Deepening Understanding of Parents' Role Construction for Involvement in Their Children's Education

Abstract

This thesis examined the development of parents’ active role construction for involvement in their children’s education. Guided by cognitive, social, and cultural theories of development, this study investigated the influence of two known contributors to parental involvement (valence toward school and self-efficacy), one relatively new personal-cultural contributor (self-construal), and one other known motivator of parental involvement (contextual invitations to involvement). Results suggested that experiences with schools do contribute to a parent’s partnership-focused role construction, whereas self-efficacy was influential in parent-focused role construction. Child invitations to involvement were most influential in predicting active role constructions, but interview data suggested teachers’ invitations are equally as important. Self-construal did not significantly predict active role constructions, but small correlations suggest there is an association that should be examined in future work.