, their home-based involve-
ment may provide children with opportunities to learn from practice and instruc-
tion (see Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). Fourth, Epstein and Becker (1982) suggested
that parents’ involvement on the school front is valuable because when teachers
see parents as involved, they give the children of these parents heightened atten-
tion toward developing their skills.
The central idea behind motivational development models is that parents’
involvement enhances children’s achievement because it provides children with
a variety of motivational resources (e.g., intrinsic reasons for pursuing academics,
a sense of control over academic performance, positive perceptions of academic
competence) that foster children’s engagement in school. First, when parents are
involved in their children’s academic lives, they highlight the value of school
to children, which allows children themselves to view school as valuable (e.g.,
Epstein, 1988; Hill & Taylor, 2004). Over time, children may internalize the value
of school, so that their academic engagement is driven by intrinsic (e.g., enjoy-
ment, personal importance) rather than extrinsic (e.g., avoidance of shame,
rewards) forces (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994). Second, parents’ involvement in
children’s schooling represents an active strategy for dealing with school and the
challenges it presents. Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) argued that by being
involved, parents model a strategy in which they take control of the situation, often
to create positive change. Such a strategy may convey to children that they also
have control over their performance in school. Third, when parents are involved in
children’s academic lives, they may make children more familiar with school tasks,
which may lead children to see themselves as competent in the academic arena
(Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994).
It is likely that parents’ involvement in children’s schooling enhances children’s
achievement through both skill and motivational development. Parents may pro-
vide resources that simultaneously cultivate children’s skills and motivation.
Moreover, when parents aid children in developing their skills, children may ben-
efit in terms of their motivation. For example, children may learn useful strategies
from their parents for doing mathematics; these strategies may enhance children’s
mathematical skills, which may lead children to feel competent and in control in
mathematics. The reverse may also be true: The motivational resources provided
by parents’ involvement may aid children in developing their skills. Thus, when
376
parents cultivate intrinsic motivation in children for reading, for instance, children
may so enjoy reading that they exert heightened effort in this area, thereby enhanc-
ing their reading skills.
Effects of Parents’ Involvement
Since the early 1980s, much theoretical and empirical attention has been
directed toward the role of parents’ involvement in children’s achievement. This
endeavor has manifested itself in two bodies of research, which have covered fam-
ilies from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds with children mainly in
preschool through middle school (for research on families with children in high
school, see Brown, Mounts, Lamborn, & Steinberg, 1993; Gonzalez, Holbein, &
Quilter, 2002; Taylor, 1996). In one line of research, the focus has been on the
effects of parents’ naturally occurring involvement. Investigators have generally
measured the extent of a variety of forms of parents’ involvement in children’s
schooling using parents’, teachers’, and children’s reports. The associations of
such reports with children’s achievement, mainly as reflected in children’s grades,
have then been examined concurrently, as well as longitudinally. In a second line
of research, using a variety of designs (e.g., pre- and postassessment, experimen-
tal and matched control groups), investigators have examined the effects on chil-
dren’s achievement of interventions that are intended to promote parents’
involvement in children’s schooling (e.g., a booklet of academic activities for par-
ents to encourage children’s reading or a contract between staff members, parents,
and children pledging involvement on the part of parents). As will be apparent from
our review of these two lines of research, they yield fairly different conclusions.
Research on Parents’ Naturally Occurring Involvement
There is now a wealth of research linking parents’ naturally occurring involve-
ment in children’s schooling to children’s achievement. The findings of the stud-
ies examining the effects of parents’ school-based involvement are consistent with
the notion that such involvement is beneficial for children. Much of the research
has revealed concurrent associations between heightened school-based involve-
ment on parents’ part and enhanced achievement on children’s part (e.g., Culp,
Hubbs-Tait, Culp, & Starost, 2000; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Hill, 2001; Keith
et al., 1993; Miliotis, Sesma, & Masten, 1999). For example, in a nationally
representative sample, Stevenson and Baker (1987) linked teachers’ reports of
parents’ involvement in school activities with teachers’ reports of children’s
performance in school and the extent to which children performed up to their abil-
ity during the elementary through high school years. Similarly, focusing on mainly
middle-class European American early adolescents, Grolnick and Slowiaczek
(1994) showed that teachers’ and children’s reports of parents’ involvement in
school activities (e.g., parent-teacher conferences, open houses) were associated
with children’s grades. The apparent benefits of parents’ involvement are also evi-
dent among families of other backgrounds (e.g., d’Ailly, 2003; Jeynes, 2003,
2005). For example, Hill and Craft (2003) found that middle-class African
American mothers’ involvement in kindergarten children’s school activities
(as reported by mothers and teachers) was associated with enhanced grades
among children.
More notably, longitudinal research indicates that parents’ school-based
377
Pomerantz et al.
involvement foreshadows children’s later achievement (e.g., Grolnick, Kurowski,
Dunlap, & Hevey, 2000; Hill et al., 2004; Miedel & Reynolds, 1999). For exam-
ple, in a study of low-income, ethnically diverse families, mothers’ reports of their
involvement on the school front (e.g., presence at parent-teacher conferences, vol-
unteering in the classroom) when children were in kindergarten predicted height-
ened literacy skills among children during the elementary school years, adjusting
for children’s literacy skills during kindergarten (Dearing, Kreider, Simpkins, &
Weiss, 2006). In a similar vein, also focusing on low-income, ethnically diverse
families, Izzo et al. (1999) found that during the elementary school years, parents’
participation in school activities foreshadowed heightened math achievement
among children 2 years later, taking into account children’s earlier achievement.
In a study of European American and African American adolescents, parents’
reports of their school-based involvement (e.g., attendance at school open houses,
volunteering in the classroom) predicted increased grades among children 2 years
later, adjusting for their earlier grades (Gutman & Eccles, 1999).
Less research has been conducted on parents’ home-based involvement. Of the
research that has been conducted, some of it is consistent with the notion that par-
ents’ involvement on the home front has positive effects on children’s academic
functioning (e.g., Hickman et al., 1995; Hill et al., 2004; Kurdek & Sinclair, 1988).
This is particularly true for parents’ practices not directly related to school, that is,
practices related to children’s intellectual enrichment. For example, in their study
of mainly middle-class families of European descent, Grolnick and Slowiaczek
(1994) found that such involvement (e.g., reading the newspaper with children,
taking children to the library) as reported by early adolescents was positively asso-
ciated with their grades. In fact, parents’ cognitive-intellectual involvement in ele-
mentary school foreshadows children’s grades in reading following the transition
to middle school, adjusting for children’s earlier grades (Grolnick et al., 2000). In
longitudinal research with mainly middle-class parents of European descent,
Senechal and Lefevre (2002) demonstrated that the more exposed children were to
reading during the kindergarten years, the better their subsequent reading skills
(e.g., receptive language, phonological awareness) in third grade (for similar
results among low-income, ethnically diverse families, see Raikes et al., 2006).
Unfortunately, the effects of parents’ home-based involvement in activities that
are directly related to school are less clear. Several studies looking at such involve-
ment among European American and African American parents found little evi-
dence of a link with children’s academic functioning (e.g., Halle, Kurtz-Costes, &
Mahoney, 1997; Hill & Craft, 2003). Cooper’s (1989) meta-analysis revealed cor-
relations between parents’ involvement in children’s homework and children’s
achievement ranging from –.22 to .40. Studies since then have not yielded a more
consistent picture (e.g., Pezdek, Berry, & Renno, 2002; Shumow & Lomax, 2002).
Indeed, several concurrent investigations of families from diverse backgrounds
have revealed that parents’ assistance with homework is associated with poor per-
formance in school among children (e.g., C. Chen & Stevenson, 1989; Cooper,
Lindsay, & Nye, 2000; Georgiou, 1999). Although it is possible that this reflects
the negative effects of parents’ assistance with homework, research conducted by
Pomerantz and Eaton (2001) suggests that this is unlikely. In this research with
mainly middle-class European American families, children’s poor performance in
378
school predicted mothers’ heightened assistance with homework 6 months later.
Once children’s initial achievement was taken into account, mothers’ assistance
predicted an increase in children’s achievement over time. This implies that par-
ents assist children who are having difficulty with homework, which then improves
how these children do in school. Thus, it is likely that the findings of concurrent
investigations reflect a tendency for parents to respond to children’s poor perfor-
mance in school with increased assistance. However, even some longitudinal
research has failed to find positive effects of parents’ assistance when adjusting for
children’s prior achievement (Levin et al., 1997).
When parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives on the school and
home fronts does have positive effects, it appears to be due to both skill and moti-
vational development. Testing a motivational development model among mainly
middle-class European American families, Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) linked
parents’ involvement on the school and home (i.e., cognitive-intellectual involve-
ment) fronts to heightened positive perceptions of competence among children,
which accounted in part for the link between parents’ involvement on these fronts
and children’s heightened achievement. Taken along with research linking parents’
involvement to children’s skills (e.g., Senechal & LeFevre, 2002; Senechal,
LeFevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998), the direct link between parents’ involvement
and children’s achievement that remained after taking into account children’s per-
ceptions of competence is suggestive of the role of skill development. However,
the idea that skill development mediates the link between parents’ involvement and
children’s grades in school has not received direct attention.
Conclusions
In sum, the research on parents’ involvement on the school front is fairly
consistent in suggesting that such involvement benefits children in terms of their
achievement. The effects of parents’ school-based involvement on children’s
achievement are compelling in that they do not appear to be accounted for by par-
ents’ socioeconomic status or educational attainment (e.g., Miedel & Reynolds,
1999; Miliotis et al., 1999). However, despite the use of longitudinal designs tak-
ing into account children’s earlier achievement (e.g., Dearing et al., 2006; Gutman
& Eccles, 1999; Hill et al., 2004; Izzo et al., 1999), definitive conclusions about
the causal role of parents’ involvement on the school front await experimental
designs manipulating parents’ involvement.
The research on parents’ involvement on the home front yields a less consistent
picture. On one hand, parents’ home-based involvement geared toward children’s
intellectual enrichment not directly related to school foreshadows enhanced
achievement among children. On the other hand, parents’ home-based involvement
directly linked to school does not always appear to have such benefits. The ambi-
guity regarding parents’ home-based involvement raises particular concern,
because this is the most frequent form of involvement for most parents (Ritblatt
et al., 2002). As we argue later, considering the how and whom of parents’ involve-
ment may be critical to understanding why parents’ home-based involvement does
not have consistently positive effects on children’s achievement.
Research on Interventions to Promote Parents’ Involvement
Although the research on the effects of parents’ naturally occurring involvement
379
in children’s academic lives suggests that it often, though not always, has positive
effects, the research on the effects of interventions to promote parents’ involve-
ment is less clear. White, Taylor, and Moss (1992) conducted a meta-analysis of
the effects of programs intended to promote parents’ involvement in the context of
early intervention programs, such as Head Start, for disadvantaged, medically at
risk, and handicapped children. The large majority of studies focused on parents’
home-based involvement in terms of parents’ teaching children developmental
skills, such as motor, language, and self-help skills. In the context of predicting
children’s cognitive abilities, when the internal validity of the studies was high, the
effect sizes of early intervention programs without parental involvement were
about the same as those of programs with parental involvement. Moreover, the few
internally valid studies manipulating parents’ involvement in the context of early
intervention programs provided little evidence that parents’ involvement was ben-
eficial for children. Since White et al.’s meta-analysis, there has been little research
contradicting their conclusions.
Meta-analyses examining the effects of programs to promote parents’ involve-
ment in children’s schooling during the elementary and middle school years also
do not support the benefits of such programs (Cooper, Charlton, Valentine, &
Muhlenbruck, 2000; Mattingly, Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriguez, & Kayzar, 2002).
In 2002, Mattingly et al. conducted a meta-analysis of programs designed to pro-
mote parents’ involvement (mostly home based but some school based). The avail-
able information, which is quite scarce, suggests that such programs have been
implemented mainly among low-income families of non-European descent.
Although the 17 studies using pre- and postintervention designs without control
groups yielded positive effects of such programs across a variety of outcomes (e.g.,
children’s achievement, parents’ attitudes toward school), this was not the case for
the 14 studies using designs in which the interventions were compared with
unmatched or matched control groups. If anything, these more internally valid
studies yielded negative effects (but for a different conclusion, see Graue,
Weinstein, & Walberg, 1983). However, as Mattingly et al. (2002) emphasized,
these findings must be interpreted with caution because of serious methodological
problems in many of the studies. A somewhat more positive picture was painted
by a meta-analysis on the effects of summer programs for the remediation of learn-
ing deficiencies with parental involvement components (e.g., volunteering in the
classroom, observing in the classroom, attending parent-teacher conferences;
Cooper, Charlton, et al., 2000). In this meta-analysis, such programs had larger
positive effects on children’s academic performance on average than similar pro-
grams without parental involvement components. However, Cooper, Charlton,
et al. (2000) emphasized caution in drawing conclusions from these findings
because there were only eight programs with parental involvement components,
and there was “great variation in the effect estimates” (p. 74).
Conclusions
In sum, the research on interventions designed to promote parents’ involvement in
children’s schooling yields a less positive view of the effects of parents’ involvement
than the research on parents’ naturally occurring involvement. On one hand, this is
problematic because intervention studies provide the optimal window into causation
by manipulating parents’ involvement. On the other hand, as Mattingly et al. (2002)
380
argued, there has not been enough internally valid research on the effectiveness of
interventions designed to promote parents’ involvement to draw firm conclusions
about the influence of such interventions (see also White et al., 1992). In addition, par-
ents who are naturally involved in children’s academic lives may be involved in a dif-
ferent manner than parents induced to be involved (see Zellman & Waterman, 1998).
Thus, as discussed in the next section on the how of parents’ involvement, under-
standing the quality of parents’ involvement may be crucial to understanding why
intervention programs have generally not succeeded.
The How of Parents’ Involvement: It’s Not Just the Extent
Theory and research on the extent of parents’ involvement in children’s school-
ing have proved important in elucidating the role of parents in children’s achieve-
ment. However, as may be evident from our review, a second step is necessary to
fully realize the benefits of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives. We
now turn to making the case that how parents are involved in children’s schooling
contributes to the effectiveness of their involvement (see Darling & Steinberg,
1993; Grolnick, 2003; Pomerantz et al., 2005). In doing so, we draw from Darling
and Steinberg’s (1993) proposal that the effects of parents’ practices on children
are determined by the style with which such practices are used. In the context of
parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, we focus on four qualities of parents’
style that have emerged as important in theory and research on parenting (see
Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Dix, 1991; Eccles, 1983; Maccoby & Martin, 1983;
Pomerantz et al., 2005): autonomy support vs. control, a process vs. person focus,
positive vs. negative affect, and positive vs. negative beliefs about children’s poten-
tial (see Table 1). As will be evident from our review below, the research on these
qualities has mainly been on middle-class families of European descent. Although
more research is clearly needed, the extant research on families from other back-
grounds has yielded findings similar to those described below (e.g., Bean, Bush,
McKenry, & Wilson, 2003; Brody & Flor, 1997; d’Ailly, 2003; McGroder, 2000;
Simpkins, Weiss, McCartney, Kreider, & Dearing, 2006; Wang, Pomerantz, &
Chen, in press).
Controlling Versus Autonomy-Supportive Involvement
There is an extensive body of theory and research on multiple forms of parental
autonomy support and control (for reviews, see Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998a; Rollins
& Thomas, 1979; Steinberg, 1990). We draw on Deci and Ryan’s (1987) self-
determination theory (see also Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001),
in which autonomy support is defined as allowing children to explore their own envi-
ronment, initiate their own behavior, and take an active role in solving their own
problems. Controlling behavior, in contrast, involves the exertion of pressure by par-
ents to channel children toward particular outcomes (e.g., doing well in school) by
regulating children through such methods as commands, directives, or love with-
drawal. In the context of parents’ school-based involvement, autonomy support and
control may manifest themselves in a number of ways (see Table 1). For example,
when visiting children’s classrooms during a school open-house, parents may be
autonomy supportive by allowing children to show them around; parents may be con-
trolling by directing the tour themselves. On the home front, autonomy-supportive
381
TABLE 1
Examples of the different qualities of parents’ school- and home-based involvement
Type of involvement
Quality of involvement School based Home based
Autonomy support Parents encourage children to Parents support children in

show them around during developing their own
open houses in children’s schedules for doing their
classrooms. homework.
Control When volunteering in Parents make decisions without
children’s classrooms, children’s input about the
parents monitor children’s topic of their school research
work habits. projects.
Process focus When attending open houses While helping children with
and seeing children’s work, homework, parents focus on
parents focus on what fun the process of mastering the
children might have had in work.
doing the work.
Person focus After attending parent-teacherIn praising children’s success at
conferences, parents homework problems, parents
emphasize to children emphasize the role of
issues regarding children’s children’s innate ability in
innate ability. solving them.
Positive affect Parents express enjoyment Parents’ conversations with
and love toward their children about their day at
children when taking part school are characterized by
in school field trips. support and caring on parents’
part.
Negative affect Parents become irritated and Parents are hostile and critical
annoyed with children while checking over
about having to talk to children’s homework.
children’s teachers. .
Positive beliefs about At a parent-teacher conference, While assisting with homework,
children’s potential parents are sure to attend to parents convey to children
children’s strengths. that they have the potential to
do well.
Negative beliefs about In attending open houses, Parents focus their conversations
children’s potential parents ignore the difficult with children on avoiding
tasks because they believe complete failure in school
children have little potential rather than on how children
for such tasks. might achieve success.
parents may support children in developing their own schedule for completing home-
work, whereas controlling parents may do so for children without their input.
When parents become involved in children’s academic lives in an autonomy-
382
supportive rather than controlling manner, children may benefit in terms of their
achievement for two key reasons. First, in line with the notion that parents’ involve-
ment enhances children’s achievement through skill development, autonomy-
supportive involvement provides children with the experience of solving chal-
lenges on their own, which may enable children to build their skills (e.g., Ng,
Kenney-Benson, & Pomerantz, 2004; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wolfson, Mumme, &
Guskin, 1995; Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998b). When parents’ involvement is con-
trolling, children do not have the experience of solving challenges on their own.
Second, consistent with motivational development models, when parents support
children’s autonomy, they allow them to take initiative, which may lead children
to feel that they are in charge and capable of influencing their surroundings (e.g.,
Deci & Ryan, 1985; Grolnick, Deci, & Ryan, 1997). This may heighten children’s
intrinsic interest, leading them to be engaged with their environment in a manner
that enhances achievement. In contrast, when parents are controlling, they may
deprive children of feeling that they are autonomous, effective agents.
There is now a fairly large body of research using a variety of methods consis-
tent with the idea that parents’ autonomy support enhances children’s performance
in school, whereas parents’ control inhibits it (for reviews, see Grolnick, 2003;
Pomerantz, Grolnick, et al., 2005). These effects appear to begin early in children’s
lives and extend into the adolescent years (e.g., Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993;
Grolnick et al., 2000; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Ng et al., 2004; Steinberg, Elmen,
& Mounts, 1989; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992). For exam-
ple, among European American families from a range of socioeconomic back-
grounds, mothers’ controlling behavior, particularly appeals to authority, with
4-year-old children was associated not only with children’s demonstrating poor
school readiness 1 or 2 years later but also with children’s doing poorly in school
8 years later (Hess & McDevitt, 1984). In addition, Grolnick, Gurland, DeCourcey,
and Jacob (2002) had mainly middle-class children and mothers of European
descent work on tasks in a laboratory. In this context, the more autonomy sup-
portive and less controlling mothers were, the better their elementary school chil-
dren’s performance on the tasks.
The few studies to date that have examined the extent to which parents’ involve-
ment is autonomy-supportive versus controlling in children’s schooling per se
paints a similar picture. Middle-class European American parents who adopt
autonomy-supportive rather than controlling orientations toward assisting children
with homework (e.g., refraining from assisting with work when children do not
need help but assisting when children need help) have children who do well in
school during the elementary and middle school years (Cooper, Lindsay, et al.,
2000). In a similar vein, longitudinal research conducted by Steinberg et al. (1992)
showed that parents’ involvement in adolescents’ schooling (e.g., assisting with
homework, attending school programs, helping with course selection), as reported
by adolescents from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, predicts heightened achieve-
ment among children when parents were perceived by adolescents as authoritative
(i.e., high in autonomy support, structure, and warmth) rather than authoritarian
(i.e., high in control and structure and low in warmth).
It appears that one reason that parents’ autonomy support versus control may
benefit children’s achievement is because it provides motivational resources that
foster positive engagement in school. A number of studies have shown that the
383
Pomerantz et al.
more autonomy supportive and less controlling parents are, the more positive chil-
dren are in their perceptions of their academic competence (e.g., Grolnick & Ryan,
1989; Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1991; Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, &
Dornbusch, 1994; Wagner & Phillips, 1992) and the more positive their attribu-
tions for their performance (Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998b). The children of such par-
ents also appear to be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated in the school
context (e.g., d’Ailly, 2003; Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989)
and demonstrate heightened persistence in the face of challenge (Nolen-Hoeksema
et al., 1995). Notably, the link between elementary school children’s views of their
parents as autonomy supportive rather than controlling and children’s enhanced
achievement is accounted for in part by their elevated perceptions of competence
and intrinsic motivation (Grolnick et al., 1991). In a similar vein, adolescents’
heightened psychosocial maturity (e.g., positive orientation toward school, self-
reliance) mediates the tendency for adolescents’ perceptions of their parents as
autonomy supportive versus controlling to predict an increase in children’s grades
over time (Steinberg et al., 1989). It is not clear if children’s skill development is
improved as a consequence of parents’ autonomy support versus control, given that
this issue has not received empirical attention.
Process- Versus Person-Focused Involvement
Several lines of theory and research suggest that the extent to which parents
focus on the process of learning versus innate ability or performance is an impor-
tant dimension of parenting (e.g., Dweck & Lennon, 2001; Gottfried, Fleming, &
Gottfried, 1994; Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Pomerantz, Ng, & Wang, 2006). We
refer to this dimension of parents’ involvement as process versus person focused
(see Dweck & Lennon, 2001). However, other characterizations, such as mastery
versus performance orientation (Hokoda & Fincham, 1995) and task endogeny ver-
sus exogeny (Gottfried et al., 1994), have also been used. A process focus empha-
sizes the importance and pleasure of effort and learning (see Gottfried et al., 1994;
Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998; Pomerantz et al., 2006). A per-
son focus, in contrast, emphasizes the importance of stable attributes, such as intel-
ligence, and outcomes, such as performance (Gottfried et al., 1994; Kamins &
Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998; Pomerantz et al., 2006). An example of a
process (vs. person) focus in the context of school-based involvement is when
attending an open house and seeing children’s work, parents discuss children’s
effort rather than ability (see Table 1). In the context of home-based involvement,
while helping children with homework, parents may direct children’s attention to
the process of learning rather than their performance.
When parents are process focused in the context of their involvement in children’s
academic lives, they may enhance children’s performance through skill and motiva-
tional development. In terms of skill development, part of being involved in a process-
focused manner includes highlighting the importance of effort or learning, which may
foster the development of children’s skills (Pomerantz et al., 2006). In contrast, when
parents’ involvement is person focused, little attention may be directed to effort and
learning, because importance is placed on the attributes children already possess.
Thus, such involvement may not provide children with an opportunity for develop-
ing skills. Consistent with motivational development models, the emphasis on effort
and learning characteristic of a process focus may lead children to be motivated for
384
intrinsic reasons such as mastery (Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Mueller & Dweck,
1998). However, when parents are person focused, children may concentrate on
demonstrating their intelligence (Mueller & Dweck, 1998), which may foster extrin-
sic motivation.
Although no research to date has examined the effects of parents’ process ver-
sus person focus on children’s performance in school, there is a growing body of
research suggesting that parents’ process-focused involvement enhances children’s
school performance. For example, Mueller and Dweck (1998) had an unknown
adult give elementary school children from diverse ethnic backgrounds either
process-focused (i.e., “You must have worked hard at these problems”) or person-
focused (e.g., “You must be smart at these problems”) praise in a laboratory.
Children given process-focused praise were more likely to view ability as mal-
leable, adopt mastery over performance goals, and attribute their failure to effort
instead of ability than were children given person-focused praise. Children given
process-focused praise also persisted to a greater extent, expressed more positive
affect, and performed better in the face of failure. Similarly, preschool children
asked to imagine their teachers giving them process-oriented criticism (i.e.,
“Maybe you could think of another way to do it”) were less likely than their coun-
terparts imagining person-oriented criticism (e.g., “I am very disappointed in you”)
to draw negative conclusions about their abilities, experience negative affect, and
give up (Kamins & Dweck, 1999).
Similar effects are evident for parents’ process- and person-focused practices.
Using observational methods in the context of a laboratory task with qualities sim-
ilar to those of homework, Hokoda and Fincham (1995), studying mainly middle-
class European American mothers and their elementary school children, found that
mothers who reacted to children’s performance-oriented behavior (e.g., concen-
trating on how much time is left) with process-focused practices (“That’s okay;
you did your best”) were particularly likely to have mastery-oriented children (see
also Gottfried et al., 1994). Research in which mainly middle-class European
American mothers reported daily on their responses to their elementary school
children’s academic successes indicates that when mothers refrain from using
person-focused praise, 6 months later, children hold incremental views of ability
and embrace challenging tasks (Kempner & Pomerantz, 2003). Middle-class
European American mothers’ process focus in the context of their assistance with
children’s homework predicted enhanced perceptions of competence and mastery
orientation 6 months later, but only for children with negative perceptions of com-
petence (Pomerantz et al., 2006).
Involvement Characterized by Positive Versus Negative Affect
As Dix (1991) emphasized, parenting is an inherently affective endeavor (see
also Larson & Gillman, 1999). This may be particularly true of parents’ involve-
ment in children’s schooling (Reay, 2000). On the positive side, one reason that
parents may assist children with homework is to establish a sense of connected-
ness with them (Pomerantz, Wang, & Ng, 2005a). Thus, when involved in chil-
dren’s schooling, many parents may attempt to maintain positive affect by making
their interactions with children enjoyable, loving, and supportive. Indeed, on the
basis of her interviews with a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample of
mothers of elementary school children, Reay (2000) described mothers as provid-
385
Pomerantz et al.
ing encouragement and empathy to children in the context of their involvement in
children’s schooling. On the negative side, despite attempts to be positive, parents
may experience negative affect because children themselves experience negative
affect around academic activities (Fuligni, Yip, & Tseng, 2002; Leone & Richards,
1989), leading parents to become irritated and annoyed or even hostile and critical
(Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). Moreover, parents’ involvement may be colored
by negative affect because of the stress of other commitments (Reay, 2000). As
illustrated in Table 1, parents’ positive versus negative affect may manifest itself
in school-based involvement in a variety of ways (see also Reay, 2000). For exam-
ple, parents may express enjoyment rather than irritation while talking to teachers
or volunteering in the classroom. In the context of involvement on the home front,
parents may be supportive and caring rather than hostile and critical during con-
versations with children about their day at school.
When parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives is characterized by
more positive than negative affect, it may promote children’s achievement through
the development of their skills and motivation (see Estrada, Arsenio, Hess, &
Holloway, 1987; Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1995;
Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a; for a different view, see Reay, 2000). In terms of
skill development, parents’ positive affect may foster positive affect in children
that counters the negative affect they often experience in the homework context
(Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a), allowing them to focus on cultivating their skills.
Fredrickson (1998, 2001) argued that the experience of positive emotions may cre-
ate openness to novel ideas and courses of action. In contrast, when parents trans-
mit negative affect to children, such affect may interfere with children’s attention
to their work and ultimately their development of skills. Consistent with motiva-
tional development models, by keeping their involvement enjoyable and loving,
parents may convey to children that although schoolwork can be frustrating, it is
an enjoyable endeavor, thereby fostering an intrinsic orientation. However, when
parents are involved in an irritable, critical manner, they may convey that doing
schoolwork is an unpleasant task. Parents’ positive (vs. negative) affect may also
signal parents’ support of children during times of difficulty, enabling children to
confront challenge constructively (see Estrada et al., 1987; Nolen-Hoeksema,
1987; Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).
Much of the research on parents’ affect has focused on its role in children’s
motivation and engagement rather than achievement. For example, in laboratory
research in which mainly middle-class European American children just entering
elementary school and their mothers worked on an unsolvable task, when mothers
expressed negative affect (e.g., hostility, criticism) toward children during this
task, children were less persistent in the face of challenge in the laboratory and
school (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1995). Also looking mainly at middle-class
European Americans, Hokoda and Fincham (1995) found similar effects of moth-
ers’ negative affect (e.g., pouting, anger) in their laboratory research with elemen-
tary school children: When mothers responded with positive affect (e.g.,
enjoyment, laughter) to tasks that were particularly difficult for children, children
exhibited less of a helpless orientation. Moreover, in a low-income, ethnically
diverse sample, Simpkins et al. (2006) found that the more mothers characterized
their relationships with their kindergarten children as warm, the more positive the
effects of mothers’ school-based involvement for children’s achievement (see also
386
Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).
Involvement Characterized by Positive Versus Negative Beliefs About
Children’s Potential
There is now evidence suggesting that how parents think about children’s
potential to do well in school influences how children actually do (for recent
reviews, see Pomerantz et al., 2005; Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, Roeser, & Davis-
Kean, 2006). Parents’ beliefs about children’s potential can take a variety of forms.
However, the most well studied beliefs in this vein have been parents’ perceptions
of children’s competence and expectations for children’s performance.1 Although
such beliefs are often based on children’s actual performance, there is much vari-
ability in this. Some parents are accurate, whereas others underestimate or overes-
timate children’s potential (e.g., Frome & Eccles, 1998; Miller, Manhal, & Mee,
1991; Parsons, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982). The beliefs parents have about children’s
potential may determine the character of their involvement in children’s schooling
(see Table 1). On the school front, parents who believe in children’s potential may,
for example, be attentive at parent-teacher conferences to what difficulties children
are having but not let this hinder their attention to children’s strengths, whereas
parents who doubt their children’s potential may focus solely on children’s diffi-
culties. On the home front, while assisting with homework, parents with positive
beliefs may attribute children’s difficulties to a lack of effort or the difficulty of the
homework, whereas parents with negative beliefs may attribute children’s diffi-
culties to a lack of ability on children’s part.
Like the other qualities of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, par-
ents’ beliefs may enhance children’s achievement through skill and motivational
development. First, when parents hold positive beliefs about children’s potential,
they may foster children’s skills by becoming involved in a way that challenges
children (e.g., providing advanced explanations, choosing difficult tasks, provid-
ing assistance onlywhen the work is hard; see Eccles, 1983). In contrast, when par-
ents hold negative beliefs, their involvement may occur at a lower level that
provides only the basics in terms of skill development. Second, when parents’
involvement is accompanied by positive beliefs about children’s potential, parents
may enhance children’s motivation by communicating to them that they are capa-
ble of doing well in school (see Eccles, 1983). This may fuel children’s effort,
which may enhance their achievement. In contrast, when parents hold negative
beliefs, they may detract from children’s motivational development.
Consistent with the notion that parents’ beliefs benefit children’s achievement,
lower- and middle-class European American and African American parents’ per-
ceptions of children’s academic competence foreshadow children’s achievement
6 months to as long as 1 year later, even when children’s earlier achievement is
taken into account (Halle et al., 1997; Pomerantz, 2005b). The heightened achieve-
ment of children whose parents’ perceive their competence positively appears to
be due, at least in part, to the role of parents’ perceptions in children’s own
perceptions (e.g., Frome & Eccles, 1998; Jodl, Michael, Malanchuk, Eccles, &
Sameroff, 2001; Parsons et al., 1982). Almost no research has examined how
parents’ beliefs actually color their involvement. However, in one study, when
mothers’ assistance with children’s homework was accompanied by positive per-
ceptions of children’s competence, children’s worrying about school was particu-
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Pomerantz et al.
larly low 6 months later, adjusting for their earlier worrying (Pomerantz, 2005a).
Conclusions
Taken together, the findings on the quality of parents’ involvement indicate that
although getting parents involved in children’s schooling is an important first step
for enhancing children’s achievement, how parents become involved is also impor-
tant. Parents’ involvement may be particularly beneficial for children when it is
autonomy supportive, process focused, characterized by positive affect, or accom-
panied by positive beliefs. However, parents’ involvement may have costs for chil-
dren if it is controlling, person focused, characterized by negative affect, or
accompanied by negative beliefs. Understanding how the quality of parents’
involvement in children’s academic lives moderates the effects of such involve-
ment is important because it can provide insight into the inconsistencies we high-
lighted earlier in the research on the effects on children of parents’ involvement
both in terms of school- versus home-based involvement and naturally occurring
versus intervention-induced involvement.
It is possible that the inconsistency with regard to the effects of parents’ natu-
rally occurring involvement on the school and home fronts may be due to how par-
ents become involved (see Cooper, Lindsay, et al., 2000; Pomerantz et al., 2006;
Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). On the school front, the events in which parents
become involved are often structured in a manner that facilitates parents’ positive
involvement. Many school-based events (e.g., open houses, festivals, plays, bake
sales) are designed by school personnel to be enjoyable for families. As such, they
may capitalize on parents’ desire to become involved in children’s academic lives
to establish a sense of connectedness with children. Moreover, such events often
place little emphasis on children’s performance. Because of their low demands on
time, the pressure on parents is also minimized. Thus, parents may find it relatively
easy to be autonomy supportive, focused on the process of children’s learning, and
affectively positive in their interactions with children. Even when school-based
events are not enjoyable, are focused on children’s performance, or involve some
pressure on parents, as may be the case for parent-teacher conferences, parents may
become positively involved because school personnel provide guidance about how
to do so. For example, when parents learn at a parent-teacher conference that chil-
dren are having difficulty with math, teachers may give advice on how parents can
be autonomy supportive in assisting with math.
In contrast, on the home front, although it may be easy for parents to become
positively involved around activities that are not directly related to school (e.g.,
reading to children, taking them to museums), this may be difficult around activi-
ties directly related to school (e.g., assisting with homework, responding to per-
formance). Involvement in such activities may be viewed by parents as particularly
important to children’s performance. Thus, it may be driven by parents’ belief that
it is their obligation to become involved, parents’ attempts to remedy children’s
poor performance, or parents feelings that their own self-worth is contingent on
children’s performance (Levin et al., 1997; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001; Pomerantz,
Wang, et al., 2005a). As a consequence, parents may sometimes feel pressured,
frustrated, and overly concerned with their children’s performance in the context
of their home-based involvement directly related to school. This may cause this
form of involvement to be controlling, person focused, and characterized by neg-
388
ative affect (see Grolnick et al., 2002; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001; Pomerantz, Wang,
et al., 2005a) more often than are other forms. Indeed, when parents feel pressure
to ensure children perform up to standards, they exert heightened control over chil-
dren (Grolnick et al., 2002; Gurland & Grolnick, 2005). Negative involvement may
also arise because parents experience themselves as lacking the skills to construc-
tively assist children (Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, & Brissie, 1992; Levin et al.,
1997); this may be common among uneducated parents (Lareau, 1987), as well as
educated parents given changes in pedagogy since they were in school (Kay,
Fitzgerald, Paradee, & Mellencamp, 1994).
Parents’ involvement on the home front in activities directly related to school
may also be negative because children may find a number of such activities dis-
agreeable. As a consequence, many parents may not become positively involved.
Regardless of their achievement level, children frequently experience negative
affect while doing homework (Fuligni et al., 2002; Leone & Richards, 1989). Such
negative affect may not only funnel down to parents so that they also experience
negative affect (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a) but also lead parents to become
more controlling as they attempt to contain children’s negative affect. Moreover,
parents are particularly likely to assist children with homework when children are
uncertain about how to do the work (Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001) and become frus-
trated (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). Research by Pomerantz, Wang, et al.
(2005a) suggested that a major reason mothers experience heightened negative
affect on days they help children with homework is because children are frustrated.
Children’s frustration may increase the chances that mothers are controlling,
unable to focus on the learning process, and perceive children as lacking ability.
The issues we have raised suggest that parents’ heightened involvement on the
school front may generally create an environment for children that fosters their
skill and motivational development. In contrast, parents’ involvement on the home
front may not always do so. Although some parents may become involved in activ-
ities directly related to school on the home front in a positive manner, this may not
be the case for other parents; in fact, as we have just highlighted, some parents’
involvement on the home front may be quite negative. It is thus not surprising that
research has yielded consistent positive effects of parents’ school-based but not
home-based involvement. The effects of parents’ home-based involvement may be
particularly important because this is not only the most frequent form of parents’
involvement (Ritblatt et al., 2002) but also likely to entail more interaction between
parents and children than does parents’ school-based involvement. As a conse-
quence, there may be greater opportunity for the environment created by parents’
home-based (vs. school-based) involvement to enhance or detract from children’s
skill and motivational development.
It is also possible that the ineffectiveness of interventions designed to pro-
mote parents’ involvement may be due to the quality of involvement induced.
Unfortunately, such interventions often focus on the quantity instead of quality of
parents’ involvement. It may be that parents who become involved on their own
generally do so in a higher quality manner than those who need prodding (see
Zellman & Waterman, 1998). Moreover, as White et al. (1992) emphasized, parents
need to feel empowered, but intervention programs may leave them feeling just the
opposite, often heightening feelings of pressure and frustration among parents.
Because interventions are designed to boost children’s achievement through par-
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Pomerantz et al.
ents’ involvement, parents may also become overly focused on children’s perfor-
mance and their role in promoting it. For example, in one intervention intended to
highlight children’s effort to children and parents, parents were told regularly not
only about children’s effort but also about their performance (Fantuzzo, Davis, &
Ginsburg, 1995). Moreover, parents were provided with a list of celebration activ-
ities and required to report back about how they celebrated children’s efforts and
performance. As with parents’ naturally occurring involvement, the pressure, frus-
tration, and concern with children’s performance that may be induced by inter-
ventions may produce poor-quality involvement. This may be further compounded
by the fact that the majority of involvement that is promoted by interventions is on
the home front. Indeed, as noted earlier in our review of the effects of interventions
to promote parents’ involvement, the most effective interventions have been in the
context of remedial summer school programs, which, unlike many other interven-
tions, focus on parents’ school-based rather than home-based involvement (Cooper,
Charlton, et al., 2000).
The Whom of Parents’ Involvement: The Child-Environment Fit
Increasingly, investigators concerned with the role of parents in children’s
development are adopting models of socialization in which the effects of parent-
ing on children’s development are determined in part by the characteristics of
children (e.g., Colder, Lochman, & Wells, 1997; Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg,
Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000; Grusec, 2002; Kochanska, 1993). Such Parent ×
Child models of socialization may be of particular import to understanding the
effects on children of parents’ involvement in their academic lives. We focus here
on one attribute of children that may play a particularly significant role in deter-
mining the effects of the quality of parents’ involvement: children’s competence
experiences (e.g., their achievement and perceptions of their ability). As a conse-
quence of a variety of influences (e.g., peer socialization, cognitive abilities), chil-
dren may come to their interactions with parents differing in their competence
experiences. Although all children may benefit from parents’ involvement in their
academic lives when it is characterized by such positive qualities as autonomy sup-
port, a process focus, positive affect, and positive beliefs, the benefits of such
positive involvement may be moderated by children’s competence experiences in
school (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005b).
Children with negative experiences may be particularly sensitive to the quality
of parents’ involvement because such children have a heightened need for the
resources important to skill and motivational development (Pomerantz, Wang,
et al., 2005b). Thus, children with negative competence experiences may derive par-
ticular benefit when parents’ involvement in their academic lives is autonomy sup-
portive, process focused, affectively positive, or accompanied by positive beliefs.
Through skill and motivational development, positive parental involvement may
foster achievement gains among children with negative competence experiences.
Unfortunately, such children may be particularly vulnerable when parents’
involvement is controlling, person focused, affectively negative, or accompanied
by negative beliefs, because it deprives them of the resources of which they are so
in need. In contrast, children with positive competence experiences may not be as
sensitive to how parents become involved because they already possess the
resources important to skill and motivational development.
390
Several longitudinal studies are consistent with the notion that children with
negative competence experiences are more sensitive than children with positive
experiences to how parents become involved. As will be evident in our review
below, the research to date has been focused almost exclusively on middle-class
families of European descent. Children with negative experiences are particularly
likely to benefit when parents become involved in their academic lives in an autonomy-
supportive rather than controlling manner. In one study, mainly middle-class
European American mothers’ responses to their elementary and middle school
children’s failure in a variety of areas, including academics, were assessed with
a daily checklist (Study 2 in Ng et al., 2004). Mothers’ autonomy-supportive
responses (i.e., discussing children’s failure with them) predicted increased per-
formance in school, and their controlling responses (i.e., reprimanding children for
their failure or punishing children for their failure) predicted decreased perfor-
mance the next day and 6 months later more for low- than high-achieving children.
In a second study, also on mainly middle-class European American families, mothers’
involvement with their elementary school children was observed in a laboratory in
the context of a challenging task designed to reflect the homework situation (Study
1 in Ng et al., 2004). Over the course of their interactions with children, mothers’
autonomy support predicted enhanced subsequent performance, and their control
predicted diminished subsequent engagement more for low- than high-achieving
children.
A similar pattern is evident for mothers’ process-focused involvement in chil-
dren’s schooling, although the effect of such involvement on children’s achieve-
ment per se has not been examined. In daily telephone interviews, mainly
middle-class European American mothers’ process focus (i.e., encouraging chil-
dren to understand their work and to do their work on their own) was examined in
the context of their assistance with elementary and middle school children’s home-
work (Pomerantz et al., 2006). When mothers adopted a process focus, children
with negative perceptions of their academic competence were more likely than
children with positive perceptions to benefit 6 months later in terms of their per-
ceptions of competence, thereby narrowing the difference over time in such per-
ceptions. In addition, when mothers were process oriented, children initially
perceiving themselves as lacking competence experienced gains over time in their
mastery focus, so that they were no less mastery oriented than their counterparts
with positive perceptions.
When mothers’ involvement in children’s academic lives is characterized by
positive affect, children with negative competence experiences also appear to
be particularly likely to benefit. Using the daily interview method with mainly
middle-class European American families, Pomerantz, Wang, et al. (2005a) focused
on mothers’ affect on the days their elementary and middle school children had
homework. In this study, the focus was on children’s competence experiences as
manifested in helplessness (i.e., frustration and giving up) in the academic context.
When mothers’ affect was positive on days when they were involved in children’s
homework, children demonstrating high levels of helplessness while completing
homework experienced heightened mastery orientation over the course of 6 months
to a greater extent than children demonstrating low levels of helplessness. The bene-
fit was to such a great extent that when mothers were particularly high in positive
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Pomerantz et al.
affect, helpless children’s mastery orientation was not lower than that of children
who were not helpless.
Children with negative competence experiences are also more likely than chil-
dren with positive competence experiences to benefit when their parents hold pos-
itive beliefs about their potential. Consistent with prior research, examining a
mainly middle-class European American sample, Pomerantz (2005b) demon-
strated that when mothers perceived their children’s academic competence in a
positive light, children benefited in terms of their grades 1 year later, even after
taking into account their earlier grades. However, among these elementary school
children, mothers’ beliefs about children’s potential predicted a greater increase
over time in grades for children who did not (vs. did) perceive their academic com-
petence in a highly positive light. Unfortunately, the increase in these children’s
achievement was accompanied by an increase in their worrying about school, sug-
gesting that they may have been concerned about whether they could actually live
up to their parents’ beliefs.
At first blush, one might conclude from the research to date that parents’
involvement in the academic lives of children with positive competence experi-
ences does not matter. However, such a conclusion is not warranted. Although how
parents become involved in their children’s academic lives appears to have little
influence on such children, there is evidence suggesting that they benefit, at least
emotionally, from parents simply being involved. Indeed, the frequency of moth-
ers’ assistance with homework predicts dampened negative emotional functioning
among children over the course of 6 months, regardless of their competence-related
experiences (Pomerantz et al., 2006). Grolnick et al. (1997) made the case that
parents’ involvement may provide children with a sense of feeling connected to
significant others. When parents simply sit with children while they are doing their
homework, for example, parents may provide children with a sense of connected-
ness from which children with positive competence experiences may benefit just
as much as those with negative competence experiences.
Children’s competence experiences may underlie other potential moderators of
parents’ role in children’s achievement. A common theme in studying parents’
involvement in children’s schooling has been its effects among families with chil-
dren at risk for achievement problems because of their families’ socioeconomic
status, educational attainment, or ethnicity (e.g., Anderson & Keith, 1997; Dearing
et al., 2006; Englund, Luckner, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004; Gutman & Eccles,
1999; Hill et al., 2004). Hill et al. (2004) suggested that parents’ involvement in
children’s schooling may be more beneficial for African American than European
American children because African American children are more likely to live
in environments characterized by forces that detract from their academic lives,
often promoting negative competence experiences. The same may be true of children
growing up in poor, uneducated families.
In line with this idea, parents’ involvement sometimes matters more for African
American than European American children (Hill et al., 2004); there is also evi-
dence that parents’ involvement plays a particularly large role in the achievement
of children with relatively uneducated parents (e.g., Dearing, McCartney, Weiss,
Kreider, & Simpkins, 2004). For example, in their study of low-income ethnically
diverse families, Dearing et al. (2006) found that mothers’ involvement on the
school front (e.g., presence at parent-teacher conferences, volunteering in the class-
392
room) when children were in kindergarten most strongly predicted heightened lit-
eracy skills among children during the elementary school years when mothers’
educational attainment was low (vs. high). Such effects are particularly striking
because not only are less (vs. more) educated African American (vs. European
American) parents often less involved in their children’s academic lives (U.S.
Department of Education, 2006), but some investigators have argued that such par-
ents are often less effectively involved in their children’s academic lives, at least
on the school front, where school personnel have expectations for appropriate
involvement (e.g., Horvat, Weininger, & Lareau, 2003; Lareau, 1987, 1996).
Children’s competence experiences are also suggestive of other moderators. For
example, as children become older, parents generally decrease their involvement
in children’s schooling (e.g., Cooper, Lindsay, et al., 2000; Dearing et al., 2006;
Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a; U.S. Department of Education, 2006). As children
get older, they may develop the skills necessary for doing their schoolwork inde-
pendently. For example, children may become increasingly skilled at planning,
monitoring, and regulating their learning process. Because such developments may
promote more positive competence experiences among children, parents’ involve-
ment may become less necessary as children progress through the school system.
However, this may depend on the form of involvement: Perhaps all children need
their parents to show interest in their lives by inquiring about school, but with age,
children no longer need their parents to sit down and help them go through their
homework problem by problem.
Children’s gender may also be of import in determining the effects on children’s
achievement of parents’ involvement in their schooling. Such involvement may be
less important to the academic functioning of girls (vs. boys). Because girls are
more self-disciplined and mastery oriented in the academic context than boys, they
often outperform boys in terms of grades (e.g., Duckworth & Seligman, 2006;
Kenney-Benson, Pomerantz, Ryan, & Patrick, 2006). As a consequence of such
positive competence experiences, although girls may benefit just as much as their
male counterparts from forms of parents’ involvement that reflect interest in their
lives, they may not reap the same benefits as boys from forms that mainly foster
skills and motivation, given that they are not in need of such resources to the same
extent as boys.
Conclusions
Research indicates that Parent × Child models are relevant to understanding the
effects of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling. Research to date is consis-
tent with the idea that children with negative competence experiences are the most
likely to benefit from involvement characterized by autonomy support, a process
focus, positive affect, or positive beliefs about children’s potential. However, these
children are also most likely to suffer when parents’ involvement is not character-
ized by these qualities. The heightened sensitivity of children with negative com-
petence experiences to parents’ involvement is particularly noteworthy because
these are often the children who are in particular need of aid. As Cooper, Lindsay,
et al. (2000) have noted, parents’ involvement may be most beneficial when parents
adjust it to children’s competence experiences. All of the research to date on the
moderating role of children’s competence experiences has focused on home-based
involvement directly linked to school in middle-class European American families.
393
Pomerantz et al.
It will be important to determine if a similar pattern exists for other forms of par-
ents’ involvement among families of diverse backgrounds. However, the moderat-
ing role of children’s competence experiences suggests that one reason parents’
home-based involvement directly linked to school may not have the same consis-
tently positive effects as other forms of parents’ involvement is because its effects
are contingent to a larger extent on what children bring to the interaction (see
Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). This may be particularly true given the heightened
amount of interaction between parents and children that occurs in the context of
such involvement. The moderating role of children’s competence experiences sug-
gests the role of other potential moderators, such as socioeconomic status, that must
be considered in identifying when parents’ involvement will benefit children.
The Why of Parents’ Involvement: Looking Beyond
Enhancing Children’s Achievement
Because promoting children’s achievement is one of the most central goals of
educational policy, the key reason for increasing parents’ involvement in chil-
dren’s academic lives has generally been that of enhancing children’s achievement
(for some exceptions, see Eccles & Harold, 1996; Epstein, 1990). In line with this
concern, most of the research on parents’ involvement has focused on its effects
on children’s motivation, engagement, and performance in school. Advancing chil-
dren’s achievement is clearly an essential endeavor. On the individual level, as
children make their way into adulthood, enhanced achievement provides children
with important opportunities in pursuing higher education and ultimately a choice
of careers that can afford a high quality of life (Hill et al., 2004; Young & Friesen,
1992). On the societal level, developing children’s academic skills is beneficial for
national advancement given that such skills are often important to areas (e.g., tech-
nology, science, education) critical to the successful functioning of society.
An equally important reason for promoting parents’ involvement in children’s
academic lives is that it has benefits for children’s mental health. Promoting chil-
dren’s mental health is a significant goal of much recent social policy (see McCabe,
2004). For example, the enhancement of children’s mental health is a key aim of
the report of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, released
in 2003, with specific recommendations pertaining to the mental health of children.
The goal of promoting children’s mental health is also becoming increasingly sig-
nificant in educational settings. At the broadest level, the No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 explicitly includes children with serious emotional disturbances.
Schools are required to work with such children to eliminate the emotional barri-
ers that interfere with their success in school.
Investigators have also argued that the educational setting is an important con-
text for the development of children’s emotional (Eccles, Lord, Roeser, Barber, &
Jozefowicz, 1997; Ladd, 1996; Noddings, 2003; Roeser & Eccles, 2000; Rudolph,
2005) as well as social (Noddings, 2003; Slavin, 1996; Slavin & Cooper, 1999)
functioning. As an extension of the educational setting, parents’ involvement
in children’s academic lives may shape such functioning among children (see
Pomerantz et al., 2006; Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).
To the extent that parents become involved in children’s schooling in a positive
manner, parents’ involvement may be a significant school-related context for the
development of children’s emotional functioning (Pomerantz et al., 2006;
394
Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a). For one, the enhanced skills and subsequent
achievement that parents’ involvement fosters may improve children’s emotional
functioning as children respond positively to their success. Children’s basic com-
petencies, such as intelligence, appear to foster emotional resiliency in children
encountering adversity (for a review, see Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Moreover,
there is a strong association between children’s achievement in school and their
emotional functioning, with some evidence suggesting that when children do well
in school, they experience reductions in emotional distress (e.g., X. Chen & Li,
2000; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998). Second, by promoting children’s moti-
vational development, parents’ involvement may improve not only academic but
also emotional functioning among children. Indeed, positive perceptions of com-
petence, an orientation toward mastery, and heightened engagement in school,
particularly when it is accompanied by persistence, predict decreased emotional
distress among elementary and middle school children (e.g., Cole, Martin, Peeke,
Seroczynski, & Fier, 1999; Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, & Seligman, 1992;
Pomerantz & Rudolph, 2003; Roeser et al., 1998; Rudolph, 2005). Third, parents’
involvement in children’s schooling may directly shape children’s emotional func-
tioning because of the affective nature of such involvement (see Pomerantz et al.,
2006; Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a, 2005b).
To date, there has been relatively little research linking parents’ involvement in
children’s schooling to children’s emotional functioning. However, the extant
research is generally consistent with the notion that parents’ involvement serves as
an important context for the development of children’s emotional functioning (e.g.,
Grolnick et al., 2000). For example, examining low-income ethnically diverse fam-
ilies, Shumow and Lomax (2002) reported that parents’ heightened involvement
mainly on the school front (e.g., attendance at school events, talking to children’s
teacher) was associated with heightened self-esteem among adolescents. Hill and
Craft (2003) demonstrated that the more middle-class European American and
African American parents were involved in kindergarten children’s school activi-
ties (as reported by mothers and teachers), the better children’s emotion regulation
skills. On the home front, mainly middle-class European American mothers’
heightened assistance with homework predicted dampened negative emotional
functioning (i.e., experience of negative emotions, depressive symptoms, and anx-
iety symptoms) among elementary and middle school children over 6 months,
adjusting for their earlier negative emotional functioning (Pomerantz et al., 2006).
However, such involvement on mothers’ part was not predictive of children’s sub-
sequent positive emotional functioning (i.e., experience of positive emotions, self-
esteem, and life satisfaction).
The little research taking the quality of parents’ involvement into account extends
the idea that parents’ involvement plays a role in children’s emotional functioning,
by suggesting that parents must be involved in a positive manner. Kenney-Benson
and Pomerantz (2005) created a situation in the laboratory designed to mirror the
homework situation. Middle-class European American elementary school children
whose mothers were involved in the task in an autonomy-supportive manner were
less vulnerable to depressive symptoms than their counterparts whose mothers were
involved in a controlling manner. This was accounted for by the tendency for chil-
dren with autonomy-supportive mothers to report feeling less external pressure to
meet perfectionist standards than children with controlling mothers. In addition,
395
Pomerantz et al.
among mainly middle-class families of European descent, children perceiving their
academic competence negatively were particularly likely to benefit in terms of their
positive, but not negative, emotional functioning over 6 months when mothers
assisted with homework in a process-oriented manner (Pomerantz et al., 2006).
Moreover, also in mainly middle-class European American families, children’s pos-
itive, but not negative, emotional functioning suffered over 6 months when mothers
accompanied their assistance with negative affect and failed to counter this with pos-
itive affect (Pomerantz, Wang, et al., 2005a).
Parents’ involvement in children’s schooling can also enhance children’s social
functioning; that is, it may improve their behavioral conduct (e.g., following the rules
in school, refraining from aggressive behavior) and relationships with their peers.
For one, the skills and motivation that children develop when their parents are posi-
tively involved in their academic lives, along with the ensuing enhanced achieve-
ment, may place children in a leadership role in which they take positive initiative in
the classroom with their peers, refraining from violating classroom norms. Such
behavior may foster positive peer relationships because children not only become
role models but also engage in positive interactions with their peers. In a different
vein, when parents’ are positively involved in children’s academic lives, they may
communicate to children that they care about them (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994),
which may ultimately contribute to a secure attachment between parents and chil-
dren. The positive relationship between parents and children may serve as a model
for children in developing relationships with others, thereby promoting positive rela-
tionships with peers (e.g., Bowlby, 1988; Cohn, 1990).
Evidence for the idea that parents’ involvement in children’s schooling plays a
role in children’s social functioning comes from a number of studies on the issue.
Several studies focusing on families from a variety of backgrounds have linked
parents’ involvement in children’s schooling to decreased behavior problems (e.g.,
acting out, delinquency, substance abuse) among children (e.g., Jenkins, 1995;
Reynolds, Weissberg, & Kasprow, 1992; Scheer, Borden, & Donnermeyer, 2000;
but see also Stewart, 2003). For example, among a Head Start sample of mainly
low-income African American families, parents’ home-based involvement (e.g.,
the creation of a space for learning activities, the provision of learning opportuni-
ties in the community), as reported by parents at the beginning of the school year,
predicted diminished classroom behavior problems among children as reported by
teachers at the end of the school year (Fantuzzo, McWayne, Perry, & Childs, 2004;
see also Hill & Craft, 2003). A similar relation has been established for early ado-
lescents, for whom parents’ involvement on both the school (e.g., contact with
teachers, attendance at school open houses) and home (e.g., assistance in choos-
ing classes, discussion with children about what they are doing in school) fronts in
seventh grade predicted decreased school behavior problems in eighth grade
among middle-class, but not lower-class, children (Hill et al., 2004). Several stud-
ies have also found that the more involved parents are in children’s schooling, the
more positive children’s social skills. In one such study of mainly low-income
African American families, parents’ involvement on both the school (e.g., the cre-
ation of opportunities to get to know children’s teachers, participation in parent
education programs at school) and home (e.g., the provision of educational
materials, the routine reviewing of schoolwork) fronts was associated with kinder-
garten children’s social skills that contribute to successful interaction with peers
396
(McWayne, Hampton, Fantuzzo, Cohen, & Sekino, 2004). However, parents’
heightened involvement sometimes is associated with dampened social functioning
(e.g., Izzo et al., 1999). For example, in a mainly middle-class European American
sample, Grolnick et al. (2000) found that increases in parents’ school involvement
across the transition to junior high school were associated with increased acting-out
behaviors among children. It could be that parents heighten their involvement on
the school front when children experience social difficulties, often in response to
calls from school personnel (Grolnick et al., 2000; Izzo et al., 1999).
As is the case for academic and emotional functioning, how parents become
involved in children’s schooling appears to be important for children’s social func-
tioning. Reynolds et al. (1992) assessed the extent of low-income, ethnically
diverse parents’ school-based involvement when children were in kindergarten by
having teachers report on the frequency with which it occurred. The quality of par-
ents’ school-based involvement was reflected in teachers’ reports of their satis-
faction with such involvement as well as how constructive they thought it was.
Teachers’ ratings of the quality were a stronger (negative) predictor of children’s
behavior problems (e.g., acting-out behavior and poor relations with peers) 1 year
later than the extent, adjusting for children’s earlier behavioral problems. Focusing
on low-income families from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, Izzo et al. (1999)
also showed that the quality of parent-teacher interactions (i.e., teachers’ percep-
tions that they have a constructive relationship with parents and sufficient contact
with them) predicted over time more positive social skills among elementary
school children, adjusting for their earlier social skills. In a similar vein, among
junior high school students from mainly middle-class European American fami-
lies, what Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) called parents’ personal involvement
in children’s schooling (i.e., children’s perceptions of their parents as supportive
of their academic endeavors) foreshadowed decreased acting-out behavior among
children. This is particularly notable given that changes in the extent of parents’
school and cognitive-intellectual involvement did not predict such behavior
(Grolnick et al., 2000). Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of
the quality of parents’ involvement in children’s social functioning.
Conclusions
The question of why parents should become involved in their children’s school-
ing has almost always been answered by emphasizing the benefits for children’s
school achievement. Relatively little attention has been given to the possibility that
parents’ involvement may serve as a context for the development of children’s
mental health, that is, children’s emotional and social functioning. However, recent
research suggests that this is the case, with the quality of parents’ involvement mat-
tering. Given the import of promoting children’s mental health, this benefit of par-
ents’ involvement in children’s schooling needs more attention. It is quite possible
that even when parents’ involvement does not have immediate consequences for
children’s achievement, it does have valuable consequences for their mental health,
which may ultimately improve their achievement. It is quite likely that parents who
are involved in children’s academic lives may also be involved in other areas of
their lives. Thus, it will be critical for future research to establish that it is really
parents’ involvement in the academic arena, not in other arenas such as the social
one, that drive the effects.
397
Implications: The Next Stage of Research and Intervention
Research
Considering the how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s
schooling sets the stage for a second wave of research that has the potential to iden-
tify the factors that can maximize the benefits of parents’ involvement. A focus on
how parents become involved in children’s schooling underscores the importance
of studying the quality of parents’ involvement rather than simply the extent of
parents’ involvement. In this article, drawing from general theory and research on
parenting, we highlighted four dimensions of how parents become involved in
children’s academic lives: autonomy support versus control, process versus person
focus, positive versus negative affect, and positive versus negative beliefs about
children’s potential. Although empirical support is emerging for the importance of
these dimensions of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, there is still much
to be done along these lines. All of these dimensions have generally been examined
in the context of parents’ home-based involvement directly linked to school, yield-
ing the significant conclusion that one reason such involvement may have incon-
sistent effects is that it depends on how parents provide assistance (see Cooper,
Lindsay, et al., 2000). However, other forms of parents’ involvement have gener-
ally not received such attention (for an exception, see Simpkins et al., 2006). Future
research will need to examine the quality of parents’ school-based involvement and
other forms of their home-based involvement. In addition, there may be dimensions
other than those discussed here that are influential. For example, several investiga-
tors have focused on parents’ creation of a structured rather than chaotic environment
for children (e.g., Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001). Other
research has attended to the extent to which parents emphasize vs. de-emphasize chil-
dren’s success and failure in school (Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam, in press)
Studying the quality of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling will entail
the development of methods that go beyond simply asking parents, children, and
school personnel to make ratings of the frequency of parents’ involvement.
Because it may be more difficult to obtain objective reports of the quality (vs. the
extent) of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling, alternative methods will
be necessary. These may include observations in the home and school of interac-
tions between parents and children as well as between parents and teachers. Such
methods have already been used successfully in qualitative research (e.g., Xu &
Corno, 1998) but need to be extended to quantitative research. Borrowing from
research in the laboratory using observational methods to examine parent-child
interactions (Grolnick et al., 2002; Hokoda & Fincham, 1995; Ng et al., 2004;
Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 1995) will be essential. Because of the daily nature of par-
ents’ involvement in children’s schooling, the collection of data on parent-child
interactions on a day-to-day basis is also of import. Such a method has been used
successfully in studying parents’ assistance with children’s homework and
responses to children’s performance (e.g., Ng et al., 2004; Pomerantz & Eaton,
2001; Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998b). It has also been used in examining the
nature of such involvement (Pomerantz et al., 2006; Pomerantz, Wang, et al.,
2005a). However, more efforts in this vein are needed. Moreover, experimental
designs successfully manipulating parents’ involvement in children’s academic
lives are critical to establishing the causal role of such involvement.
398
A significant direction for future research on parents’ involvement in children’s
schooling will be to take into account the characteristics children bring to their inter-
actions with parents. Consideration of the match between children’s characteristics
and the manner in which parents become involved is a critical endeavor. In this arti-
cle, we focused mainly on how children’s competence experiences moderate the
effects of parents’ involvement characterized by autonomy support versus control,
a process versus person focus, positive versus negative affect, and positive versus
negative beliefs about children’s potential. All four of these dimensions appear to
affect children with negative competence experiences more than children with pos-
itive experiences. Two key issues still need attention. First, how can parents become
involved in the academic lives of children with positive competence experiences in
a manner that will be particularly beneficial for such children? Research by Higgins
and colleagues (Bianco, Higgins, & Klem, 2003; Spiegel, Grant-Pillow, & Higgins,
2004) underscores the importance of the fit between individuals’ goals and those of
their environment. Elucidating the goals children with positive competence experi-
ences hold in the academic context may be critical to identifying the dimensions of
parents’ involvement that may be beneficial for such children. Second, other char-
acteristics of children may influence the success of how parents become involved.
We discussed children’s age and gender. However, future research also needs to be
sensitive to more psychological characteristics of children, such as their desire for
closeness with parents and their preference for working independently. At a broader
level, recent efforts to elucidate the moderating role of children’s socioeconomic
and cultural backgrounds (e.g., Dearing et al., 2006; Gutman & Eccles, 1999; Hill
et al., 2004) need to be continued, particularly because these are often the children
targeted by interventions.
Understanding the consequences of parents’ involvement in children’s school-
ing for children’s achievement in school is of much worth. However, a focus on
the consequences for children’s mental health is also important. As noted earlier,
more research on the link between parents’ involvement in children’s schooling
and children’s emotional and social functioning is needed, particularly because
only limited types of parents’ involvement have been studied in relation to such
functioning. Moreover, it would be fruitful to study the effects of parents’ involve-
ment in children’s schooling on children’s functioning in other arenas, such as the
moral, spiritual, and civic. This is a promising line of inquiry as parents’ involve-
ment in children’s schooling has been linked to heightened participation in reli-
gious and civic activities (Smith, 1999; Trusty & Watts, 1999). However, as noted
earlier, this endeavor must take into account parents’ involvement outside the aca-
demic arena to confirm that it is parents’ involvement in this arena, not others such
as the social, that is driving the effects.
Interventions
Issues related to the how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s
schooling also have implications for designing interventions to promote parents’
involvement, which to date have generally not been successful in enhancing children’s
achievement. Perhaps most notably, in designing interventions, attention needs to be
given to fostering involvement that is autonomy supportive rather than controlling,
process rather than person focused, characterized by positive rather than negative
affect, and accompanied by positive rather than negative beliefs about children’s
399
Pomerantz et al.
potential. Several steps can be taken to promote such involvement on parents’ part.
First, arguments have been made for the importance of ensuring that parents feel
empowered in the school context, because such feelings may heighten the extent
of parents’ involvement in children’s schooling (White et al., 1992). Much of the
focus on parents’ empowerment has focused on their feelings of being influential
in the school system. An aspect of parents’ empowerment that may be of particu-
lar import to the quality of their involvement in children’s schooling is parents’
sense of control over their children’s development, particularly in the academic
arena. Beginning early on in children’s lives, parents who experience themselves
as lacking control over their children engage in poorer quality parenting, especially
when they perceive their children as difficult (e.g., Bugental, Lyon, Krantz, &
Cortez, 1997; Guzell & Vernon-Feagans, 2004). Thus, establishing in parents a
sense of control over children’s development may be of particular import in pro-
moting quality involvement among parents. It may be possible to establish a sense
of control in parents by providing them with information about the malleability of
children’s ability along with the skills to assist children in developing their ability.
Doing so may aid parents in becoming involved in an autonomy-supportive and
process-focused manner. Parents may also be better able to maintain positive affect
if they feel equipped to deal with the challenges of school.
Second, several lines of research suggest that fostering positive involvement in
children’s schooling among parents entails creating an environment in which par-
ents do not feel too much pressure to ensure that children perform up to standards.
Grolnick et al. (2002) suggested that when parents see children’s performance as
having ramifications for their own worth, they experience pressure, which they
transfer onto children. When these investigators led mothers to believe that they
were responsible for children meeting particular performance standards in the con-
text of homework-like tasks, mothers became less autonomy supportive and more
controlling with children. It is also possible that when parents feel such pressure,
they may engage in more person- than process-focused involvement, because they
are concerned with children’s performance rather than with children’s learning.
Essentially, although interventions need to be designed to give parents a sense of
control over their children’s academic development, the focus should be on the
process of learning rather than solely on performance.
Third, interventions need to be designed with an understanding of the importance
of maintaining parents’ positive affect and beliefs about children’s potential in the
context of their involvement in children’s schooling. This objective may be met in
part by providing parents with a sense of control and focusing them on the process
of learning rather than on performance. However, other steps may be taken as well.
For example, when teachers assign homework that is interactive in that it allows
children to share what they are learning in school with their parents, it may promote
positive affect on the part of parents (see Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001). When
interventions use workshops, creating an environment characterized by high posi-
tive affect may be of import because such affect may funnel down to parents’ inter-
actions with their children. Moreover, highlighting to parents their own children’s
improvement over time, rather than highlighting how their children compare with
other children, may allow parents to perceive their children’s potential positively
even while acknowledging that children have difficulties that need to be addressed.
400
Conclusions
Although the research to date on the effects of the extent of parents’ involve-
ment in children’s schooling has proved fruitful, it is time to move on to a second
stage of research considering the how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement.
The first steps of this research suggest that how parents become involved makes a
difference, so that more involvement on parents’ part is not always better for chil-
dren. It is also the case that children are differentially responsive to how parents
become involved, so that the benefits of parents’ involvement depend on what chil-
dren themselves bring to their interactions with parents. The answer to the ques-
tion of why parents should become involved in the first place needs to move
beyond the idea that parents’ involvement promotes children’s achievement to the
possibility that it may serve more broadly as a context for children’s mental health
development. As investigators explore issues of the how, whom, and why of par-
ents’ involvement in children’s schooling, a clearer picture of the benefits of such
involvement will emerge. As one does, it is likely that this will make interventions
aimed at promoting parents’ involvement successful.
Notes
We appreciate the constructive comments provided by Allison Ryan and the members
of the Center for Parent-Child Studies on an earlier version of this article. The writing of
this article was supported by a grant from NIMH (#R01 MH57505). Eva M. Pomerantz
was a visiting scholar at Victoria University in the initial writing of this article.
1Some investigators (e.g., Fan & Chen, 2001; Keith et al., 1993) have included par-
ents’ beliefs about children’s potential (e.g., expectations for performance, educational
aspirations) in the category of involvement, with the idea that more positive beliefs
reflect greater involvement. Although the two may be related, we define involvement
in behavioral terms. Moreover, many parents may be very involved in their children’s
schooling but actually hold negative beliefs about their children’s potential. Indeed,
such beliefs may fuel parents’ involvement (see Pomerantz, Wang, & Ng, 2005b).
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Authors
EVA M. POMERANTZ is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820; e-mail:
pomerntz@uiuc.edu. The main focus of her research is on the role of parents in children’s
motivation and achievement. Recent publications include “The Role of Children’s
Competence Experiences in the Socialization Process: A Dynamic Process Framework
for the Academic Arena” (with Q. Wang and F. F. Ng; in Advances in Child Development
and Behavior, edited by R. Kail, Academic Press, 2005). Forthcoming articles will appear
in Developmental Psychology and Child Development.
ELIZABETH A. MOORMAN is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820;
e-mail: moorman@uiuc.edu. Her research interests are in the area of parents’ involve-
ment in children’s academic lives.
SCOTT D. LITWACK is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University
of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT 06269; e-mail: scott.d.litwack@uconn
.edu. His research interests are in the area of developmental psychopathology, with a
focus on children’s social functioning.
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The How, Whom, and Why of Parents' Involvement in Children's Academic

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The How, Whom, and Why of Parents’

Eva M. Pomerantz and Elizabeth A. Moorman

A key goal of much educational policy is to help parents become involved in

KEYWORDS: parent involvement, parenting, motivation, acheivement.

What Constitutes Parents’ Involvement?

Autonomy support Parents encourage children to Parents support children in

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