Parent-school involvement and school performance: Mediated pathways among socioeconomically comparable African American and Euro-American familiesHill, N. E. & Craft, S. A. (2003). Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 74-83.
To explain the positive relation between parent-school involvement and achievement, children's academic and social competencies were examined as mediators. Ethnic variations in the relation between parent-school involvement and early achievement and the mediated pathways were examined. Because much of the comparative research confounds ethnicity with socioeconomic status, the relations were examined among socioeconomically comparable samples of African American and Euro-American kindergarten children, mothers and teachers. For reading achievement, academic skills mediated the relation between involvement and achievement for African Americans and Euro-Americans. For math achievement, the underlying process differed across ethnic groups. For African Americans, academic skills mediated the relation between school involvement and math performance. For Euro-Americans, social competence mediated the impact of home involvement on school achievement..