The myth of the lack of parents’ involvement. Family Involvement, Social Inequality and School Success

Abstract

Many public policies, teachers and researchers impute the weaker school performance of working class students to the lack of parents’ involvement: they don’t value school as much as middle class parents. Other authors disagree on this: nowadays the main difference among social strata related to school doesn’t consist of values, but of resources. We check both theories with the data provided by 2010 Social Survey analyzing the relation between parents’ involvement, resources and children’s previous school performance in two cohorts, 12 and 16 years old. We find the biggest differences in those practices that need more cultural and economic resources -helping with homework and paying for private classes-. Concerning other practices we find the main differences when the children are 16 years old and have low grades: since there are no differences at 12 years old, those differences in involvement are probably consequences, not causes, of children’s school failure. We conclude that working class parents value and get involved in their children’s schooling, but they have less resources to foster it.