HyperRESEARCH gives insight into Parental Involvement in Urban Schools
"Perils and Promises: Middle-Class Parental Involvement in Urban Schools" by Maia Bloomfield Cucchiara and Erin McNamara Horvat of Temple University in the American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4, 974-1004 (2009) used HyperRESEARCH to study parental involvement in schools. Cucchiara and Horvat note
that "Given recent trends, middle-class families may become an increasing presence in urban districts. Such parents could help secure badly needed resources and raise expectations. This study of parental involvement in two urban schools suggests that middle-class parental involvement may be more complex than often assumed. The authors find that middle-class parents bring myriad resources to urban schools and can be catalysts for change. However, the relationship between parental involvement and widespread benefit was mediated by parents’ own goals and perspectives as well as by the larger social context. Furthermore, compared to a more individualistic approach to parental involvement, a collective orientation is more sustainable and has greater potential for benefiting all children in the school, without regard to their social class." The full article can be found here.