2005 - The Relationship Between Parental Involvement as Social Capital and College Enrollment: An Examination of Racial/Ethnic Group Differences

Attribution: Perna, Laura W. & Titus, Marvin A.
Researchers: Laura W. PernaMarvin A. Titus
University Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania; North Carolina State University
Email: lperna@gse.upenn.edu
Research Question:
1) What is the relationship between parental involvement and the likelihood that a student enrolls in a 2-year or 4-year college in the fall after graduating from high school? 2) How does the relationship differ between the different types of parental involvement and the likelihood of enrolling in a 2-year or 4-year college? 3) What is the relationship between the characteristics of the social networks at the school attended and the likelihood that a student enrolls in a 2-year or 4-year college?
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: The Journal of Higher Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 76, No. 5, Pp. 485-518
Year: 2005
Findings:
  1. After controlling for student-level and school-level variables, the odds of enrolling in a 4-year college or university are higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for Whites. These findings suggest that the lower observed 4-year college enrollment rates for African Americans and Hispanics than for Whites are explained by racial/ethnic group differences in other variables in the model.
  2. The likelihood of enrolling in a 2-year college increases with the share of Hispanics in the student body but decreases with the share of African Americans in the student body.
  3. After controlling for other student- and school-level variables, African Americans are less likely than students of other racial/ethnic groups to enroll in a 2-year college.
  4. The odds of enrolling in either a 2-year or 4- year college relative to not enrolling increase with the frequency with which the parent discusses with the student education-related topics, contacts the school to volunteer, and initiates contact with school about academics.
  5. The odds of enrolling in either a 2-year or 4-year college decline as the frequency of parent-initiated contact with the school about behavioral issues increase.
  6. The share of a student’s friends who plan to attend a 2-year college is positively associated with the likelihood of enrolling in a 2-year college and negatively related to the likelihood of enrolling in a 4-year college. The share of a student’s friends who plan to attend a 4-year institution is positively related to enrollment in both a 2-year and 4-year institution, although the magnitude of the relationship is greater for 4-year than for 2-year enrollment.
  7. The odds that a student will enroll in a 2- year college increase with the share of the prior year’s high school graduating class that enrolled in a 2-year college, whereas the odds of enrolling in a 4-year college increase with the share of the prior year’s graduates that enrolled in a 4-year college.
  8. Disruptions to social capital, as measured by the number of times a student’s family moves, are associated with lower odds of enrolling in either a 2-year or 4-year college in the fall after graduating from high school relative to not enrolling.
  9. In terms of school-level effects, none of the three measures of the extent to which a school encourages parental involvement is a statistically significant predictor of college enrollment after controlling for other variables. However, the likelihood of enrolling in a 2-year or 4-year college is related to the volume of resources that may be accessed via social networks at the school.
  10. Student-level measures of parental involvement are related to the likelihood of enrolling in a 2-year or 4-year college relative to not enrolling, even after controlling for measures of economic capital, cultural capital, and human capital. The analyses suggest that parents convey norms and standards in ways that promote college enrollment through interactions with the student, the school, and other parents.
  11. African Americans realize a smaller college enrollment premium for each unit of parent-student discussions about education-related issues but a larger college enrollment premium for each unit of parent-initiated contact with the school about academic issues.
  12. African Americans and Hispanics not only possess fewer of the types of capital that promote college enrollment but also attend schools with fewer of the resources that promote college enrollment.
  13. The results suggest that allocating resources to promote parental involvement is an effective approach for programs that are designed to increase the college enrollment of underrepresented groups.
Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: CollegeCommunity CollegeEnrollmentHuman CapitalParental InvolvementRacial CompositionSchool CompositionRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsHierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) Sampling Frame:High school to college students
Sampling Types: NationalAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
    • The conceptual model recognizes that an individual’s action (e.g., college enrollment) cannot be fully understood except in terms of the structural context. The structural context is defined in terms of the characteristics of the high school attended: specifically, the extent to which the school encourages parental involvement, the volume of resources that may be accessed via social networks at the school, and the homogeneity of the social networks at the school.
    • Data from the second (1992) and third (1994) follow-ups to the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) were used. In 1992, the sample were high school seniors and, in 1994, they were two years out of high school. The analytic sample numbers 9,810 high school graduates attending 1,006 high schools.
    • The dependent variable, college enrollment, was measured in October 1992, the fall after the student’s scheduled graduation from high school. The variable has three categories: enrolled in a 2-year college; enrolled in a 4-year college or university; and not enrolled (reference category).
    • At the student level, the analyses control for race/ethnicity, gender, and several forms of capital. Economic capital is measured by variables that reflect an individual’s actual and perceived ability to pay the costs of college. Cultural capital is measured by four variables that are designed to reflect an individual’s language skills, cultural knowledge, values about higher education, and class status. Human capital is measured by academic achievement and academic preparation. Academic achievement is measured by the standardized composite score on the reading and mathematics tests.
    • A series of dichotomous variables reflects the highest level of mathematics that a student completed.

Parent-student involvement is measured by parent-student discussions about education-related issues and by parental monitoring of the student’s behavior. Parent-school involvement is measured by how often parents interacted with the school itself. Parent-to-parent involvement, an indicator of inter-generational closure, is measured by the number of the student’s friends’ parents with whom a parent reported talking. To account for possible disruptions to social capital, the analyses include a variable measuring the number of times that a student’s family moved between 1988 and 1992.

  • The extent to which a school encourages parental involvement is measured by the extent to which the school reports that parents are involved with establishing curricular guidelines, grading and student evaluation policies, discipline policies, textbooks and materials, course offerings, school expenditure priorities, policies for grouping student classes, and criteria for hiring and firing teachers.
  • The volume of social capital that is available through social networks is also measured by the average of each of the student-level measures of parental involvement (e.g., average frequency of parent-student discussions about education-related issues) at the school attended. The volume of economic, cultural, and human capital that is available through social networks at the school is measured by school-level averages of the following student-level variables: family income, parental education, parental educational expectations, and test scores.
  • The extent to which weak ties may provide access to otherwise unavailable resources is measured by the standard deviation of the family income of students attending the same school and the percentages of African Americans and Hispanics in the school student body. These three variables provide an indication of the diversity of the students attending a school in terms of family income and race/ethnicity.
  • This study focuses on the role of parental involvement in the 12th grade rather than at earlier points in time for conceptual clarity. Many other variables may intervene between the time of the involvement in 8th grade (as an example) and college enrollment after the 12th grade.

 

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Factors Relating to STEM Readiness
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts