Parental Involvement in Education in and out of School

British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1998 461

Parental Involvement in Education in andout of School

ANNE WEST, PHILIP NODEN & ANN EDGE, Centre for Educational Research,London School of Economics and Political ScienceMIRIAM DAVID, The London Institute

ABSTRACT This paper explores the ways in which parents—mothers and fathers—areinvolved in their children's education both in and out of school. It compares involvementof families with children in the final year of primary education (or its equivalent) in stateand private schools, and amongst the state school parents compares families in terms ofsocial class and mothers' educational level. The findings indicate that mothers generallyassume overriding responsibility for their children's education. Furthermore, motherswith higher levels of education are more likely to use workbooks and employ privatetutors to support their children's education; attendance at parents' evenings andinformal discussions with teachers were also more likely to be shared with the child'sfather. It is suggested that mothers' educational level is a better predictor of involvementthan is social class and that, in the face of a diversification of family forms, mothers'education may be more instructive in understanding educational involvement than socialclass based on employment groups.

Introduction

The research reported here forms part of a project concerned with parents' choice ofschools for their children, their involvement in their education and their expectations oftheir achievement This paper is specifically concerned with one of these issues, namelyparents' involvement in their children's education. The study was carried out during theperiod of Conservative government reforms that were designed to raise the standards ofeducational attainment through the introduction of market forces: "The Government is .. .firmly wedded to parental choice and involvement and to the pursuit of excellence forall pupils ... ' (Department for Education [DFE], 1992, p. 2). A similar philosophicalapproach in relation to parental involvement is continuing with the Labour Government.In the White Paper, Excellence in Schools (Department for Education and Employment[DfEE], 1997), the importance of parents is emphasised: 'Parents are a child's first andenduring teachers. They play a crucial role in helping their children' (p. 53).

0141-1926/98/040461-24 ©1998 British Educational Research Association

462 A. West et al.

Whilst recent government policy clearly supports the notion of 'parental involvement',there is a paucity of information about the ways in which parents are involved in theirchildren's education—particularly outside the formal school setting. There is alsocomparatively little information that focuses on involvement by different groups ofparents. As Vincent & Tomlinson (1997) note:

There is relatively little research data which addresses the issue of howdifferent parents relate to the education system ... and their experiences of theinstitutions of compulsory education ... [that] they have dealings with asparents, (p. 372)

This paper thus seeks to answer five key questions formulated with the intention ofenabling us to improve our understanding of parents' involvement in their children'seducation, namely:

• In what ways are parents involved in their children's education, both formally andinformally?

• How much homework, if any, is set by schools? To what extent do parents supplementtheir children's formal education by helping with homework, through the use ofworkbooks and by employing private tutors?

• Does involvement vary between parents with children in state and private schools?• Does involvement vary between mothers and fathers?• Are there any differences in involvement between parents from different social

backgrounds? Given the diverse nature of the family, with an increasing proportion oflone mother families, can the mother's educational level be used as a predictor ofinvolvement?

The following section provides a review of relevant research. The methodology is thendescribed and the characteristics of the parents in the sample are discussed beforemoving onto the results that emerged. Attendance at 'open evenings', help in theclassroom and parental involvement as school governors are explored. The issue ofhomework and parental assistance with schoolwork at home is addressed. In addition, theuse of commercially-produced 'workbooks' widely available in bookshops and geared tospecific areas of the curriculum is explored. Next, the extent to which private tutors areused is examined. Finally, parental involvement in a wide range of educational activitiescommonly undertaken at home that fall into a broader definition of 'education' isexplored. The final section provides a summary and discussion of the overall findingsand the implications of the study for future research.

Past Research

A range of types of parental involvement and home-school relationships exists andresearch concerned with parental involvement in education has focused on a number ofdifferent issues (see, for example, David, 1993; Vincent & Tomlinson, 1997). Somestudies have examined parents' involvement in decision-making as school governors inEngland (e.g. Golby, 1993) and as school board members in Scotland (e.g. Munn, 1993).Others have concentrated on the involvement of parents in the new education 'quasi-market', for example, as 'consumers' of education (e.g. Hughes et al, 1994; David etal, 1994; Gewirtz et al., 1995; West et al, 1998). However, most of the research has

Parental Involvement in Education 463

focused more explicitly on the ways in which parents are involved in their children'seducation either in a school context or in the home. Within this area, many of the studieshave centred on particular aspects of the curriculum or forms of home-school relations.The most significant of these are to do with participation in school (e.g. Mortimore etal., 1988; Tizard et al., 1988; Jowett & Baginsky, 1991; West et al., 1992) and withspecific areas of the curriculum, predominantly reading (e.g. Toomey, 1993; Hannon,1995; Cuckle, 1996) but also mathematics (e.g. Merttens & Vass, 1990; see also David,1993).

Two studies that have focused on parental involvement in school activities are ofparticular relevance in the present context. One was carried out by Varlaam et al. (1985)as part of the Junior School Project in the former Inner London Education Authority (seealso Mortimore et al., 1988) and one was carried out in south-west England (Hughes etal., 1994).

Varlaam et al. (1985) interviewed the parents of 222 children aged 8-9 years of age.They found that over nine out of 10 parents had attended a parents' evening during theschool year. For nearly half, both mother and father attended, although for 39% only themother had attended. Fifteen per cent of the parents had helped in the classroom of theirchild's school. Sixty-five per cent had never been on school or class outings. Nodifferences were found between the three social groups (non-manual, skilled manual, andsemi-skilled and unskilled manual) in terms of the proportions of parents who partici-pated in school outings and no differences in the proportions of mothers who helped inclassrooms, or who attended parents' evenings. A smaller proportion of fathers fromsemi-skilled and unskilled backgrounds than from skilled or non-manual backgroundshad attended parents' evenings (37% versus 62% and 60% respectively). Also of interestis the finding that the sample schools differed in the extent to which pupils' parents feltthat the school wanted to involve them; in one school, for example, all the parents feltthe school liked them to be involved. By way of contrast, in another school only justover half of the parents felt that the school wanted them to be involved.

A more recent study by Hughes et al, (1994) examined parents' views about theirchildren's education in the light of the reforms that have taken place since 1988. Theirresearch focused on children in primary school, whose parents were interviewed in eachof three years (years 1-3—ages 5-8). It explored choice of school, parents' satisfactionwith their child's school, their attitudes towards the National Curriculum and assessment,their knowledge about their child's school and the extent to which they consideredthemselves to be 'consumers' of education. As a corollary, headteachers' views onassociated areas were also sought. Of particular interest in the current context, are thefindings relating to parental contacts with their child's school. During interviews in year2, parents were asked about their contact with their child's school during the previous12 months. The most common form of communication was through a school newsletter,with every parent having received at least one during the year. Over eight out of 10parents (84%) had attended a parents' evening about their child, and a similar proportion(83%) had helped with schoolwork at home. Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetingsor social events had been attended by slightly fewer parents (81%). Around three-quar-ters of the parents (76%) had talked to the child's teacher at some other time.

These studies indicate that parents, in general, are interested in their children'seducation and, in particular, with the progress made by their own child. Our researchinterest was in parental involvement in education both in school and at home. To ourknowledge, no systematic studies looking at both these types of activities have been

464 A. West et al.

carried out. Instead of focusing on 'parental' involvement, we explored the extent towhich mothers and fathers were involved. In contrast to other research studies, wecompared the ways in which parents with children in state and private schools wereinvolved (it is important to note that private fee-paying schools in England are, in themain, academically selective and used by middle-class families [see Edwards et al.,1989; West et al., 1998]). We also compared how involvement varied, within the stateschool sector, between parents of different social classes and with differing levels ofeducational attainment. Research consistently shows that there are differences inachievement for children of different social class groups but 'the causes of suchdifferences are seldom clear' (Mortimore et al., 1988, p. 117). However, parents'involvement in their children's education may be a contributory factor.

We thus decided to test the hypothesis that there would be differences in relation toparental involvement in education depending on the social class background of thefamilies concerned. In addition, we also decided to test the hypothesis that the mother'seducational level is a more valid measure than social class given the growing movesaway from traditional household types and the fact that educational levels are moreconsistent over time.

Methods

The present study is based primarily on interview data collected during the spring andsummer of 1994 with parents of children aged 10-11 years of age. The target childrenwere from 19 schools [1]; the schools comprised 16 state primary schools (county,Church of England and Roman Catholic) and three private preparatory schools—one forgirls and two mixed. The state schools were in three local education authorities (LEAs),one in outer London and two in inner London. In the inner London LEAs, the stateprimary schools were selected in conjunction with LEA officers or inspectors. They wereasked to select schools that would represent the school population in the LEA in termsof its social and ethnic composition and would also provide a geographical spread. In theouter London LEA, schools were selected on the basis of geographical location. Theprivate schools were selected using the Independent Schools Information Servicedirectory of independent schools. They were In the geographical vicinity of the stateschools.

Headteachers of the schools that had been selected were approached by the researchteam and asked to suggest the names of six girls and six boys in year 6 (age 10-11 yearsof age) representative of the different abilities, social, ethnic and family backgrounds atthe school. These parents were contacted by letter and asked to return a slip with theirname, address and telephone number if they wished to be interviewed. This 'opting-in'method was considered to be an appropriate one as it yielded a representative sample inprevious research carried out by one of the authors (West & Varlaam, 1991). In thepresent study, some headteachers wanted the research team to contact all parents in year6, so this was offered as an alternative method for recruiting parents. It is important tonote that unlike the research carried out by some other researchers, we were not providedwith the names or addresses of parents by the schools concerned.

Parents were interviewed using a schedule that included both 'open' and 'closed'questions. The schedule was designed to address a number of key issues—the processof choosing secondary schools, parents' aspirations and expectations about their child'sfuture achievement and how they were involved in their children's education. Thequestions that related to parental involvement in their children's education were


TABLE I. Who the target child lived with (percentages do not always add up to 100because of rounding)

Percentage of Percentage ofchildren in state children in private Total %

Child lives with schools (n = 83) schools (n = 24) (/i = 107)

Mother and father 71 92 76Mother only 13 8 12Mother and partner 7 0 6Other, e.g. guardian 8 0 7

predominantly 'closed'. However, in some cases, parents made comments that areincluded, as relevant, in this paper.

In addition to interviewing parents, interviews with headteachers were also carried outwith a view to obtaining more comprehensive information about the schools and theirpolicies than could be achieved through interviewing parents alone. School prospectuseswere obtained from nine schools and were used to supplement the information obtainedfrom parents and teachers, particularly in relation to school homework policies.

Results

Characteristics of the sample

Background characteristics. The sample consisted of the families of 107 children. Overthree-quarters (78%) of the families had children at primary schools in the state sectorand around a fifth (22%) had children in private preparatory schools; this compares witharound 10% of pupils who attend private schools in London and south-east England.This overrepresentation of the private school sector was a deliberate decision made inorder to allow for comparison between parents using the private and state sectors. Thesample, cannot, however, be considered to be representative of the overall schoolpopulation.

Across the sample, just under half of the target children were girls (47%). The numberof parents interviewed ranged from one to 10 per school (mean of 5.6). The mother wasinterviewed in 64% of the families, the father in 10%, and both parents in 23% (in 3%of cases another member of the family or the child's guardian was interviewed). Theproportion of mothers who were interviewed alone is somewhat lower than in otherresearch studies focusing on parental involvement in education (e.g. 81% in the study byHughes et al. [1994]).

As can be seen in Table I, around three-quarters of the target children were intraditional two-parent families—that is, they were living with their natural mother andfather. Just over one in 10 were living with their mother only and 6% with their motherand her partner. There were no statistically significant differences between the compo-sition (traditional versus non-traditional) of families of children in state schools andthose of children in private schools (chi-squared = 2.6, df = 1, p > 0.05).

The social class of the parents of the target children was established using theStandard Occupational Classification (Office of Population Censuses and Surveys[OPCS], 1990). The method adopted involved using the occupation of the father intwo-parent families where the father was in work, and in two-parent families where thefather was out of work (or not living in the household) the mother's occupation was

13391620714

50380

13000

21381219613

466 A. West et al.

TABLE II. Social class based on occupation of parents (percentages)

Parents of children Parents of children inin state schools private schools All parents

Social class based on occupation (n = 83) (n = 24) (n = 107)

Professional etc. occupationsManagerial and technical occupationsSkilled occupations (non-manual)Skilled occupations (manual)Partly skilled occupationsUnskilled occupationsNone

used. In one-parent families where the parent was in work, the occupation of that parentwas used. Where the parent identified was not in employment, the previous occupationwas used. In three cases, no classification could be made as the parent had not had anyprevious employment. Table II gives the percentage of parents in different social classes.As can be seen, the parents in our sample were predominantly from non-manual socialclass groups. Nevertheless, there was a significant minority of parents from manualsocial backgrounds. Significantly, more parents with children in private than stateschools were in professional than other occupations (chi-squared = 12.1, df = I,p < 0.0005).

As can be seen in Table III, we found that a high percentage of mothers had obtainedat least General Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced (A) levels or its equivalent(63% overall). (These examinations are the standard university entrance requirement.)Some parents had been educated outside England and in these cases, examinations takenat the end of upper secondary education were considered to be equivalent to GCE Alevels (e.g. Irish and Danish school leaving examinations). It is of interest to note thata significant minority of the mothers had no formal educational qualifications.Significantly more mothers with children in private than state schools had a degree orhigher degree (chi-squared = 8.9, df = 1, p < 0.005).

Table IV shows that the children in the overall sample were from a wide range ofdifferent ethnic groups. Around two-thirds were classified by their parents as being'white'. The equivalent percentage for Greater London (inner and outer) state schools is61% (London Research Centre, 1997). Our target children were thus riot atypical of theLondon state school population in this respect.

TABLE III. Mothers' highest educational qualification (percentages)

Qualification

Degree/higher degreeProfessional/technical/GCE A levesGCE O levels/CSE (1)NoneNot known

Mothers of childrenin state schools

(n = 83)

20371822

2

Mothers of childrenin private schools

(n = 24)

54252100

All mothers(n = 107)

283519172

(1) GCE O levels/CSE: General Certificate of Education Ordinary levels/Certificate of SecondaryEducation—these were examinations generally taken at 16 years of age.


TABLE IV. Child's ethnicity (percentages)

Children in state Children in private All childrenEthnic group schools (n = 83) schools (n = 24) (n =107)

WhiteBlack (1)Indian sub-continentOther (2)

65224

10

71170

13

66213

10

(1) Black African, Black Caribbean, Black British, Black Other.(2) Includes mixed ethnicity.

Overall, there was a reasonable representation of parents from different family, social,educational and ethnic backgrounds—especially given the overrepresentation of parentswith children in the private school sector, and the inclusion of parents living in aprosperous area in outer London. However, there were few families with partly skilled(formerly semi-skilled [OPCS, 1990]) and unskilled social backgrounds [2]. This may beas a result of parents 'opting in' to the study (unlike the study carried out by Hughes etal. [1994], for example). Moreover, it is likely that parents who had an interest in theeducation of their children were more inclined to respond to the letter that we sent tothem. Thus, the sample must be considered one that was 'active' in terms of involvementin their children's education.

Relationships between background variables. In terms of the interrelationships betweenthe variables outlined earlier we found significant associations between social classbackground (non-manual versus manual) and mothers' and fathers' educationalqualification levels (at least GCE A levels versus less than GCE A levels). There wasan association between mothers' and fathers' educational qualification levels (chi-squared = 30.1, d f = l , p< 0.0001) and between social class group and mothers'educational qualification level (chi-squared = 16.1, df = \,p < 0.0001). The associationbetween fathers' qualification level and social class background was somewhat lower,but nevertheless statistically significant (chi-squared = 4.3, df = 1, p < 0.05). There wasno association between mothers' educational,qualification level and household type(traditional versus non-traditional) (chi-squared = 0, df = 1, p > 0.05) or between socialclass background and household type (chi-squared = 1.1, d f = l , p > 0.05). It isimportant to note that the size and nature of our sample did not permit us to carry outquantitative analyses controlling for social class and/or mother's educational level inorder to compare differences between ethnic groups and different family types.

Involvement in Schools

The overall sample. Interviewees were asked how they were involved (or had beeninvolved in the past) in their child's school. They were specifically questioned aboutattending open evenings, having informal discussions with class teachers, helping onschool trips, helping in class, attending parent-teacher association meetings and servingas a school governor. The parents we interviewed were a particularly involved group. Asone commented: 'Parents now want involvement and it's encouraged'. Some parents,nevertheless, felt uneasy or uncomfortable about involvement in the school:

Field notes: The child's stepfather had had some bad experiences at the schoolwhere he felt he had been making a point but had been badly misunderstood

468 A. West et al.

TABLE V. Types of involvement in schools (percentages)

Type of involvement

Attending open eveningsInformal discussions with teachersHelping on tripsHelping in classAttending PTA meetingsSchool governor

Percentage where either parenthad been involved

(n= 107)

989869524720

as overbearing and interfering. 'The teacher is not communicative and wedon't know the questions to ask'. Parents feel insecure that their 'lack ofeducation is a minus point against them'.

Field notes: Mother understands the issues but felt out of her depth in theEnglish education system. She was nervous of being seen as a 'foreignoutsider'. Mother is Slovenian, father Serbian.

Our quantitative findings are given in Table V and, as can be seen, in almost all families,activities were undertaken that related to the parents' own child—that is, attending openevenings and having informal discussions with class teachers. More than half of theparents had helped at some time in class and on school trips. Just under half of .theparents were or had been involved in parent—teacher association meetings (or itsequivalent)—these meetings are predominantly of a social nature although they may alsoraise funds and they thus differ in kind from meetings concerned with individualchildren. :

The widespread attendance at open evenings is demonstrated by the followingcomments made by mothers we interviewed:

Researcher. Do you go to PTA meetings?Mother. Yes, I go when I can. I'm not saying, I go to all but .. .Researcher. Open evenings?Mother. Yes, that's one thing I don't miss, the open evening. Because I think it's

important to the child that you go to them. I never miss that.[Field notes: Lone mother, educated in the Caribbean, works part-time cleaning asecondary school.]

Researcher. Do you go to PTA meetings?Mother. No, not at the moment.Researcher. Trips?Mother. Yes, we both do occasionally, yes.Researcher. Open evenings?Mother. Yes ... yes both of us. I mean sometimes it worked like when James went to

secondary school I, sort of, took on the secondary school and [his father] tended tostay with the junior school. But generally both go to the open evenings.

Researcher. Discussions?Mother. Occasionally we'll just drop in if we've got something to say.[Field notes: Mother works part-time as a librarian. Separated from father who workspart-time as a training manager.]


In one case, even when the respondent did not feel well disposed towards the school, shestill clearly felt that open evenings were important:

Mother. No, I won't do nothing. I'm not doing anything from Miss Jones, nothing at all.I won't have any involvement with the school at all because she ain't no help to us.I'm not doing anything.

[Field notes: Mother goes to open evenings about her child, on her own. She is a lonemother and housewife, but would rather work. She could not find a suitable job becauseof child care commitments.]

The results showed a high proportion of parents were currently, or had been, schoolgovernors. The role of school governors was not restricted to parents from particularsocial backgrounds or higher educational levels. In fact, 20% of parents with non-manualbackgrounds were current or past governors compared with 27% of parents with manualbackgrounds. In terms of mother's educational level, 24% of those with higher educa-tional qualifications and 16% of those with lower educational qualifications were currentor past governors (the differences were not statistically significant). There is clearly adesire by some schools to encourage a broader representation of the school communityonto the governing body, as the following example demonstrates:

Researcher. [Are you a] governor?Mother. No, but I would like to be in the secondary school. The other time I would have

loved to but they invited me to come in if I wanted to be involved in the schoolactivities or like being a governor it coincided with my ... I had a conference for thatday. I couldn't make it. And there was no telephone on the slip sent to me. So it waslater on that [I realised] it was the school that had sent it. Otherwise I would have'phoned. Any other time I am interested, any other time you invite me. I would liketo be. I would like to participate because I like to contribute to the children'seducation.

[Field notes: Mother always goes to open evenings. She participated at a car boot sale.She is a lone parent and works as full-time secretary. Father was violent. Parentseducated in Nigeria.]

R: [Have you been to] open evenings?M: Yeah, all the time.R: Discussion with class teacher?M: Oh yeah, I'm what you'd call an interested mother.[Field notes: Mother is a governor at the school. She is not in the PTA. She has helpedin class but not during the last year. She has helped on trips. She is black, educated inthe UK. She is very concerned about racism and racial prejudice. Father is self-employedbut absent.]

Focusing on the forms of involvement in which almost all parents were engaged—namely attending open evenings and informal discussions with class teachers—interest-ing differences emerged in terms of which parents undertook these activities. Theinvolvement of mothers and fathers is shown in Table VI. Attendance at open eveningswas shared by both parents in two-thirds of the families, whilst informal discussions withteachers were shared by just under half of the parents. In a small percentage of families,another person attended open evenings or had informal discussions with teachers (e.g.the father alone or the child's guardian). The mother was almost always involved butthere was variation in whether or not fathers were involved. For example:

470 A. West et al.

TABLE VI. Involvement of parents in open evenings and informal discussions (percentages)

Type of involvement (n = 105) (1) Mother Mother and father Other (2)

Attending open evenings 27 65 9Informal discussions with teachers 49 45 7

(1) 7i is less than 107 as two parents reported not going to open evenings or having informaldiscussions with teachers.(2) e.g. guardian.

Mother. Everything at school, I attend. And my husband. Concerts, sales, anything.Researcher. Discussions with the class teacher?Mother. Oh yes, I'm always doing that.

Parents with children in private and state school sectors. We found that parents ofchildren at private schools were significantly less likely to have helped in class thanthose with children at state schools (41% versus 71%). (In this, and subsequent sections,all differences reported between groups are. significant at or beyond the 0.05 level [usingchi-squared analyses].) This difference appeared to arise from differing school policies.In this sample, the private schools did not encourage parents to help in class as thefollowing exchange indicates:

Researcher. Do parents come into the classrooms?Headteacher. No, not into the classrooms. They help on outings. Reading help is not

encouraged in school. I think that the school should do this and we already have lotsof classroom assistants.

In contrast, some schools in the state sector strongly encouraged such parental involve-ment, as indicated by one mother who commented: '[The headteacher] praises mums thathelp out. Many mums give up lots of time unpaid'. Not all schools are in the samesituation, however. As one headteacher of an inner city school noted: 'Very few cometo help with reading. Maybe it's a lack of confidence in themselves'. School brochuresalso illustrate this commitment to parental involvement. For example:

Any help that parents can give is always* greatly appreciated. Tasks such ashearing children read, helping with outings, cooking and any other skills thatcan be shared with children are always welcomed ... Parents are alwayswelcome in the school ... (State primary school)

We also explored whether there were differences between parents of children in the stateand private sectors in terms of whether mothers and/or fathers were involved in theirchild's school. We found that for families with children in the state as opposed to theprivate school sector, mothers were significantly more likely to attend open evenings ontheir own (32% versus 8%). This responsibility was more likely to be shared betweenmothers and fathers in the private than state school sector (88% versus 58%). Otheradults attended open evenings in a small percentage of families (10% in the state sectorcompared with 4% in the private sector).

In summary, in the case of families with children in the private sector, responsibilityfor attending open evenings was more likely to be an activity shared between mothersand fathers, rather than carried out by the mother alone.

The state sector sample—social class and mothers' educational level. In this section wefocus exclusively on the parents with children in state schools and contrast involvement

Parental Involvement in Education All

in schools according to parents' social class background (n = 80) and mother's educa-tional level (n = 83). We found that in relation to attending open evenings and informaldiscussions with teachers there were no differences between parents from non-manualand manual backgrounds or between families with more highly and less highly educatedmothers. Given the very high levels of involvement in these two activities, this result isunsurprising.

However, we found differences between which parents) attended open evenings anddiscussions with teachers, as shown in Tables Vlla-VIId. Whilst there were nostatistically significant differences between families from non-manual and manual socialbackgrounds in terms of which parent(s) attended parents' meetings, we found statisti-cally significant differences according to the mother's educational background. Moremothers with lower than with higher qualifications attended open evenings on their own(53% versus 17%). Conversely, more mothers and fathers shared the responsibility forattending these meetings where the mother had at least GCE A levels than where she didnot (72% versus 38%).

When we looked at informal discussions, we found no differences according to socialclass in terms of which parents were involved. Once again, though, we found highlysignificant differences according to the mother's educational level. More mothers withlower than with higher educational qualifications had discussions on their own withteachers (69% versus 38%). In families where the mother had higher qualifications, bothparents were more often involved in these discussions (51% versus 26%). It is alsointeresting to note that the father's educational level was not associated with whether heattended open evenings and informal discussions.

Assistance with School Work at Home

The overall sample. We asked parents about formal, homework set by the school.Overall, 60% of the children were reported to have either 'no homework' or 'hardly any'homework. Nearly a quarter (24%) of the children had half an hour per night, whilst 16%had an hour or more per night.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of children in our sample carried out informalschoolwork at home and they were very likely to have received help with this at home(either currently or in the past). Indeed, for each of the four areas about which parentswere questioned—listening to their children read, helping with spellings, helping withmathematics (e.g. multiplication tables) and helping with 'topic' work (such as 'theRomans' or 'the Vikings')—over eight out of 10 children had received assistance. Ascan be seen in Table VIII, help with spellings and with topic work was the mostfrequent.

In relation to help in these specific areas, a significant minority of parents (16%)reported that they 'used to' listen to their child read; this compares with only 2% in eachof the other three areas of work (namely, topic work, spellings and mathematics). Thisis almost certainly because by the age of 10-11 many children are fluent, independentreaders. Help with the other areas about which we questioned parents is not likely to betypified by a similar level of competence at the primary school stage.

We then analysed our data to establish which parent(s) helped their child withschoolwork. For this, we focused on current involvement. We found that both mothersand fathers were often involved in providing assistance with schoolwork. Table IXprovides details of who provided help with each of the various types of work. Themother alone most frequently helped the child with spellings (54%) and topic work

472 A. West et al.

TABLE Vila. Attendance of parents at open evenings: state school families classifiedby social background (percentages) (1)

Non-manual social Manual socialWho attends open evening background (n = 55) background (n = 23)

Mother 27 39Mother and father 64 52Other, e.g. guardian 9 9

(1) Total number of families with children in state schools is 83; n in Table VII issometimes less than 83 as not all parents attended open evenings/informal discussionsand no social class information was available for three parents.

TABLE Vllb. Attendance of parents at open evenings: state school families classified bymothers' educational level (percentages) (1)

At least GCE A levels Less than GCE A levelsWho attends open evening (n = 47) (n = 34)


(1) See note 1, Table Vila.

TABLE VIIC. Attendance of parents at informal discussions: state schoolfamilies classified by social background (percentages) (1)

Non-manual social Manual socialWho attends background (« = 55) background (n = 24)

Mother 46 63 :Mother and father 47 29Other, e.g. guardian 7 8

(I) See note 1, Table Vila.

TABLE Vlld. Attendance of parents at informal discussions: state school familiesclassified by mothers' educational level (percentages) (1)

At least GCE A levels Less than GCE A levelsWho attends (n = 47) (« = 35)


(1) See note 1, Table Vila.

(44%). In relation to mathematics, however, the father alone most frequently helped thechild (34% of families) although both parents were involved in over a quarter of families(27%). Listening to the child read was most frequently shared by both parents (in 45%of families).

Parents with children in private and state school sectors. We found that children inprivate schools received more formal homework than children in state schools as can be


TABLE VIII. Help with schoolwork in specificareas at present and in the past (percentages)

Area of work Total (n = 107)

SpellingsTopic workListening to readingMathematics

89898483

TABLE IX. Who currently helps with schoolwork? (percentages)

Area of work Mother alone Father aloneMother and

father Other (1)

Spellings (n = 93)Topic work (n = 93)Listening to reading (it = 75)Mathematics (n = 88)

54442319

687

34

30354527

10132520

(1) e.g. sibling or guardian.

seen in Table X. There were statistically significant differences in terms of the amountof time spent on homework by children in the two sectors. All the children in the privateschools received at least half an hour of homework a night compared with just under aquarter of those in state schools; over three-quarters of state school pupils received nohomework. Moreover, whilst over half of those in private schools received an hour ormore a day, only 4% of those in state schools had this much. As a headteacher of oneof the private schools commented:

Parents expect homework and like homework set from a young age. Childrentake reading books home between 5 and 7 years and from 7 to 8 they start tohave written homework every night.

In stark contrast are the comments about the frequency of homework made by motherswith children in state schools: '

Once a week she has half an hour. But in France—when we lived there for ayear when she was 6—she was given one and a half hours a day.

About an hour a week. I feel it's a big jump to secondary school where herolder sister gets one and a half hours a night.

Occasionally she has some, but it is never marked. We make sure that she doesreading, tables or spelling.

TABLE X. Time spent on formal homework—state and private schools(percentages)

Time spent per nightState school pupils

(n = 83)Private school pupils

(n = 24)

None/hardly any30 minutes60-90 minutes

77194

04258

474 A. West et al.

She does a lot of reading but she did more when she was younger and sheshould be given more homework.

Field notes: The child does an hour of homework a day. If none is given bythe school then the mother will give him reading to do.

Field notes: The mother helps where she can but she kept saying that her owneducation was not good and she is not able to help much. The child's olderbrother and sister help if they can.

The schools in the sample had very different policies in relation to homework, withprivate schools setting homework from a relatively early age. In state schools, on theother hand, the emphasis was not on formal homework. Rather, parents were encouragedto support their children's reading—often through Parents and Children and Teachers(PACT) schemes—and through a variety of informal methods. Excerpts from four schoolbrochures illustrate the different policies between state and private schools in thisrespect:

Children will make better progress with your help. You can help your child inmany ways—such as: hearing them read, playing games, practising numberfacts, giving plenty of encouragement ... We don't normally set homeworkbecause we feel that children's learning outside school should be less formal.We do, however, like children to read and write at home and will sometimesask them to do such things at home as learn spellings, learn multiplicationtables, or collect information. Homework can be set if the work hasn't beendone in class, the child has been away, or the parent and the child ask for it.(State school)

Formal homework (e.g. exercises from textbooks) is not usually given. How-ever, learning spellings, tables and 'investigative' tasks may also be sent homewith a request for parents to help children needing extra practice. (This alsoapplies to hearing reading). (State school)

Homework is expected to take priority over social events and out of schoolactivities during term time. Younger girls' may take home a reading book orpoem to learn and preparation is set from the third year, up to a maximum ofone hour for older girls. A timetable of homework is taken home at thebeginning of each term. Parents are asked to co-operate by keeping televisionviewing to a minimum during weekdays, by seeing that homework is donewith concentration in a quiet room and that the time taken is appropriate.(Private school)

Homework is set each day, increasing in quantity according to age so thatchildren become used to the self-discipline of personal study which will berequired at their senior schools. (Private school)

Turning to help with informal schoolwork, we found no statistically significant differ-ences between parents with children in state and private schools.

The state sector sample—social class and mothers' educational level. Among the stateschool families we found no significant differences in the proportions of familiesoffering support with schoolwork at home either according to the social class of thefamily or according to the mother's educational level.


TABLE XI. Use of workbooks (currently and in the past)(percentages)

Workbooks in Percentage of children (n = 107)

Mathematics 56English 54Spelling 35Science 22

Use of Workbooks

The overall sample. More than half of the children in our sample were reported to haveused a workbook in at least one subject. As can be seen from Table XI, the mostfrequently used workbooks were in the subjects of mathematics and English—over halfof the parents in each case reported using workbooks covering these curriculum areas.

We asked the parents whether their children used these workbooks alone or with amember of the family. For this analysis, we focused on those parents who reported thattheir children currently used workbooks (between 3% and 8% of the sample reportedthat their children 'used to' use workbooks). As can be seen from Table XII, workbookswere mostly used by children either with assistance from their mothers or withoutsupervision. In around half the families where workbooks were used, the mother assistedthe child and in around a third of the families the child used them unaided. In only a verysmall minority of families was the father involved either alone or with the mother.Nevertheless, in each case we find that helping their children with the use of workbooksis not an activity that fathers—either alone or with mothers—were generally involvedwith. This is in marked contrast to help with informal schoolwork at home.

Parents with children in state and private school sectors. We found some differencesbetween families with children in the state school sector and those with children in theprivate school sector in terms of the use of workbooks. English, spelling and scienceworkbooks were used more by families with children in state schools than by those withchildren in private schools (English: 60% versus 33%; spelling: 42% versus 8%; science:28% versus 0%); these differences were all statistically significant However, there wasno difference in use of mathematics workbooks. This may be related to the fact thatfathers frequently help with mathematics schoolwork and the use of mathematicsworkbooks is one clear way in which mothers can be involved with their children'smathematics regardless of the type of school attended. It may also be that workbooks ingeneral are part of mothering/childcare activities.

On the whole then, workbooks, even though their use was by no means

TABLE XII. Who currently assists with workbooks? (percentages)

Mother andWorkbooks in Mother Child alone Father father Other (1)

MathematicsEnglish (n =Spelling (n =Science (n =

(n = 54)49)= 31)21)

48435848

33352933

983

10

4400

610109


476 A. West et al.

universal, were far more likely to be used by children attending state sector schools thanthose attending private schools. We examined whether the use of workbooks wasassociated with whether children were set homework by their schools but found nosignificant associations. As formal homework is less common in state schools, the useof workbooks may be one way in which parents feel that they can compensate for whatthey perceived to be a lack of homework. Moreover, given that children in state schoolsare tested in the National Curriculum core subjects of English, mathematics and scienceat the age of 11 years, the use of workbooks is a way in which parents can explicitlysupport their children's education at home.

It may also be the case that, at least in some families, workbooks were being used toprepare for tests for selective secondary schools. In relation to the parents with childrenin the private sector is possible the case that expenditure on workbooks was consideredunnecessary.

The state sector sample—social class and mothers' educational level. When we exam-ined the state sector sample, we found no statistically significant differences betweenthose from non-manual and manual social backgrounds in terms of the use of work-books. However, the children of more highly qualified mothers (those with GCE A levelsor above) were significantly more likely to have used workbooks in English than otherchildren (71% versus 46%), and also to have used workbooks for mathematics (69%versus 46%).

Use of Private Tutors

Overall differences. We asked parents whether their child had ever had a private tutor.Just over a third of the sample (36%) reported that she or he had. Parents had employedtutors for varying periods—for less than 6 months in 24% of families, for between 6months and 1 year in 39% of the families, and for more than a year in 37% of thefamilies. They taught various subjects. Most parents had employed a tutor for acombination of English, mathematics and 'verbal reasoning' (50%). Just under a fifth(18%) had employed a tutor for English, and just over one in 10 (13%) for mathematics(the remainder had employed the tutor for other areas).

The majority of those who had employed a tutor did so to prepare for examinations(37%). Smaller numbers used a tutor because their child was felt to be falling behind(24%), to supplement what was being taught at school (21%) or for other reasons (18%)such as to assist with the child's learning difficulties. Comments included:

Mother. I felt that she was capable of a lot more. Her schoolteacher said that she wasonly giving 80% and I wanted her to be pushed.

[Field notes: Black mother married to a white father. Mother feels strongly about blackpeople, especially women, having the opportunity to fulfil their potential.]

Mother. I feel he needs to be pressed a bit more than they do at school. I see the lackof individual attention that he is not getting at school.

[Field notes: Tutor is employed for English, mathematics and Tibetan. Mother isTibetan.]

Researcher. Has she ever had a tutor?Mother. Yes, for two terms last year, to introduce French before she started at secondary

school. Her older brother found it a problem when he started as he'd done no French


while the others had. Jessica preferred to watch Saturday TV so she's now stoppedlessons.

[Field notes: Family lived in a very battered flat on a big estate in [innerLondon borough. Both parents see education as very important and put a lot of timeinto supporting the children. The daughter had a tutor for 8 months to a yearwhen she was 8 years old to help her with spelling and maths. The tutor had beenemployed because their daughter had missed a lot of schooling and needed to catchup. Also to give her confidence. Mother is black, no formal education. Father is white,left school at IS. Mother is a special needs/school helper and meals and playgroundsupervisor. The child lives with her mother and stepfather who is an administrativeassistant.]

Parents with children in state and private schools. There were no significant differencesbetween the employment of private tutors by parents with children in state or privateschools. However, it is interesting to note that when we focused on those children(n = 39) for whom a selective school was identified as the first choice secondaryschool—the school to which parents hoped that their child would transfer at the end ofthe academic year—we found that private tutors were used significantly more often byfamilies with children in state primary schools than by those with children in privatepreparatory schools (65% versus 26%). It seems likely that by employing a private tutor,parents of children in the state sector feel that they are maximising the chances of theirchild being successful in selective state school entrance tests. As one parent commented:'We used a private tutor to prepare for entrance [exams] to selective and privateschools'.

We may surmise that fewer parents with children in private schools felt that suchtuition was necessary—maybe because the preparatory school was already felt to bepreparing the children for the entrance examinations. It may also be related to the factthat the children in the private schools all received homework every night; these parentsmay thus have been more aware of the content of their children's education than thosewith children in the state sector who had much less homework.

The state sector sample—social class and mothers' educational level. Focusing on thestate sector sample, we found that significantly more children with highly qualifiedmothers than those with less highly qualified mothers (52% versus 17%) had been taughtby a private tutor. No significant differences emerged when comparisons were made onthe basis of social class background.

Educational Activities at Home

The overall sample. Interviewees were asked a selection of questions in order to find outwhat sorts of educational activities their children did (or used to do) at home with familymembers. These were not explicitly school-related activities, but nevertheless clearly'educational', comprising cooking and baking, visiting the library, art and craft activities,writing, musical activities and educational computer games.

The overall responses are shown in Table XIII. As can be seen, all of the activitieswere undertaken by the majority of children—around eight out of 10 children didcooking or baking, visited the library and carried out art and craft activities at home;writing stories or letters and music activities were somewhat less frequent, with around

478 A. West et al.

TABLE XIII. Educational activities undertaken at home(currently and in past) (percentages)

Educational activity

Cooking or bakingVisiting libraryArt and craftWriting lettersWriting storiesMusic activitiesEducational computer games

Percentage (n = 107)

81797972707052

seven out of 10 parents reporting these activities. Educational computer games, unsur-prisingly, were the least frequently reported of the activities about which we questionedparents.

In marked contrast to providing assistance with homework where both parents wereinvolved, these more general educational activities were, more usually, either carried outalone or with support from the child's mother. As can be seen from Table XIV, thehighest level of maternal involvement was in those activities with safety implications,namely cooking or baking and visiting the library. Notably, the only activity whichfathers were more likely to engage in with their children than mothers was playingeducational computer games; however, the percentage of fathers who assist is clearlysmall—in the majority of families, the child played educational computer games alone,with no assistance. In fact, in all activities except visiting the library and cooking orbaking, the child most frequently carried out these various activities on her or his own.

Parents with children in state and private schools. In terms of the educational activitiesabout which we questioned parents, only one statistically significant difference emergedbetween parents with children in state and private schools—namely more children instate than in private schools were reported to write stories at home (77% versus 46%).This may be because the children in the state school sector had less formal homeworkthan those in the private school sector. Thus,>the state school children may have hadmore time available for this 'voluntary' story writing activity.

The state sector sample—social class and mothers' educational level. When we com-pared activities undertaken at home we found no significant differences between parents

TABLE XIV. Who currently assists with activities? (percentages)

Educational activity

Cooking or baking (n = 86)Visiting library (n = 82)Art and craft (n = 84)Writing letters (n = 77)Writing stories (n = 74)Music activities (n = 75)Educational computer games (n = 56)

Motheralone

4846113014192

Childalone

33186255695368

Fatheralone

165334

11

Mother andfather

71369554

Other0)

12171639

1915



in terms of either their social class (non-manual or manual) or the mother's educationallevel.

Conclusions

We set out to answer a number of specific questions in this paper. Key findings relatingto each of these will be discussed and are followed by an explanation of the implicationsof the findings for future research in this area.

Overall Parental Involvement

Overall, we have found that parents are involved in their children's education at the endof primary or preparatory school in a variety of ways. In almost all families, parents hadattended open evenings and had had informal discussions with teachers. Whilst theselevels of involvement appear high, it is important to note that involvement was notlimited to that taking place in the final year of primary school; this contrasts with otherresearch studies where somewhat lower levels of involvement were found in the previous12 month period (e.g. Hughes et al., 1994). It is likely that attendance at parents'evenings does vary from year to year. This notion is supported by one of the mothers,who commented that she and the child's father did attend open evenings, but that theirinvolvement had reduced as they were both working full-time now.

We found that a high proportion of the parents interviewed were, or had been schoolgovernors. However, they were from varied social backgrounds. This may reflect thechanging nature of governing bodies, at least in London, where schools appear to beseeking to include parents from varied social backgrounds. This is an area that futureresearch should seek to address.

Homework, Workbooks and Tutors

Overall, 60% of the children in our sample were reported to have 'no homework' or'hardly any' homework. Significant differences were found between state and privateschools (see later). If we focus on the state school pupils, we find that over three-quartersof the children were reported to have no homework, or hardly any, and just under a fifthhad around half an hour. These findings can be compared with research carried outby the National Foundation for Educational Research (see DfEE, 1997). This foundthat nearly half of the final year primary pupils in their study reported not usually beinggiven homework (43%) or not doing it (3%); 24% reported having half an hour orless and 27% having an hour or more. These results suggest that state school pupilsin our sample were spending less time on homework than in the NFER research.This may be a result of differing respondents (parents in our study and the pupilsthemselves in the NFER study) or different samples. In any event, it would seem to beimportant to carry out additional research to confirm whether or not our findings are aLondon phenomenon.

Parents supplemented their children's education in a variety of ways. High proportionsof parents reported helping their children with school-related work at home—over eightout of 10 parents reported that they had listened to their children read, helped withspelling, mathematics and topic work. Commercially produced workbooks were reportedto have been used by around half of the parents in the sample. Private tutors had beenemployed by just over a third of the families.

480 A. West et al.

Parents with Children in State and Private Schools

Our results indicate that there are important differences in the educational activitiesundertaken by families with children attending private and state schools. Parents withchildren in private schools were less likely to have helped in class. This seems to bebecause the private schools in our sample did not encourage this type of involvement.Whilst they clearly encouraged involvement by the parents, this was restricted to help athome and to supporting out-of-school activities such as school trips. Differing philoso-phies thus appear to be operating in the state and private school sectors. Whilst parentalinvolvement in the school is clearly felt to be 'good practice' in the former, the samecannot be said of the latter. This may relate to funding in state and private schools, withthe level of funding being higher in the private sector. As a result class sizes aregenerally smaller and more teachers and teaching assistants employed, so reducing theneed for parental support.

There were marked differences in relation to homework between children in state andprivate schools. All the children in the private schools received at least half an hour ofhomework a night compared with just under a quarter of those in state schools. Incontrast, children at state primary schools were more likely than those in private schoolsto have used workbooks at home. Parents may encourage this to compensate for the lackof homework. Moreover, parents of children in state schools who had applied toselective schools were also more likely than those with children in the private schoolsector to employ private tutors. We may surmise that private preparatory schools wereseen to be preparing children for entrance examinations in a way that state schools werenot. Whilst the use of workbooks may be to compensate for the lack of homework, thefact that more time is available for state school children once they get home from schoolmay help explain why children at state primary schools were more likely to write storiesat home than their private school peers.

Involvement by Mothers and Fathers

It is clear that the mother generally assumes overriding responsibility for children'sout-of-school and other educational activities. This was confirmed by the intervieweesthemselves—in 63% of the families, the mother was reported to have overall responsi-bility for out-of-school activities, in 20% the responsibility was shared and in 12% thefather had this responsibility (another person—such as the child's guardian—assumedresponsibility in 6% of families). It might be argued that the interviewees, the majorityas mothers themselves, were not accurately reflecting the true position. This cannoteasily be refuted, although it seems unlikely given that it was the mother who agreed tobe interviewed in the majority of cases even though the letter of introduction was notaddressed specifically to the mother. Indeed, in one case, where both parents wereinterviewed, the field notes state: 'Mother [has main responsibility] says father, butmother acknowledges the father does a lot of picking up*. Nevertheless, the issue of whoassumes responsibility may be a vexing one, as illustrated by the following comments:

Mother. I suppose as I'm the parent most around I would have the most input becausemy husband is out working ... I'm happy to do it because they're my children butsometimes I feel as if I'm battling on my own. I feel like a single parent sometimeswhen it comes to school things.

Researcher. Would you like it to be more of a joint thing?Mother. I'd like it to but it really is quite difficult because of his working hours. I'm


resentful that it has to be the way it is. It's circumstances. I'm happy they're mychildren so I do it.

[Field notes: Mother and father both English. Mother is a doctor's receptionist, she hastwo GCE O levels, father is a self-employed electrician.]

In relation to involvement in school activities such as open evenings to discuss thechild's work, we found that the mother was almost always involved. This is in line withthe findings of Varlaam et al. (1985) who found that in nearly 50% of the families intheir sample both parents had attended at least one parents' meeting and in 39% of thefamilies the mother had attended alone.

In relation to help with schoolwork, the mother was involved in most activities in thevast majority of cases, except for mathematics, when the father was involved somewhatmore often. Where children were helped when using workbooks, it was again the motherwho almost always helped. A similar picture emerged with a range of other educationalactivities carried out at home; the only activity in which more fathers than mothershelped the child was with educational computer games—even here though, only aboutone in 10 fathers assisted.

We found some differences in relation to the sharing of responsibility. Both parentswere more likely to be involved in school activities such as open evenings when thechild was at a private school. Both parents were also more likely to be involved infamilies using the state sector where the mother was more highly qualified. The picturethat emerges is thus one of both parents sharing responsibility in relation to contact withthe school in certain types of families—predominantly those where the mother is morehighly qualified.

Social Class, Mothers' Educational Level and Involvement

We found no statistically significant differences between parents' involvement in theirchildren's education in terms of social background. This may be because the parents inthe sample were all what we have called 'active' parents as far as involvement in theirchildren's education is concerned and that this is a crucial factor. It may also be becauseof the nature of the sample, which contained few families in partly skilled and unskilledsocial classes. Another possible explanation is related to the lack of sensitivity of thesocial classification system for women's occupations which were used when the naturalfather was absent. We faced difficult decisions, in conducting this study, as to whetherto include the occupations of step-parents and parents' partners in determining householdsocial class (we decided in fact only to focus on the natural parents' occupations).Indeed, the hierarchy of criteria which were adopted in allocating social class gave riseto several uncomfortable anomalies. To take one example, several of the familiesparticipating in this study included a father in a skilled manual occupation and a motherin a clerical—non-manual—post. The use of a class dichotomy distinguishing non-man-ual social classes from manual social classes in the situation of parental separation (withthe child subsequently staying with his or her mother) results in the child moving froma lower (manual) social class to a higher (non-manual) social class. Thus, separationwould, paradoxically, be associated with upward mobility.

Whilst we found no differences between parental involvement in terms of social class,we did find differences in relation to the mother's educational level. When we focusedon children in the state sector, we found that a mother's level of educationalqualifications was associated with who attends open evenings and who has informal

482 A. West et al.

discussions with teachers. We also found that children with more highly qualifiedmothers were significantly more likely to have used workbooks at home and to have hadprivate tuition than the children of mothers with lower levels of educationalqualifications.

Overall, the results point to more highly educated mothers trying to ensure that theirchildren's chances of success in the educational system are increased. The implicationis thus that these mothers perceive that there are benefits to having higher levels ofeducational qualifications—that they themselves already have—and that they have thecapacity to contribute to those benefits. Their own cultural capital and often financialresources mean that they are in a position to seek to maximise their children's chancesof educational success.

Implications of the Findings

In what remains of this paper we shall discuss some of the possible implications forresearch in this field. It is important, first, to acknowledge the limitations of our findings.As was stated earlier, our sample was actively involved in schools and in education moregenerally. The sample also had very few parents with partly skilled and unskilledbackgrounds. Consequently, the differences that we have identified, particularly inrelation to the state school sample, may be confined to the educationally active.Nevertheless, our suggestion that familial educational activity and contact with schoolsis associated more closely with the characteristics of the mother rather than those of thefather or 'household' may well be the case more generally.

The stronger association between involvement in children's education and mothers'highest qualifications than with social class is particularly important in the context ofrapidly changing family structures and increasingly 'flexible' patterns of employment,which mean that the traditional difficulties in identifying social classes according tooccupation grow ever more acute.

Our experience would suggest, therefore, that not only is the mother's educationallevel more- strongly associated with a range of forms of involvement but that itsconsistency over time and the ease of coding offers clear advantages over categorisingchildren according to social class. We would therefore recommend that other researchersexamine educational differences relating to mothers' educational level alongside socialclass analyses in order to understand further the importance of this factor.

In relation to future research on parental involvement, it would be constructive toexplore in more detail how parents are involved in the various activities discussed. Howdo mothers and fathers support their children with homework and using workbooks?What sort of help do they provide? To what extent do parents help by providinginformation, discussion or access to resources? Some information of this type has beencollected and analysed by Greenhough & Hughes (1998) in relation to parentalinvolvement in reading but this needs to be extended, using qualitative analyses, to otherareas. Once information of this kind is available, it may be possible to explore theeffectiveness of various types of involvement In this way, the crucial role of home andfamily background factors in relation to educational success may be further elucidated.

Acknowledgements

The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is gratefullyacknowledged. The work was funded by ESRC award number R000234486. We would


like to thank all those who made this research possible: the LEAs for helping with accessto schools, the schools for cooperating with the study and providing us with informationand, above all, the parents who agreed to be interviewed. We would also like to thankJackie Davies for her help during the data collection phase, particularly interviewing anddata preparation. We are grateful for the useful comments made by the referees on anearlier version of this paper. We would also like to thank John Wilkes for his help withthe preparation of this paper.

Correspondence: Dr Anne West, Centre for Educational Research, London School ofEconomics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.

NOTES

[1] An additional private school in the study that catered for boys up to the age of 13—when transferto senior school frequently takes place—was not included in the analyses reported here.

[2] Unfortunately, no national or regional data on the social class or family composition of schools inEngland are collected by the Department for Education and Employment, so it is not possible toestablish the extent to which our sample is representative of the school population as a whole.

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Parental Involvement in Education in and out of School