Understanding Parental Educational Involvement: The Roles of Parental General and Child-Specific School Readiness Beliefs

Making a smooth transition to the K–12 (kindergarten through Grade 12) classroom context sets the stage for academic success throughout the life course. Parents’ early education-related behaviors are linked with children’s adjustment, yet less is known about how parental school readiness beliefs motivate parenting practices at this educational transition. We investigated the associations between parental school readiness beliefs (general and child-specific) following the transition to kindergarten and parents’ involvement the following year. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten 2011 cohort (N = 9,790), general school readiness beliefs and child-specific academic and behavioral competency beliefs were associated with school-based involvement in first grade. Kindergarten parents who held higher child-specific academic competency beliefs also reported less homework involvement and had greater teacher-reported classroom-based involvement in first grade. Family poverty status differences did not emerge. Findings can inform efforts to increase parental involvement by elucidating the ways in which parents’ beliefs about their children motivate involvement strategies

How School Contexts Shape the Relations Among Adolescents' Beliefs, Peer Victimization, and Depressive Symptoms

The present research examined how school contexts shape the extent to which beliefs about the potential for change (implicit theories) interact with social adversity to predict depressive symptoms. A preregistered multilevel regression analysis using data from 6,237 ninth-grade adolescents in 25 U.S. high schools showed a three-way interaction: Implicit theories moderated the associations between victimization and depressive symptoms only in schools with high levels of school-level victimization, but not in schools with low victimization levels. In high-victimization schools, adolescents who believed that people cannot change (an entity theory of personality) were more depressed when they were victimized more frequently. Thus, the mental health correlates of adolescents' implicit theories depend on both personal experiences and the norms in the context

Party, Academic, or Prepped for College? School Norm Profiles and Adolescent Well-being using National Data

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/175427/1/jora12702.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/175427/2/jora12702_am.pd

How Do Teachers’ and Parents’ Expectations Come Together to Influence Adolescents’ Educational Success?

gaps among its students. Students of color and those from lower-income backgrounds often have poorer academic attainment compared to White students and those from higher-income families. Understanding the processes that could reduce disparities in academic achievement are critical to improving educational practice. Teachers’ and parents’ expectations for the educational futures of youth strongly influence how well the youth do academically. Using data from a large, nationally‐representative sample of students, PRC faculty scholar Aprile Benner, PRC graduate student trainee Celeste Fernandez, and colleagues, find that high teacher expectations are critical for youth academic achievement and can mitigate the negative effects of low parent expectations. They argue that improving educational expectations that teachers hold for all students has the potential to greatly assist youth who are often marginalized in educational settings.Population Research Cente