Academic Orientation and Parental Involvement in Education during High School

Abstract

This study applied a life course perspective to the phenomena of adolescent academic orientation and parental involvement in education. Applying latent growth modeling to transcript and survey data from a sample of California high school students revealed that while college-preparatory track students begin high school the highest in orientation and involvement, they also experience sharp declines in both over time. Within the college-preparatory track, the decline in involvement is the greatest among the highest-achieving students, whereas within the remedial track, the decline is the greatest among minority students. Finally, initial academic orientation promotes increasing parental involvement, but only in the two non-college-preparatory tracks