On the Importance of Parental Participation for Student Achievement in Reading Literacy

The main aim of this study is to investigate the effect of home and school interplay on students’ reading achievement at both individual and class level. While previous research has shown that interplay between home and school may be of importance for student achievement, no consistent pattern has been found. The analyses presented here are based on data from PIRLS 2001, using variables from both the teachers’, the schools’, students’ and the parents’ reports of communication and collaboration between home and school. A series of theoretically based structural equation models was fitted to these data. In the first stage, measurement models of broad constructs such as “parental participation” was identified and later included in a two-level structural model. These latent variables were related to achievement both at the individual and at the class level. The results indicate that the homeschool relationships play an important role in explaining differences between classes in reading achievement, whilst the effect at the individual level is almost negligible. In the final analysis the relationships are investigated in a model where both teacher competence and student SES in terms of general capital is included. It is shown that the positive effect of parental participation on achievement was dependent on student home background and teacher competence. The results also showed that teacher competence and student home background to a certain degree was mediated through the parental participation factors.