The Relationship between Parenting and Academic Achievement
Article by Adam Jeup
Description:
Research found that one of the most important indicators of future academic success is prior academic success. While that is a substantial correlation, it is not a perfect positive correlation, so prior academic success cannot be the only indicator of future success. According to the literature, it is plausible that parenting style plays a role in future academic success.
Research shows that parenting style correlates with academic achievement. Specifically, authoritative parenting is most strongly related to higher achievement. Authoritative parenting involves three components which include acceptance (of failures and successes), psychological autonomy (freedom to think what they want), and behavior control (strict rules and supervision). Students reporting high acceptance from parents, high psychological autonomy, and moderate behavior control from parents not only have a higher perceived academic performance, but have higher grade point averages as well. Consequently, not only do the students feel they perform better in school, but they actually do perform better.
On the other hand, authoritarian parenting (highly demanding, directive, and disciplinary parenting, but unresponsive to their child’s needs), permissive parenting (overly lenient, do not require mature behavior, allow considerable self-regulation, and avoid confrontation), and inconsistent parenting (a mixture of different parenting styles) negatively correlated with academic achievement. Children of parents who exhibited these kinds of parenting behaviors also had a low perceived academic success. In other words, children who have parents who are permissive, authoritarian, or inconsistent are more likely to not only feel they perform poorly in school, but actually do perform poorly.
Studies have also examined how other variables, such as parental education, per-capita income level, gender, and ethnicity correlate with student achievement. Results showed that parental education was most strongly correlated with academic achievement. More specifically, the higher the parents’ education, the higher their child’s grades were. A possible explanation for this relationship may be explained by parents’ prior knowledge of subjects to help their child on schoolwork. Further research still needs to be conducted in order to support or refute this hypothesis. Melby & Conger also found that per-capita income had a positive correlation with student achievement. This relationship might be explained by access to resources that involve money, such as tutors or studying aids. Finally, neither gender nor ethnicity was found to be significantly correlated with achievement in school. A possible explanation for this is that parenting styles and their effects do not discriminate between males, females, or various races.
Research that has closely examined the relationship between parenting style and academic achievement found that psychosocial maturity (expansion of social knowledge and wellbeing) serves to mediate this relationship. In other words, authoritative parenting impacts psychosocial maturity, which in turn, influences how students perform in school. Psychosocial maturity was measured by self-reliance (control over life), work orientation (students work skills & work goals), and self identity (self esteem & life goals). Each of these variables, both separately and collectively, positively correlated with higher grades. Authoritative parenting was also found to correlate with each of these three indicators of psychosocial maturity. Extending these results a step further, it is plausible that acceptance, psychological autonomy, and low behavior control (from parent to child) are important for children to succeed academically, as they likely lead to increased psychosocial maturity, which has been determined to correlate with higher academic achievement.
Research has shown that the highest indicator of children’s academic success from one year to the next is prior academic achievement (r = 0.66; citation). These results raise an interesting research question: do parents become authoritarian or permissive because of students’ low grades (i.e., students’ low grades become a stressor for the parent, which cause them to be authoritarian or permissive) or do students have low grades because of parental behaviors (i.e., pre-established parental behaviors dictate how students will perform in school)? Regardless of the answer, it is apparent that authoritarian parenting is positively correlated with academic success.
References:
Melby, J.N., & Conger, R.D. (1996). Parental behaviors and adolescent academic
performance: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Research on Adolescents, 6(1),
113-137.
Steinberg, L., Elmen, J.D., & Mounts, N.S. (1989). Authoritarianparenting, psychosocial
maturity, and academic success among adolescents. Child Development, 60(6),
1424-1436.
Bradley, Nikki (2006). Permissive Parenting: An Overview. Retrieved July 9, 2008, from
http://parenting.families.com/blog/permissive-parenting-an-overview.
Greenberger, E., Josselson, R., Knerr, C. & Knerr, B. (1974). The measurement and
structure of psychosocial maturity. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 4(2), 127-
143.
Contact Person: Cindy J Liberton
Funding for Academic Year: 2008-09