What are the factors that influence parents’ involvement in children’s education?

Parent involvement is associated with a range of positive outcomes for children's education and learning.

Understanding what determines parents' levels of involvement is an important area of research.

This thesis explores aspects of parental involvement at school.

A systematic review paper considered barriers to parental involvement in their children's education, as reported by parents.

Twelve articles from peer-reviewed journals were identified and the research critically evaluated.

The studies showed a range of factors were barriers to parental involvement. Of particular importance were logistical factors such as work and time.

Many studies were criticised for methodological quality and relevance. Implications for research and professional practice are discussed.

The empirical paper explored parent's attributions for their children's learning and parental involvement in their children's education.

Parents from five schools in London and the South-East England were invited to complete two questionnaires.

Responses were received from 139 parents and data were analysed using Principal Component Analysis.

Parents indicated that the greatest influence on learning was child's effort while Parent and Family factors explained the largest component of variance.

Parent involvement was highest in relation to attending parent teacher evenings while the Community and Volunteering factor explained the largest component of variance.

Regression analysis was used to explore the relationship between involvement and attributions.

Parents who attributed their child's learning to parental factors were found to have higher levels of involvement in their child's school work at home and learning activities at home, even when controlling for background factors such as income, number of children in family, and employment.

A significant interaction was found between attributions for parent factors and number of children in family.

Strengths and limitations of this research as well as avenues for future research were discussed.