Parental involvement in children’s education: concept and models

The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept and model of parental involvement in the research on students’ educational achievement. The concept of parental involvement arose in the field of educational policies of the English-speaking countries and market-oriented education systems. Research has shown that different forms of parental involvement have significant effects on school learning outcomes. The Coleman Report in the US and the policy of “educational parentocracy” in the UK significantly stimulated research in this area. The review of the relevant literature confirms the multidimensionalityof the concept of parental involvement which includes parental support for school learning at home and at school, as well as structural and relational aspects. The paper presents two most prominent models of parental involvement in children’s education – the model of overlapping spheres of influence and the so-called DNA or dual navigation model. In the concluding section of the paper, the authors state that the existing conceptualizations and models of parental involvement include different types of parental activities, which is important for the creation and evaluation of school programs of parental involvement. As a consequence of the dominance of the Anglo-American conceptual and research framework, on the one hand, an interdisciplinary approach in the field of research on parental involvement in children’s education is highlighted. On the other hand, an authentic pedagogical view of the goals and effects of parental involvement in education as a subject of study of autonomous science in the tradition of continental Europe has been neglected. It is expected that future research will reaffirm those aspects of education that make it precisely “educational”. Relying on pedagogical principles and goals of education in building family-school relationships is a missing link in the existing agenda of global education policy.