Involvement Practices, Socioeconomic Status, and Student Science Achievement: Insights From a Typology of Home and School Involvement Patterns

The present study examines if higher socioeconomic status (SES) parents are more involved in their children’s education, and if greater involvement is associated with better student science achievement in Hong Kong (N = 5,353). Results showed that (a) there were three latent classes characterized by different patterns of parental involvement; (b) there was no simple relationship between SES and parental involvement patterns among the three latent classes; and (c) patterns of parental involvement were not significantly associated with levels of student science achievement. These findings support the contention that higher SES parents are not necessarily more involved than lower SES parents in all aspects, and that higher levels of parental involvement may not eventuate in higher levels of student achievement