Parent Social Networks and Parent Responsibility

Abstract

Despite benefits of family involvement for student achievement, family-school partnerships are difficult to initiate and sustain in ways that actually promote student learning in high poverty communities. Schools may be able to mitigate barriers to effective family engagement in high poverty, highly mobile communities by building social ties among families, teachers, and community partners. However, approaches to bring about such relationships are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parent social networks and individual parent responsibility. This study built upon a social network framework to better understand how social forces shape parent responsibility in education. Quantitative survey data were collected from a random sample of 5th grade parents across elementary schools in a large urban district. Two types of social networks were measured: parent networks with other parents in the school and parent networks with other adults who did not have children in the school.

Findings indicate that contact among parents within schools is limited and that social networks are related to parent responsibility. Evidence from a post hoc analysis of the data suggest that parent social networks may serve as mediating factors in the relationship between SES and parent responsibility. By encouraging networks among parents, schools may have the ability to potentially strengthen parent responsibility.