Early father's and mother's involvement and child's later educational outcomes

British Journal of Educational Psychology (2004), 74, 141–153

2004 The British Psychological Society

Early father’s and mother’s involvement andchild’s later educational outcomes

Eirini Flouri* and Ann BuchananDepartment of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford, UK

Background. Few studies have investigated the individual long-term contributionsthat mothers and fathers make to their children’s schooling.

Aims. (1) To explore the role of early father involvement in children’s latereducational attainment independently of the role of early mother involvement andother confounds, (2) to investigate whether gender and family structure moderate therelationship between father’s and mother’s involvement and child’s educationalattainment, and (3) to explore whether the impact of father’s involvement depends onthe level of mother’s involvement.

Sample. The study used longitudinal data from the National Child DevelopmentStudy. The initial sample were those 7,259 cohort members with valid data on motherinvolvement at age 7, father involvement at age 7, and school-leaving qualification byage 20. Of those, 3,303 were included in the final analysis.

Method. The measures were control variables, structural factors (family structure,sibship size and residential mobility), child factors (emotional/behavioural problems,cognitive ability and academic motivation), and father’s and mother’s involvement.

Results. Father involvement and mother involvement at age 7 independentlypredicted educational attainment by age 20. The association between parents’involvement and educational attainment was not stronger for sons than for daughters.Father involvement was not more important for educational attainment when motherinvolvement was low rather than high. Not growing up in intact two-parent family didnot weaken the association between father’s or mother’s involvement and educationaloutcomes.

Conclusion. Early father involvement can be another protective factor in counter-acting risk conditions that might lead to later low attainment levels.

There is substantial evidence that parental involvement is associated with children’s

academic performance (e.g., Feinstein & Symons, 1999; Georgiou, 1999; Keith et al.,

www.bps.org.uk

* Correspondence should be addressed to Eirini Flouri, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford,Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2ER, UK (e-mail: [email protected]).

141

1998; Maughan, Collishaw, & Pickles, 1998; Miedel & Reynolds, 1999; Reynolds, 1992),

yet relatively few studies have investigated the individual contributions that mothers

and fathers make to their children’s schooling. Even less research has looked at the roleof father involvement in children’s academic performance which is unfortunate given

that there are several reasons why father’s involvement should be expected to be

associated with positive child’s education outcomes. First, fathers who are involved

with their children are likely to engage their children in physical play and parent-child

play, especially the parent’s ability to be responsive to the child’s initiative allowing for

a nurturant give-and-take in their play, is particularly important for the child’s emotional

and cognitive development (Biller & Kimpton, 1997). Second, in families where fathers

are involved, mothers are also involved (Amato, 1994), and therefore children raised insuch families benefit from having two highly involved parents with the consequent

diversity of stimulation and increase in social capital (Coleman, 1988). Third, fathers are

more likely to be involved when the co-parental relation is good (Coiro & Emery, 1998;

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2000), and therefore in families where the

father is involved the overall family context in which children are raised is positive,

which is in an important factor contributing to positive child outcomes (Kelly, 2000).

According to a recent report from the National Center for Educational Statistics (1997),

compared to their counterparts, children with involved fathers are more likely to haveparticipated in educational activities with their parents (e.g., to have visited a museum

or a historical site with their parents in the past month), and are more likely to have

access to multiple types of resources at home as well (as measured by the proportion of

parents who belong to community or professional organisations, or regularly volunteer

in the community). Further, because fathers who are involved with their children are

likely to be involved in their children’s schools as well, it is possible that father

involvement changes the children’s school environments in ways that make the

environments more conducive to learning, and influences teachers and administratorsso that they intervene early when potential problems in the children’s academic

performance or behaviour are noted. Indeed, although the contribution of fathers to

children’s development over and above that of mothers is not yet well documented

(Parke, 2000), some of the findings are impressive (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994;

Hwang & Lamb, 1997). Yongman, Kindlon, and Earls (1995), for instance, showed that

father involvement in their black families sample was associated with improved

cognitive outcomes in pre-term infants even after adjusting for family income, neonatal

health, treatment group status and paternal age. Earlier Radin (1976) had similarly foundthat in her 4-year-old boys’ sample father nurturance was associated with boys’

intelligence scores, and that this correlation was still significant when she followed up

these children a year later, and Fagan and Iglesias (1999) showed that involved fathering

in their Head Start children was associated with higher mathematics readiness change

scores. Father involvement appears to be an important factor in the school-aged child’s

academic performance as well. Radin, Williams, and Coggins (1994), for instance, found

that the more Native American fathers were involved in childbearing, the more likely

their children were to do well in school, academically and socially, and more recently,Updegraff, McHale, and Crouter (1996) showed that in families where the father

participated equally in child-oriented activities girls maintained a high level of

achievement across the transition to the 7th grade, whereas girls from traditional

families declined in maths and science performance. Studies of adults also show

supporting evidence. Closeness to fathers during childhood has been found to be

positively related to adult daughters’ and sons’ educational and occupational mobility

142 Eirini Flouri and Ann Buchanan

(Amato, 1994). Relatedly, the decrease in father involvement typically associated with

divorce can have negative effects on both cognitive functioning and academic

performance. For instance, children in mother-only families have been found to scorelower than other children on measures of academic achievement and cognitive ability

(e.g., Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1982; Mulkey, Crain, & Harrington, 1992) and to be

more likely to drop out of school (Sandefur & Wells, 1999). On the other hand, research

also suggests that father absence has few consequences for children once economic

factors have been controlled for (Crockett, Eggebeen, & Hawkins, 1993; Furstenberg,

Morgan, & Allison, 1987). Other studies show, however, that even when economic

factors are controlled for, father absence continues to be associated with an increased

risk of child problems (Amato, 1994), suggesting that low socioeconomic status may bean additional stressor but it does not transcend the risk of inadequate father

involvement.

Using longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) this

study explored the individual contributions that mothers’ and fathers’ involvement

make to their children’s schooling. Known influences of poor educational performance

were controlled for. These influences were grouped to three main categories: control

variables (gender, parental socioeconomic status, birthweight and parental education),

structural factors (family structure, sibship size and residential mobility), and individual/child factors (emotional and behavioural problems, cognitive ability and academic

motivation). Parental socioeconomic status and gender were controlled for because

they are related to both educational attainment (Duncan, Yeung, Brooks-Gunn, &

Smith, 1998; Masse & Tremblay, 1999; Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 1997; Smith, 2000) and

parental involvement (Amato, 1994; Flouri & Buchanan, 2002). Low levels of parental

education (Ganzach, 2000; Maughan et al., 1998) and low birthweight (Ramey,

Campbell, & Ramey, 1999), as well as sibship size (Downey, 1995; Powell & Steelman,

1993) and residential mobility (Jeynes, 1999; Tucker, Marx, & Long, 1998) are alsosignificant risk factors for poor intellectual development and educational attainment.

Finally, regarding the ‘internal’ variables we adjusted for in this study, academic

motivation (Fortier, Vallerand, & Guay, 1995; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) and cognitive

ability (Ceci & Williams, 1997; Ganzach, 2000) have been positively, and behaviour

problems (Maughan et al., 1998; Riley, Ensminger, Green, & Kang, 1998) have been

negatively related to academic achievement.

This study also tested for moderator effects. Because it has been suggested that

gender and family structure may moderate the relationship between parentalinvolvement and educational attainment, this study also considered whether the

association between parental involvement and children’s educational attainment is

stronger for sons or daughters, and for children who lived with continuously intact

families or those who did not. Finally, we also examined if father involvement is more

important to offspring academic performance when mother involvement is low rather

than high (Amato, 1994). In addition, this study attempted to shed some light on how

the proposed link between early parental involvement and children’s educational

attainment might operate. Parental negativity and harsh parenting have strongconnections with internalising problems in children (Angoff, 1988; Maccoby, 2000),

and father’s negativity and harsh parenting, in particular, have strong links with

externalising child behaviour (DeKlyen, Speltz, & Greenberg, 1998; Webster-Stratton,

1996). Therefore, one might expect that low parental involvement should be positively

associated with children’s psychological problems, which are, in turn, associated with

poor educational outcomes (Silbereisen, Robins, & Rutter, 1995; Smith, 1995). On the

143Fathers’ early involvement in schooling

other hand, parental involvement is associated with academic motivation (Flouri,

Buchanan, & Bream, 2002), which is related to academic performance (Abu & Maher,

2000; Fortier et al., 1995; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).In this study educational achievement was operationalised as in Maughan et al.

(1998): when cohort members were aged 20 (in 1978) results in public examinations

were collected from school and educational authorities. The examination system in

operation at the time included both the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) and

the General Certificate of Education (GCE) for England and Wales, and the Scottish

Certificate of Education (SCE) for Scotland. Data were collected on all examinations

taken up to the time each cohort member left school. Passes in each type and level of

examination were combined to form a 4-item scale of the highest qualification achievedwhich was as follows: (0) none, (1) <O-level equivalent grades, (2) one or more O-level

equivalent grades, (3) one or more A-level equivalent grades. Because the aim of this

paper was to explore the independent role of father’s and mother’s involvement in

educational attainment the study sample were all those individuals with valid data on

these three measures. In all, 7,259 cohort members had valid data on mother

involvement at age 7, father involvement at age 7 and school-leaving qualifications by

age 20. Of those, 1,212 (16.7%) had no qualifications by age 20, for 1996 (27.5%) the

highest qualification obtained was lower than O-level, for 2,644 (36.4%) O-level, and for1,407 (19.4%) A-level. These 7,259 cohort members were our initial sample.

Method

The National Child Development Study (NCDS)This study used data from sweeps of the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a

continuing longitudinal study of some 17,000 children born between 3 and 9 March1958 in England, Scotland and Wales. The aim of the study is to improve understanding

of the factors affecting human development over the whole lifespan. NCDS has its

origins in the Perinatal Mortality Survey (PMS) which was sponsored by the National

Birthday Trust and was designed to examine the social and obstetric factors associated

with stillbirth and death in early infancy among the 17,000 children born in England,

Scotland and Wales in that one week.

To date six follow-ups have been made. These were carried out in 1965 (when the

cohort members were aged 7 years), in 1969 (aged 11 years), in 1974 (aged 16 years), in1981 (aged 23 years), in 1991 (aged 33 years), and in 2000 (aged 42 years). In addition,

records of examination attainments at school-leaving were obtained from schools and

education authorities in 1978, when cohort members were aged 20. For the first three

sweeps information was obtained from parents, teachers and the school health service

and at age 16 from the cohort members as well.

Overall, the representative nature of the study has been generally maintained

(Shepherd, 1993). Refusals have been low. However, a major problem with NCDS is the

possibility of bias in the responding sample. Analysis of non-response bias has indicatedthat there were particularly high losses of participants in some more disadvantaged

groups. For example, 10% of those in financial hardship in 1969 and 15% of those on

free school meals in 1974 did not take part in Sweep V. It is possible that those who

could not be traced may be more disadvantaged than those who have been traced.


Despite these limitations, the National Child Development Study is one of the best

datasets available to investigate long-term effects of parental background.

Measures

Behaviour problems at age 7

In NCDS mental health outcomes in childhood were assessed with the Rutter ‘A’ Health

and Behaviour Checklist (Rutter, Tizard, & Whitmore, 1970). The Rutter ‘A’ has beenwidely used to measure emotional well-being both in the United Kingdom and

elsewhere. At age 7 the child’s mother completed a shortened version of the full Rutter

‘A’. Elliott and Richards (1991) used 14 of these items to assess the child’s behaviour.

The 14 maternal reports in the Rutter ‘A’ at age 7 were as follows: the child is

disobedient at home, fights with other children, is irritable and quick to fly off the

handle, destroys own or others’ belongings, is squirmy or fidgety, has difficulty settling

to anything, worries about many things, is upset by new situations, is bullied by other

children, is miserable or tearful, has twitches or mannerisms, sucks thumb or finger,bites nails, and prefers to do things alone. For all these items the mother was asked

whether the description of the behaviour applies to the child ‘never’, ‘sometimes’ or

‘frequently’. Cronbach’s alpha was .65

Father involvement and mother involvement at age 7

In NCDS there were four 3-point scales pertaining to father involvement and three 3-

point scales pertaining to mother involvement at age 7 which were both completed by

the child’s parent. The items on father involvement were ‘outings with father’, ‘father

manages the child’, ‘father reads to child’ and ‘father is interested in child’s education’.

The items on mother involvement were ‘outings with mother’, ‘mother reads to child’,and ‘mother is interested in child’s education’ (see Table 1).

Table 1. Father and mother involvement items at age 7 in NCDS (N=7,259)

Items Father (%) Mother (%)

1. Reads to childHardly ever 27.0 15.5Occasionally 35.3 33.8Most weeks 37.6 50.6

2. Takes outings with the childHardly ever 5.2 1.4Occasionally 22.8 12.6Most weeks 72.0 86.0

3. Interested in child’s educationLittle interest 23.4 17.6Some interest 34.8 35.3Very interested 41.8 47.1

4. Father manages the childLeft to mother 9.6 NAMother does more 29.5 NAEqual to mother 61.0 NA


Because of the very small occurrence of low involvement responses in both mothers

and fathers (e.g., only 5.2% of the fathers and only 1.4% of the mothers were reported to

never take outings with the child), the low/middle involvement responses werecombined and two scales measuring father involvement and mother involvement were

computed from the sum of the four and the three dichotomous items respectively.

Thus, the father involvement scale ranged from 0–4 and the mother involvement scale

from 0–3.

General ability, age 11

In NCDS general ability score (ranging from 0–80) in childhood was measured at age 11

with an 80-item general ability test designed by the National Foundation for Educational

Research (NFER). The test had Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 reliability of r=.94

(Pidgeon, 1966).

Low academic motivation, age 16

In NCDS academic motivation was measured with an 8-item scale at age 16. The 5-point

self-reports (anchored with ‘not true at all’ and ‘very true’) were as follows: ‘I feel

school is largely a waste of time’, ‘I am quiet in the classroom and get on with my work’(inversely coded), ‘I think homework is a bore’, ‘I find it difficult to keep my mind on

my work’, ‘I don’t like school’, ‘I think there is no point in planning for the future – you

should get things as they come’ and ‘I am always willing to help the teacher’ (inversely

coded). Cronbach’s alpha was .75. Table 2 shows the demographic characteristics of

our sample.

Table 2. The demographic characteristics of the 7,259 participants

Variables % Mean (SD)

School-leaving qualifications by age 20 (0–4) 1.58 (0.98)Male gender 52.0Female gender 48.0Non-manual socioeconomic group of parents at birth 82.3Manual socioeconomic group of parents at birth 13.6Normal birthweight (<=5.5 lb) 91.4Low birthweight (>5.5 lb) 5.2Intact family structure throughout childhood 60.6Non-intact family structure throughout childhood 7.5Number of children (1–14) under age 21 (including those living away) when 3.10 (1.64)cohort member was aged 7Age mother left full-time education when cohort member was aged 16 (in 10 4.03 (1.44)intervals from ‘under 13 years’ (1) to ‘23 years or more’ (10))Age father left full-time education when cohort member was aged 16 (in 10 4.00 (1.71)intervals from ‘under 13 years’ (1) to ‘23 years or more’ (10))Number of family moves (0–22), since child’s birth until child was aged 7 1.13 (1.40)Father involvement at age 7 (0–4) 2.12 (1.20)Mother involvement at age 7 (0–3) 1.84 (0.91)Rutter ‘A’ (14 items) score at age 7 (0–24) 6.15 (3.55)General ability test score at age 11 (0–80) 44.76 (15.82)Low academic motivation score at age 16 (8–40) 19.24 (6.14)


Results

Hierarchical regression analysis was carried out to explore early predictors of

educational attainment. As can be seen in Table 3, the amount of variance in

educational attainment by age 20 that was explained by the control variables (gender,

parental SES, birthweight, and parental education) was 17%. When the structural

variables (structure of parental family, sibship size and number of family moves) were

entered in the regression equation the amount of variance in later attainment explained

increased to 24%. When the ‘internal’ variables (general ability, mental health, and

academic motivation) were entered in the equation in Model 3 the amount of variancein educational attainment explained was 52%. The equation in Model 4 included father

involvement, whereas the equation in Model 5 included mother involvement. When

early father involvement was entered in the equation, the amount of variance in

attainment explained increased only by 4% but the change was statistically significant,

F(1,3290)=27.837, p<.001. In Model 5 when early mother involvement was included in

the model, the amount of variance in attainment explained increased only by 5% from

Model 3 but again the change was statistically significant, F(1,3290)=36.847, p<.001.

Note that father involvement and mother involvement were associated positively withlater educational attainment. Finally, with both parental variables included simulta-

neously in Model 6, each made a significant contribution to educational attainment. As

can be seen in this final model, except for family mobility, by age 7 all variables were, as

expected, associated with later educational attainment.

Multicollinearity did not unduly influence the least squares estimates. The variance

inflation factor (VIF) which is the degree to which each independent variable is

explained by the other independent variables was used to test multicollinearity in our

model. Very large VIF values denote high collinearity (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black,1995). A common cut-off threshold is a VIF value above 10. In our study the VIF values

were 1.023 (gender), 1.059 (socioeconomic status), 1.016 (birthweight), 1.513

(mother’s education), 1.553 (father’s education), 1.017 (family structure), 1.205

(sibship size), 1.020 (family moves), 1.036 (emotional and behaviour problems), 1.288

(general ability) and 1.149 (academic motivation), 1.736 (mother involvement) and

1.601 (mother involvement), which suggests that multicollinearity between predictors

did not substantially influence our findings.

Mediator effectsWe estimated three regression equations for each test of mediation (Baron & Kenny,

1986; McElwain & Volling, 1999). First, the dependent variable was regressed on the

independent variable. Second, the mediator was regressed on the independent variable.

If the independent variable was a significant predictor of the dependent variable and

the mediator, then the final regression equation was estimated. The dependent variable

was regressed on both the independent variable and the mediator. Mediation is found

when a previously significant relationship between the independent variable and thedependent variable becomes insignificant when the effect of the mediator on the

dependent variable is taken into account. To test if academic motivation mediates the

relationship between father involvement and educational attainment, we estimated the

following equations. In equation 1, father involvement at age 7 significantly predicted

educational attainment by age 20 (beta=.05, p<.001) after controlling for gender,

parental SES, birthweight, mother’s education, father’s education, family structure,


Table

3.Standardized

regressionco

efficients

(�s)

predictinged

ucational

attainmen

tfrom

earlierfather

andmother

invo

lvem

entat

age7(N

=3,303)

Predictors

Model

1Model

2Model

3Model

4Model

5Model

6

Control

variab

les

Femalegender

.035*

.038*

�.028*

�.026*

�.028*

�.027*

Paren

talmanualsocio-

economic

�.123***

�.092***

�.039**

�.036**

�.034**

�.034**

status,birth

Norm

albirthweight,birth

.063***

.059***

.025*

.026*

.024*

.025*

Mother’sed

ucation,age16

.166***

.156***

.085***

.082***

.076***

.076***

Father’sed

ucation,age16

.251***

.243***

.125***

.118***

.119***

.116***

Structural

variab

les

Non-intact

family

structure

�.087***

�.051***

�.047***

�.047***

�.046***

untilage16

Sibship

size,age7

�.230***

�.095***

�.080***

�.072***

�.070***

Number

offamily

moves,

�.016

�.003

�.004

�.002

�.003

age7

Child

variab

les

Rutter

‘A’score,age7

�.055***

�.047***

�.052***

�.048***

Gen

eralability,age11

.459***

.453***

.450***

.449***

Low

academ

icmotivation,

�.253***

�.245***

�.242***

�.241***

age16

Parental

involvem

ent

variab

les

Mother

invo

lvem

ent,age7

.083***

.062***

Father

invo

lvem

ent,age7

.069***

.038*

R2adj

.173

.234

.516

.520

.521

.522

F(df1,df2)

138.791(5,3297)***

127.349(8,3294)***

320.498(11,3291)***

298.505(12,3290)***

300.060(12,3290)***

277.918(13,3289)***

Fchange(df1,df2)

138.791(5,3297)***

89.625(3,3294)***

638.416(3,3291)***

27.837(1,3290)****

36.847(1,3290)****a

6.353(1,3289)*

*p<.05;**p<

.01;***p<.001.a:Relativeto

Model

3.


sibship size, residential mobility, emotional and behavioural problems, general ability,

and mother involvement. In equation 2, father involvement at age 7 was related to

academic motivation at age 16 (beta=.07, p<.01) after controlling for gender, parentalSES, birthweight, mother’s education, father’s education, family structure, sibship size,

residential mobility, emotional and behavioural problems, general ability, and mother

involvement. Given that these initial criteria of mediation were met, we estimated the

third equation in which father involvement and academic motivation were entered

simultaneously in predicting educational attainment. However, both father involvement

(beta=.04, p<.05) and academic motivation (beta=.24, p<.001) remained significant,

which suggests that there was no evidence that academic motivation mediated the

relationship between father involvement and educational attainment. We carried outsimilar analyses to test if academic motivation mediates the relationship between

mother involvement and educational attainment, and similarly found no evidence of

mediation. Finally, we explored if emotional and behavioural problems in adolescence

mediate the relationship between father involvement at age 7 and educational

attainment or that between mother involvement and educational attainment. However,

again no evidence was found that emotional and behavioural problems mediate the

relationship between father or mother involvement in childhood and later educational

attainment.

Moderator effectsThe next step in the analysis involved an examination of moderator variables. First, we

created two interaction terms by multiplying sex of child by father involvement and

mother involvement. These were entered in the regression equation along with the

other variables. Neither the association between father involvement at age 7 and

educational attainment by age 20 nor the one between mother involvement at age 7 andeducational attainment by age 20 was stronger for sons than for daughters (t=1.357,

df:3288, p>.05, and t=1.082, df:3288, p>.05, respectively). Next, to see if the impact of

father involvement at age 7 on later educational outcomes depends on the level of

mother involvement at age 7, we included an interaction term between father

involvement and mother involvement in the regression equation. Again, the interaction

term was insignificant (t=.280, df:3288, p>.05), which suggests that the impact of

father involvement does not vary with the degree of mother involvement. Finally, we

calculated interaction terms between family structure at age 7 and father and motherinvolvement at age 7. Neither the association between father involvement at age 7 and

educational attainment by age 20 nor the one between mother involvement at age 7 and

educational attainment by age 20 was stronger for children who grew up continuously

with both their parents than for those who did not (t=.119, df:3288, p>.05, and t=.408,

df:3288, p>.05, respectively).

Discussion

This study examined the role of father involvement at age 7 and mother involvement at

age 7 in children’s educational attainment by age 20. In line with other studies in which

father involvement was found to have a significant impact on children’s educational

outcomes (e.g., Amato, 1994; Radin et al., 1994; Updegraff et al., 1996), it showed that

father involvement independently and significantly predicted educational attainment by


late adolescence. But it also extended previous research by investigating the long-tem

contributions of father involvement, and by considering both father involvement and

mother involvement in relation to children’s educational attainment. In addition, thisstudy found no evidence suggesting that the impact of father’s involvement with the

child depends on the level of mother’s involvement or that father’s or mother’s

involvement are more important for sons’ educational outcomes than for daughters’.

Further, it showed that not growing up in an intact two-parent family does not weaken

the association between early mother’s or father’s involvement and educational

attainment. Finally, it showed that neither emotional and behavioural problems nor

academic motivation mediate the relationship between father and mother involvement

and later educational attainment. Feinstein and Symons (1999), also using the NCDSdata set, found that the socioeconomic variables of parental educational attainment,

family size and social class commonly shown to be associated with educational

performance do affect attainment but they do so via parental interest. Our study

reaffirms the finding of Douglas (1964) and Feinstein and Symons (1999) that parental

involvement is one of the major influences on attainment. Father and mother interest in

child’s education as operationalized in NCDS seem highly correlated with parental time

spent with the child as well as educational quality of that time, both of which have been

found to be very significant in determining attainment (Feinstein & Symons, 1999). Inexplaining the significant effect of parental interest in attainment, Feinstein and Symons

suggested that one of the indicators of parental involvement used in this study, parental

interest in child’s education, reflects both the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ time of parents:

Public time refers to the establishment of a home structure for learning, and private

time refers to active involvement with the education of children, correcting homework

for example (p. 303). It seems that the other three indicators of parental involvement at

age 7 (parent reads to child, takes outing with the child, and father takes an equal to

mother’s role in managing the child) also reflect both these factors.Caution is needed in interpreting these findings, however. Firstly, there remain the

limitations of any longitudinal study, in particular attrition, and the limitations of using

data from the National Child Development Study which may be dated. Secondly, since

we know that the losses to the NCDS were greatest amongst the more disadvantaged

children, it is possible that this paper underestimates the long-term impact of

disadvantage. Even so, it is still noteworthy that early father involvement and mother

involvement could independently predict children’s later educational outcomes. This

study, of course, speaks to the beneficial effect of father involvement in general ratherthan the individual case, but the findings are yet another reminder to policy makers,

school personnel and families that, given careful assessment, fostering father

involvement can have an important role in protecting offspring against later low

educational attainment. Of particular interest is the finding that both fathers and

mothers are as important in the academic performance of sons as they are in the

academic performance of daughters, and that father’s and mother’s involvement are

related to children’s educational success in both intact and non-intact families.

The importance of parents’ involvement in their children’s educational outcomeshas been recognised for many years. For many, however, this is often assumed to mean

that mother’s involvement in schools is important. This study showed that while this

assumption has some basis in truth, since the extent of early mother’s involvement is

strongly related to children’s educational attainment, father’s or father figure’s

involvement also has a significant long-term effect in child’s school achievement.


Acknowledgement

The study reported in this paper was supported by Grant No. R000223309 from the Economic

and Social Research Council.

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Received 11 October, 2001; revised version received 30 March, 2002


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Early father's and mother's involvement and child's later educational outcomes