Educational Research

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Parental involvement and educational success

among vulnerable students in vocational
education and training

Evi Schmid & Veerle Garrels

To cite this article: Evi Schmid & Veerle Garrels (2021) Parental involvement and educational
success among vulnerable students in vocational education and training, Educational
Research, 63:4, 456-473, DOI: 10.1080/00131881.2021.1988672

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2021.1988672

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Published online: 15 Nov 2021.

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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
2021, VOL. 63, NO. 4, 456–473
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2021.1988672

Parental involvement and educational success among

vulnerable students in vocational education and training
Evi Schmid and Veerle Garrels
Department of Vocational Teacher Education, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Background: Parental involvement is positively associated with Received 25 March 2021
students’ educational success. However, research shows that levels Accepted 29 September 2021
of involvement and participation vary considerably, depending on KEYWORDS
parents’ social and economic resources. Understanding more about Secondary education;
the kinds of involvement that matter to students themselves is vocational education and
important, as it may help to determine how best to support those training (VET); dropout;
from less advantageous backgrounds. vulnerable students; parental
Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate which forms of involvement; educational
parental involvement students in upper secondary education (age success
16–18) who were defined as vulnerable highlight as important for
their achievement at school.
Method: The study was based on the analysis of semi-structured
interviews with 25 students in the second year of upper sec­
ondary vocational education and training (VET) in Norway.
Based on their grades, the students were identified as being
at risk of not completing upper secondary education. The
majority of the students had an immigrant background and
came from families with low socioeconomic resources. The
interviews were transcribed and analysed using a reflexive the­
matic analysis approach.
Findings: The students acknowledged different forms of paren­
tal involvement as a major explanation for their success in
school. Five themes were identified by the analysis: social psy­
chological support, supervision of schoolwork, practical support,
high expectations and aspirations, and obligation and gratitude
towards parents. The students’ narratives reveal different kinds
of parental involvement practices that are not restricted to
parents who hold higher levels of education or who are familiar
with the educational system. In addition, their narratives also
reflected their need for encouragement and motivation, their
need for practical support in everyday school life, and their
appreciation of clearly expressed expectations regarding
education.
Conclusions: The findings from this study contribute to the field by
describing the specific forms of parental involvement that matter in
the eyes of students identified as vulnerable. Furthermore, the
findings emphasise the importance of identifying the particular
needs of each student and supporting all parents as empowered
participants in their children’s education.

CONTACT Evi Schmid evi.schmid@oslomet.no Department of Vocational Teacher Education, Oslo Metropolitan
University, Oslo, Norway
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med­
ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 457

Introduction
The family has been recognised as one of the primary contributors to children’s and
adolescents’ success in school. In one of the earliest and best-known studies about the
influence of families and schools on student achievement and educational opportunities,
Coleman et al. (1966) concluded that family background matters most, whereas there are
few differences between the schools, independent of family background factors. The
study has since been widely debated and methodologically criticised (e.g. Goldsmith
2011; Hanushek 2016; Lucas 2016). Nonetheless, virtually all subsequent analyses have
found measures of family background (i.e. parents’ education or income, family structure)
to be a significant explanation of achievement differences (Hanushek 2016; Rumberger
1995).
Most research on family background has focussed on the structural factors of families,
such as parents’ educational level, labour market position and income. Research shows
that socioeconomic status, most commonly measured by parental education and income,
is a powerful predictor of school achievement and dropout from upper secondary
education (e.g. Lamb 2011; Rumberger 2011). In Norway, where this study is situated,
the likelihood of completion of upper secondary education1 is strongly associated with
parents’ educational level. While 90.8% of the students whose parents have completed
more than four years of higher education complete upper secondary education, this
applies to only 57.6% of students whose parents have lower secondary school as their
highest educational level (Statistics Norway 2020a). Furthermore, research suggests that
parents’ position in the labour market, and with whom adolescents lived as 15-year-olds
(both parents or not), are aspects affecting early leaving from upper secondary education
(Markussen et al. 2011).
In order to understand the mechanisms or underlying processes behind the relation
between family characteristics and dropout risk, studies in the field have focussed on
parents’ involvement in their children’s education (e.g. Rumberger 1995; Rumberger et al.
1990; Zaff et al. 2017). Research indicates that children and adolescents are more likely to
perform well in school and graduate when their parents are involved in their schooling
(Hill and Tyson 2009; Rumberger et al. 1990; Siraj and Mayo 2014; Zaff et al. 2017).
Rumberger et al. (1990) identified different practices in families that affect educational
achievement and completion from upper secondary education, such as parenting style,
parents’ reactions to their children’s school achievements and parents’ engagement with
children’s schooling. According to their findings, what most distinguishes students who
drop out from other low-achieving students who stay in school is the higher level of
educational involvement of both the parents and the students themselves.
Thus, parents’ involvement in their children’s learning and schooling may make a
significant difference to student achievement. However, research shows that levels of
involvement and participation vary considerably depending on parents’ social and eco­
nomic resources (e.g. Crosnoe and Ressler 2019; Harris and Goodall 2008). In the current
study, we sought to understand more about how students who may be described as
vulnerable experience parental involvement in their schooling, and whether they feel that
specific parental practices and behaviours help them stay on track in their education.
458 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

Before presenting our study in more detail, we contextualise our work with reference to
the literature on parental involvement, and in terms of our study’s particular setting, in the
sections below.

Background
Parental involvement
Parental involvement in education is a multidimensional concept that encompasses a
wide variety of parental practices and behaviours in terms of students’ education and
learning processes. There is no consensus about a common definition of the construct
and different approaches to conceptualising parental involvement have emerged over
time. Jeynes (2007) defines it broadly as ‘parental participation in the educational pro­
cesses of their children’. Generally, parental involvement is portrayed as a complex
phenomenon that occurs within two main sites, namely the school and the home
(Epstein and Sanders 2002). In addition to these dimensions of home- and school-based
involvements, Hill and Tyson (2009) include a dimension that covers parental attitudes
and expectations about school, education and socialisation around the value and utility of
education. Since academic socialisation may be a particularly underexplored dimension of
parental involvement for vulnerable students, we found it helpful in the context of our
own study to follow the argumentation by Hill and Tyson (2009) and distinguish between
the following three dimensions of parental involvement: (1) Home-based involvement, (2)
School-based involvement, and (3) Academic socialisation. These dimensions are described
below.
Home-based involvement includes communication between parents and children
about school, establishing a learning environment at home (e.g. making educational
material like books and newspapers accessible), exposing children to educationally
stimulating activities and experiences (e.g. museums, libraries, etc.), and monitoring and
supporting homework (Hill and Tyson 2009). This dimension of parental involvement
includes social psychological support, such as encouraging children to meet and over­
come educational challenges, talking through challenges and stressors, and praising
effort and accomplishments (Crosnoe and Ressler 2019; Hill and Tyson 2009). A systematic
review by Boonk et al. (2018) found that several of these aspects of home-based involve­
ment were consistently and positively correlated with school achievement. Parent–child
educational discussions, parental encouragement and support for learning, and valuing
school accomplishments and the reinforcement of learning at home were all found to be
positively associated with school achievements for children in middle school and beyond.
As Hill and Taylor (2004) argue, the complexity of the school curriculum increases over
the school years, which may make it harder for parents to involve themselves actively in
their children’s schoolwork. So too, as children develop into more autonomous adoles­
cents and young adults, this form of parental involvement may become less effective, and
more subtle ways of parental engagement may be required (Jeynes 2014). Moreover,
research indicates that the effect of parental involvement in homework activities is
ambiguous. In some studies, homework assistance was even negatively correlated with
student achievement (Barger et al. 2019; Hill and Tyson 2009; Wilder 2013). As Barger and
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 459

colleagues (2019) argue in their meta-analysis, students who are struggling in school may
represent the majority of children requesting parental assistance in homework.
Involvement in homework may, thus, reflect the children’s need for assistance.
School-based involvement includes communication between parents and school staff,
visits to school, participation in school governance and parents’ active involvement in
school-based activities, such as participating in parent-teacher associations, often with
the purpose of improving the school programme (Crosnoe and Ressler 2019; Hill and
Tyson 2009). As Crosnoe and Ressler (2019) point out, this type of involvement requires
considerable resources from parents and is therefore most likely to benefit children who
are already in an advantageous position. Parents who are immigrants may be extra
disadvantaged in this regard, as they often face challenges due to language barriers
and a lack of familiarity with the educational system (Antony-Newman 2019).
However, Barger and colleagues (2019) highlight the importance of parents getting
involved in school events, as this type of parental commitment is associated with
students’ educational achievement, engagement, and motivation. More specifically, a
review of the literature on high-school graduation shows that children of parents who
are involved in school organisations, attend conferences and communicate with teachers
are more likely to graduate from upper secondary education (Zaff et al. 2017). Zaff and
colleagues therefore suggest that schools should make efforts to include parents more in
the school – for example, by training teachers to build relationships and strengthen
communication with parents. In particular, inclusive parental involvement that does not
reproduce the deficit view of parents with immigrant and/or lower socioeconomic back­
grounds may be important for the creation of an effective school-home collaboration
(Antony-Newman 2019).
Academic socialisation includes parents communicating expectations for their chil­
dren’s education, expressing attitudes and values about the importance of school and
education, fostering educational and occupational aspirations, and discussing plans for
the future. Research has consistently demonstrated that children’s academic socialisation
strongly predicts educational achievement. In particular, parents’ expectations for chil­
dren’s educational achievement have a stronger relationship with students’ accomplish­
ments at school than other dimensions of parental involvement, regardless of
socioeconomic background (Hill and Tyson 2009; Pinquart and Ebeling 2019; Wilder
2013). This means that children from all backgrounds perform better at school if parents
expect them to do well.
In a literature review, Yamamoto and Holloway (2010) identified several mechanisms
through which parental expectations may exert an effect on students’ educational pro­
cesses. High parental expectations may enhance their children’s motivation and expecta­
tions, boost the children’s academic self-efficacy, foster other dimensions of parental
involvement in schooling (e.g. the extent and quality of homework support or commu­
nication with teachers), and increase students’ accomplishments by influencing teachers’
perceptions and evaluations of the child. Thus, academic socialisation in the home is
important in promoting children’s educational success and upper secondary graduation
(Zaff et al. 2017).
Much literature on parents’ educational expectations draws attention to the positive
influence on achievement. However, overly high parental expectations may be experi­
enced as pressure and, thus, undermine achievement motivation and be a cause of
460 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

achievement-related mental health problems (Eriksen 2020; Strom and Boster 2007). The
relationship between parental involvement and educational achievement is impacted by
various factors, one of the most prominent being socioeconomic status. Research shows
that parents with higher education are more likely to engage in their children’s school­
work, to communicate with schools and to hold higher expectations for their children
(Jeynes 2007; Pinquart and Ebeling 2019; Wilder 2013). The nature and extent of a parent’s
involvement in the child’s education and learning is thus an important factor in explaining
social class differences in educational achievement (Stull 2013).

The Norwegian context

Upper secondary education in Norway comprises five general education programmes (e.g.
specialisation in general studies; media and communication) and ten vocational programmes
(e.g. building and construction; restaurant and food processing; healthcare, childhood and
youth development). About 98% of the young people start upper secondary education
immediately after compulsory school (normally at the age of 16), and half of them enrol in
vocational programmes. Students compete for a place in their preferred study programme
based on their grade point average (GPA) from lower secondary school. However, in Norway,
admission to upper secondary education is a statutory right, regardless of students’ grades
from lower secondary school, and all students are guaranteed admission to one of three
preferred programmes.
The general education programmes last for three years and, if completed successfully,
qualify the student for higher education. The vocational programmes last for four years,
comprising two years of mainly school-based education followed by two years of appren­
ticeship in a company (known as a 2 + 2 model). Vocational education and training (VET)
leads to more than 180 different trade or worker’s certificates. It does not provide access
to higher education, although vocational students who wish to qualify for higher educa­
tion may switch to a supplementary year of academic subjects after their second year of
VET instead of starting apprenticeship training in a company.
Non-completion of upper secondary education, especially from VET, has been an
educational policy issue for a long time. According to recent figures, one out of three
VET students does not complete upper secondary education successfully within six years:
i.e. they do not obtain a trade certificate or a university admission certification within that
time (Statistics Norway 2020a). The majority drop out during the first two years of
education in school or during the transition to apprenticeship training (Norwegian
White Paper 2018, 15). Over the last 20 years, various measures have been implemented
to increase upper secondary completion. Two national action plans against dropout in
upper secondary education have been introduced, which focus, among other things, on
the transition from lower to upper secondary school, follow-up measures for young
people who have left school, coordination between the different authorities involved
and on the transition to apprenticeship training. Additionally, a set of school measures has
been implemented, which includes coverage of different aspects of learning guidance
(Norwegian White Paper 2018, 15). In the last couple of years, there has been a small
increase in the completion of upper secondary education (Norwegian White Paper 2018,
15; Statistics Norway 2020a).
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 461

Purpose of this study

With this backdrop in mind, we aimed to investigate how a sample of vulnerable students
in upper secondary VET in Norway experienced parental involvement in their schooling,
and whether they felt that specific parental practices and behaviours helped them to stay
on track in their education. The students in the study sample represented a particularly
vulnerable group in several ways. Firstly, all the students had a grade point average (GPA)
below a critical level, which statistically put them in the at-risk group for not completing
upper secondary education (Norwegian White Paper 2018, 15). Secondly, most of the
students had a migration background and spoke a language other than Norwegian at
home. Thirdly, most students’ parents were in manual or unskilled occupations or
received social benefits. Based on the research literature on dropout, these characteristics
defined the students in the study as being among the most vulnerable students in upper
secondary education (Markussen et al. 2011; Rumberger 2011). Nevertheless, at the time
of the interviews, the students were in the second year of their education and had
successfully passed the examinations at the end of the first year at school. There may
be different explanations for their success so far. In a prior part of our study (Schmid 2021),
we highlighted the students’ educational and social learning environment at school as an
important contribution to their school success. In this article, we focus attention on how
the students themselves experienced the effect of parental involvement on their educa­
tional accomplishments.
Considering the students’ vulnerable situation, the type of parental involvement that
they experience may possibly have qualities that are different from what previous
research typically has identified as the type of parental support that matters. Therefore,
the research question guiding our study was as follows: Which forms of parental involve­
ment do vulnerable students in upper secondary vocational education and training highlight
in their narratives to explain their success in school?
In this qualitative study, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who were
identified as vulnerable were given a voice through a detailed analysis of rich interview
data. These students form a hard-to-reach population for researchers (e.g. Ellard-Gray et
al. 2015), and hence, this article seeks to add to the knowledge base by providing analysis
of the students’ personal narratives. Ultimately, we hope that the knowledge gained from
this study may contribute more broadly to understanding how best to support those with
limited socioeconomic resources to complete their studies and achieve educational
success.

Method
Study design
This study is part of an ongoing longitudinal research project on vulnerable young
people’s pathways through upper secondary vocational education and training (VET)
which is being carried out in Oslo, Norway. The project examines what enables vulnerable
students in upper secondary VET to succeed in education and how the students them­
selves explain what it takes for them to be able to complete their education (see also
462 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

Schmid 2021). In the part of the study reported in this article, we focus on our qualitative
analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with 25 adolescents in upper secondary
school who were identified as being at risk of not completing upper secondary education.

Participants
To identify low-achieving students in upper secondary VET, we contacted four schools in
Oslo where the grade point average (GPA) for admission to upper secondary education is
comparatively low. GPA is the average of all grades from the last year of lower secondary
school (10th grade). Grade scores range from 1 to 6, where 1 is the lowest and 6 is the
highest, and a minimum of 2 is needed to pass a subject. According to a recent evaluation,
students with a GPA lower than 3.5 are at particular risk of not completing upper
secondary education (Norwegian White Paper 2018, 15). For the school year 2018/2019,
the mean GPA in Norway was 4.2, and 4.3 in the county of Oslo (Norwegian Directorate for
Education and Training 2021). In the study sample, the mean GPA was 2.8, and all students
had a GPA below 3.5.
Grades at school are strongly correlated with parents’ educational level (Statistics
Norway 2020b). Thus, selecting students by their grades implies to a large degree a
selection based on socioeconomic background. Therefore, what further characterises
the students in the sample is their additional vulnerability in terms of family resources.
Most students’ parents were in manual or unskilled occupations (e.g. working as cleaners
or taxi drivers), unemployed, or receiving social benefits. Some of the parents attended a
Norwegian language course. Language barriers may make it difficult for immigrant
parents to engage in their children’s education and to communicate with school and
teachers (Antony-Newman 2019).
Twenty-five students (10 girls and 15 boys) from four different schools, eight different
classes and seven different educational programmes in year 2 (childcare and youth work,
construction techniques, floral design, food and beverages, health work, motor vehicles,
and sales, service and security) consented to participate in the study. Twenty of the
students were born in Norway. However, 18 of the interviewees had a migration back­
ground: 14 were children of immigrants, most of them from countries in Africa or Asia (e.g.
Pakistan or Somalia), and four students came to Norway between the ages of 13 and 16,
from either Somalia or Eritrea. Seven students were of Norwegian background. The
majority of the interviewees spoke a language other than Norwegian at home. Most of
the interviewees were 17 years old at the time of the interview and had not dropped out
of education or training previously. All students in the sample were in the second year of
VET and had successfully passed the examinations at the end of the first year at school.
Following the usual progression, they had about half a year of schooling ahead of them
before they were due to start apprenticeships in companies.

Ethical considerations
All participants received written and oral information about the project. They were
informed that participation was voluntary and anonymous. Moreover, they were notified
that they could withdraw from the project at any time without giving any reason. All the
participants gave their written consent to participate. The Norwegian Centre for Research
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 463

Data (NSD) approved this study, and we complied with the requirements of data protec­
tion legislation. All personal information was anonymised, and the interviewees were
given pseudonyms.
The students in this study represent a vulnerable group and the topic of the study may
have been sensitive to them. Moreover, the informants in the study had not yet com­
pleted their upper secondary education at the time of the interviews, and the risk of
dropout was still considered present while the study was being conducted. Therefore, we
were careful not to refer to participants as ‘at-risk students’ during the recruitment
process and the interviews. Instead, the students were informed that we were interested
in their explanations for their success in school. This positive approach to the study and to
our informants may have contributed to their perception of themselves as competent
students.

Data collection
The interviews were carried out between October 2019 and January 2020 at the respec­
tive schools and had an average duration of 30 minutes. All interviews were conducted in
Norwegian by the first author and two research assistants. The students were interviewed
individually, and a semi-structured guide was used during the process. Students were
asked questions regarding thriving at school, career choice and aspirations, challenges at
school, thoughts about leaving school or plans to complete upper secondary education,
relations and support both within and outside school. There was a good rapport estab­
lished during the interviews, and students were eager to share their experiences. The
current article reports on data primarily based on interview questions related to parents’
educational involvement. Specifically, the students were asked about their parents’ role in
their schooling and their success at school, and their parents’ expectations for their
educational career. The students were also asked about the occupation/employment
status of their parents, and with whom they lived. All interviews were recorded and
transcribed verbatim.

Data analysis
Reflexive thematic analysis according to the six-phase approach of Braun et al. (2019)
underpinned the method of data analysis. In the first phase, the authors familiarised
themselves with the dataset through iterative reading of the transcribed interviews,
paying attention to noteworthy quotations and connections in the dataset. During the
second phase, the authors generated codes from the transcribed interviews. To this
purpose, an inductive orientation was used to extract ‘chunks’ of text from the dataset
(Gibbs 2018), and each text fragment that contained information about parents or
parental involvement was extracted and coded, using the software program NVivo 12
as a tool.
In the third phase of the analytic process, each of the authors constructed themes based
on the selected interview fragments. Similar codes were collated into themes that were
considered purposeful with regard to the study’s research question (see Table 1). At this
point, the authors worked independently of each other in order to increase reliability in
the analytical process (Creswell and Poth 2018). In the fourth phase, the authors revised
464 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

Table 1. Examples of thematic analysis.

Meaning unit Condensed term Theme
They help me with homework when there is something Homework assistance Supervision of
that I don’t understand. schoolwork
And then she [mother] also motivates me. She says I can Parents motivating their children Social
do it, and I think that she believes in me. psychological
support
My dad always tells me how important education is./ Parents expressing values about the High expectations
. . ./ importance of school and education and aspirations

the themes together. Each of the independently constructed themes was discussed
amongst the authors, until consensus was reached about which themes had the most
potential to render insight into our participants’ experiences of parental support.
The fifth phase consisted of defining the constructed themes with clear theme names, so
that the essence of each theme was concisely captured. The authors worked together to
define the following themes: (1) Social psychological support, (2) Supervision of school­
work, (3) Practical support, (4) High expectations and aspirations and (5) Obligations and
gratitude towards parents. In the sixth phase of the process, producing the report, the
themes were reported in this article, and connections to the existing knowledge base
were made.

Findings
In this section, we present the themes we identified through our analysis, contextualised
with reference to the literature. Where relevant, we have included anonymised, translated
quotations from the interview data; all names are pseudonyms. We start by reporting on
themes related to the dimension of home-based involvement (i.e. social psychological
support, supervision of schoolwork, and practical support), before covering the two
themes related to the dimension of academic socialisation (i.e. high expectations and
aspirations, and obligations and gratitude towards parents). In our data analysis, we did
not identify any themes within the dimension of school-based involvement.

Social psychological support

The most prominent topic in the student’s narratives about their parents’ role in their
schooling and their success at school was the constant experience of feeling encouraged
and supported. All the interviewees said that they received a lot of support from their
parents, and many of them started to talk about the importance of their parents before
this issue was raised during the interview. In their review of the literature on parental
involvement in education, Crosnoe and Ressler (2019, 419) call this type of involvement
‘social psychological support’, and they point out that it serves the young people’s need
to feel secure, appreciated, and validated. The students in our study felt that they could
rely on unconditional support from their parents. Two students put it like this: ‘/ . . ./I feel
they have always been by my side and helped me’ (Hesja, age 17), and: ‘I can really talk
about anything with them’ (Nora, 19).
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 465

The students’ narratives testify to warm, supportive and encouraging relationships

with their parents. Thus, even though direct parental involvement often decreases in
adolescence, the emotional tone and the style of interactions may be a significant source
of confidence and support (Rogers et al. 2018; Simpkins et al. 2006). Moreover, as the
students in the study made clear, the feeling of encouragement and trust was an
important source of motivation; for example: ‘/ . . ./they speak well to me, they speak
well of me. And I show them that I can manage to finish school’ (Marvin, 20). In a similar
way, Fayza (17) said ‘And then she [mother] also motivates me. She says I can do it, and I
think that she believes in me’.
For some students, social psychological support from their parents appeared to be
particularly important in times of low motivation or in the face of educational challenges.
They described how their parents encouraged them not to give up, but rather to believe
in themselves. For example, Rashid (19), a student who came to Norway at the age of 14,
and who was often struggling in class because of the language, explained:

Yes, they really support me, somehow. And when I am like feeling down somehow and I say
“now, I can’t manage it”, they will say “no, don’t think like that, don’t give up”, and “you can do
it”, right. And they are such a support to me that way. They are there for me somehow, yes.

For most of the students in the study, everyday life at school posed many challenges.
Thus, encouragement at the right time might be of great importance. As observed by
Ingrid (17), it did not take many words from her parents to encourage her when she was
worried about a test: ‘“/ . . ./‘It’s going to be fine. You just have to try your best”. So, that’s
sort of nice’.

Supervision of schoolwork
As children grow older, parents’ direct involvement in their children’s homework is
reduced and less related to students’ achievement (Hill and Tyson 2009; Jeynes 2007,
2014). Consequently, the supervision of schoolwork was not a main issue in our study.
Some students, however, mentioned their parents’ involvement in homework as an
important source of support also during upper secondary school. Involvement in school­
work may include different practices and thus have different functions. On the one hand,
it may include direct assistance with homework – for instance, explaining difficult school
matters, as explained by Rose (17): ‘They help me with homework when there is some­
thing that I don’t understand’. As Jeynes (2014) argues, parents’ homework assistance
may increase the students’ security and classroom confidence. On the other hand,
parents’ involvement in homework may also include follow-up practices, like checking
homework (Jeynes 2007). This kind of control may put some pressure on the students to
do homework, as noted by Lisa (17):

It’s like, when we need to do homework, they know about it. It’s not an option not to do it.
They know about it, and they follow up, kind of. So they press me always like “Have you done
it? Have you done it?”, right?

As with the other students talking about supervision of schoolwork, Lisa did not
perceive this kind of ‘pressure’ as negative, but rather as helpful. She further explained:
‘So it’s like, somehow, since they followed up that much, I feel that I got it done, right?’
466 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

Practical support
Findings from this study suggest that parents also play a pivotal role in their children’s
school career through the practical support that they provide to their offspring on a daily
basis. This type of home-based involvement appears to have received more limited
attention specifically in relation to dropout prevention or school achievement.
Interestingly, several of our informants related examples of how their parents helped
them in very specific ways, so that they could meet school requirements. For instance,
Abdi (17) commented as follows:
Abdi: My family is actually really, really important to me./. . ./I’m grateful to my mum who
spends her time in the morning to fix me a packed lunch and to motivate me for school./. . . /

Interviewer: So your mum is important to you?

Abdi: Yes, my mum is important to me, and my dad too. He used to drive me, he’s a taxi driver,
you know. When I’m doing an internship somewhere, I start very early in the morning. I start
like at 7 a.m. And it’s different places where I’m supposed to meet up. And he, he works at
night, and he finishes at 6 a.m. sharp. So he used to drive me to work straight away. And I just
gave him an address, and then he drove me there. So I’m lucky there.

This excerpt reflects a sense of gratitude and appreciation of parents’ contributions to

help the child succeed at school. Furthermore, several of our informants reported that
their parents provided valued so-called ‘wake-up support’, as they acknowledged that
they struggled with getting up in the mornings. For example, Sumera (17) said: ‘Yes, but
my mum wakes me up, because I can’t manage getting up myself’. Clearly, this kind of
practical support – in all its simplicity – reflects parents’ dedication towards their chil­
dren’s schooling. The adolescents in this study emphasised the importance of this
practical support not only for their motivation for school, but they also recognised it as
an important factor to help them fulfil the school’s practical demands.

High expectations and aspirations

All the participants in the study commented that it was important to their parents that
they completed their education and got a degree that could lead to employment. From
the interviews, it was clear that many of the parents explicitly expressed the importance of
getting an education. As Hanna (17) explained:
My dad always tells me how important education is./. . ./they motivate me all the time and tell
me that if you don’t get an education, you cannot do anything in the world, you know.
Because then you are just last in line for everything.

During the interviews, all the informants said that they were determined to complete
upper secondary education, with wide-ranging career ambitions mentioned, including
becoming a confectioner, a paediatric nurse, a car mechanic, a carpenter or a security
guard. Most of them planned to get a trade certificate after two additional years of
apprenticeship training, and some of them were considering switching to a supplemen­
tary year of academic subjects in order to qualify for admission to higher education.
Others planned to become self-employed and start their own businesses. Importantly, for
the students in our study, high parental expectations were combined with a sense of
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 467

freedom to choose one’s own path in life. Many of the students emphasised that, despite
clear expectations, they did not feel forced to pursue a career choice that was not their
own. For example, Karma (17) observed, ‘/ . . ./my dad told me “I don’t care what you do, as
long as you manage to complete your education and get yourself a job, then I’m fine with
that” ’.
Thus, parents who, according to the data, managed to strike a balance between
holding high expectations and granting their children autonomy appeared to encourage
the participants in our study to persevere in school. Lisa also pointed to this freedom of
choice anchored in clear expectations of educational achievement:

They want me to get the best possible education, of course. It’s not like “You must become a
doctor”, it’s not like that. More like, they want me to enjoy the job that I choose. And they’re
always saying: “Money is not the most important thing, as long as you enjoy what you’re
doing”.

Hence, the young people we interviewed testify to the idea that parents who are both
highly demanding and responsive to children’s need for autonomy are likely to stimulate
their children’s educational career. This is in line with Baumrind’s (1991) research on
parenting styles, which suggests that adolescents who feel supported in their individua­
tion process and who are met with age-appropriate maturity demands, are more resilient
and optimistic, and they tend to perform well in school. This parenting style is referred to
as authoritative, and research suggests that it is associated with higher completion from
upper secondary education (Blondal and Adalbjarnardottir 2014; Rogers et al. 2018).
Living up to parents’ expectations seemed to be an important motivational factor for
the adolescents in this study. Several reported on how their parents’ clear aspirations
helped them to keep on track in school and prevented them from dropping out of school.
When asked whether he sometimes thought about leaving school, Lirim (17) responded:
‘No, never really. And that’s because I know my parents expect that much from me. So
there’s no point in thinking that way’. Some of the adolescents also mentioned that living
up to their parents’ expectations affected their parents’ feelings, and they seem to take
this into consideration in their decision to commit to school. This is illustrated by the
following fragment from the interview with Farouk (17): ‘My dad, he used to nag at me
quite a bit earlier. But now I’m doing better, so my dad has gotten better in a way. Yeah,
he’s smiling and stuff’.

Obligation and gratitude towards parents

Closely connected to parents’ expectations and ambitions for their children is the narra­
tive related by some of the students about how living up to parental expectations was
related to their parents’ immigrant history and labour market situation. As several of the
students explained, their parents were working hard to provide their children with a good
life. For example, Zeyneb (17), whose parents immigrated from Somalia, commented as
follows:

My parents came to Norway in the 1990s. And they have done everything so that my siblings
and I can have a good life. So, I will always be grateful for this, and I will do everything to make
them proud. For my sake and for theirs.
468 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

In the research literature, the goal to make the parents proud is referred to as ‘family-
orientation’ and is shown to have a positive effect on educational aspirations and school
effort (Friberg 2019). In the Norwegian context, it is well documented that young people
with an immigrant background from Africa or Asia display significantly higher levels of
family-orientation and are more focussed on family obligations than the Norwegian
majority. Furthermore, these family obligations are directly related to high ambitions
and diligence at school (Friberg 2019; Kindt and Hegna 2017).

Discussion
It is evident that parents represent one of the most important influences on learning and
success in school and can make a significant difference to their children’s educational
attainment and life chances (e.g. Coleman et al. 1966; Harris and Goodall 2008; Siraj and
Mayo 2014). However, research consistently indicates a positive association between
socioeconomic status and the degree of parental involvement in children’s education
(e.g. Pinquart and Ebeling 2019; Wilder 2013). For the students in this study, both their
educational history and their family background indicate that they had limited resources
available and, therefore, they were considered as being at risk of not completing upper
secondary education. However, at the time of the study, all of our participants were
enrolled in their second school year, with every intention of completing their education.
According to our analysis of interview data, the students in our study experienced a
considerable amount of parental involvement in their schooling. Most of the parental
practices and behaviours that the students described fall into the categories of home-
based involvement and academic socialisation (cf. Hill and Tyson 2009). In particular, the
students highlighted the profuse amount of social psychological support they were
experiencing from their parents. Warm and supportive relationships with their parents
were a major source of motivation and encouragement, particularly in times of low
motivation or in the face of educational challenges or failure. Our study cannot, of course,
offer evidence on whether the students we interviewed had a greater need for support
and encouragement from their parents to keep motivated and succeed in school than
more advantaged students. However, our finding that the students highlighted this kind
of support in the interviews does suggest that their parents’ involvement in their school
career, their encouragement and the constant feeling of being appreciated and sup­
ported – also when facing educational setbacks – played a key role in their succeeding in
school.
Unlike other forms of home-based involvement that may be hard to deliver for parents
who face certain barriers, influenced by context and culture, offering social psychological
support may be possible for all parents, regardless of socioeconomic resources. In the
same way, homework assistance may be hard to provide for many parents, but following
up whether homework is done may be a type of support that all parents can provide. This
also applies to practical support measures, which introduce a new perspective on parental
involvement that matters for vulnerable students. While providing assistance in the form
of, for example, wake-up support, preparing lunchboxes or organising transport may be a
natural thing for many parents to do, it was, however, something that was specifically
highlighted as helpful by the students in the study. For adolescents who struggle to get to
 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 469

school on time, this kind of support may be crucial. Moreover, parents’ involvement in the
daily requirements and challenges of school life sends a signal to their children about the
value they place on education.
All students in our study experienced high expectations from their parents for their
school career and described parents’ expectations to do well at school as a particularly
powerful motivational factor. However, several of the students reflected that they did not
feel pressurised to choose a particular career. Rather, the students said that it was most
important for their parents that they found their own career path and were happy with
their choice. This is contrary to research showing that minority students experience their
parents as more strongly influencing the decision-making process than do majority
students (Hegna and Smette 2017). Whilst there is no obvious reason for the difference,
one possible explanation may be that this applies particularly to students in general
education programmes, whereas students in vocational programmes may experience a
stronger autonomy related to their career choice.
Forms of school-based involvement (cf. Hill and Tyson 2009) could not be found in this
study. There may be several reasons for this. As children grow older and start education at
upper secondary level, communication between parents and teachers may be less com­
mon. Moreover, the complexity of the school and the number of people to whom parents
must relate, may be intimidating for parents (Harris and Goodall 2008). However, our
findings may also chime with what previous research has indicated: namely that school-
based involvement may be hard to engage in for the parents of students from disadvan­
taged socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g. Crosnoe and Ressler 2019).

Limitations
The findings from this small-scale study are necessarily limited in scope and by design.
First of all, we consciously chose to adopt a positive approach, starting the interviews with
an acknowledgement of the students’ school achievements so far, and asking primarily
about factors that contributed towards the participants succeeding at school. This may
have resulted in a certain bias in the students’ answers, as our questions may have guided
their perspective into a positive direction. However, this positive approach in interviews
could also be considered a strength of the study, as information about what works well is
often more constructive and applicable in practice. Second, most children feel a strong
sense of loyalty towards their parents, and the family bonds between the participants in
the study and their parents may have influenced their narratives in a positive way. Third,
we recognise and acknowledge the study’s size, and caution against uncritical general­
isation of our findings. However, the value of the study lies in providing insights based on
careful, in-depth analysis of data that may be relevant and of interest to the international
educational community more broadly.

Conclusion
Overall, our analysis allowed us to shed light on the forms of parental involvement that
students identified as vulnerable experienced in their schooling. In addition, the students’
narratives reflected their need for encouragement and motivation, their need for practical
support in everyday school life, and their need for clearly expressed expectations
470 E. SCHMID AND V. GARRELS

regarding their education. From the perspectives of the students, these forms of parental
involvement were a major explanation for their success in school. Thus, the findings from
this study offer a contribution to the field by describing the specific forms of parental
involvement that matter in the eyes of vulnerable students. This knowledge may help
with efforts to mobilise appropriate support measures for students with limited socio­
economic resources.
Our findings draw attention to the importance of identifying the particular support
needs of each individual student, and the specific resources that are available to a diverse
group of parents. Teachers who help parents to identify different ways of supporting their
children in school may contribute to a more inclusive school-home collaboration, which
encompasses parents from all backgrounds. This may support parents as empowered
participants in their children’s education, thereby contributing to students’ success in
school.

Note
1. In Norway, upper secondary education is a statutory right for all students who have com­
pleted lower secondary school. Students are granted the right to a minimum of three years of
upper secondary education, and most students between the ages of 16 and 20 are enrolled.
Upper secondary education is not compulsory in Norway (Norwegian White Paper 2018: 15).

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Beate Jørstad and Gøril Stokke Nordlie, students in the Master’s
programme in Vocational Pedagogy at Oslo Metropolitan University, for their help with interviewing
the students in the study.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Evi Schmid http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0364-8390
Veerle Garrels http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3237-5371

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