Parenting more significant than schools for academic success

Is it time to forget about school league tables, and start ranking parenting styles instead? There are so many league tables published and academic institutions are always being compared, but is it possible to work out how much of an impact parents have on their child’s achievement?

New research has been carried out, looking into both the impact of family involvement with a child’s learning and the attributes of the school attended, to find out which factor has the biggest influence on academic success. Using data from more than 10,000 teachers, parents and students, research conducted by the University of California, North Carolina State University and Brigham Young University investigated how the ‘family social capital’ –communication, good parental relationships and participation with the child’s school life – fared against the ‘school social capital’; the upbeat attitudes of teachers and their extra-curricular input, as well as the ability of the school to provide a positive environment.

It was discovered that children who came from a higher ranking family capital but lower school capital, on average have a higher academic achievement than those with a high school capital but low family capital. So while both the school and family environments are significant to a child’s academic success, the study finds that extra parental support and help really does make a difference to the grades they obtain.

The paper ‘Does Capital at Home Matter More than Capital at School?: Social Capital Effects on Academic Achievement’ can be found in the online journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility and was written by Kelly Troutman, a PhD student at UC Irvine and Dr Mikaela Dufur of BYU.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027656241200042X?v=s5