Insights into teachers’ perceptions of parental involvement as a predictor of educational inequity

Abstract

For many decades, parental involvement (PI) has been discussed as an important variable in students’ development. However, those concerned with educational policy, practice, and research have traditionally helped perpetuate the well-known and undisputed narrative of the ‘parents who care’ who are actively involved in all aspects of student learning. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from a total of 485 teachers working at Austrian schools, the current study aims to contribute to a recently growing research paradigm that challenges traditional understandings of PI that are biased toward families who adhere to expected behaviours of home and school involvement and academic socialisation. The results suggest that primary and secondary teachers’ ratings of PI differ between diverse students and at different school levels. Moreover, participants’ explanations for disparities in PI between students align with a deficit-oriented, narrow understanding of PI, aimed at middle-class families that cling to traditional activities of PI.