Teacher-student racial or ethnic match and parents’ school involvement in the United States: Implications for Black, Latinx, and Asian families

Lin, Lynda C

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/113974 Copy

Description

Title

Teacher-student racial or ethnic match and parents’ school involvement in the United States: Implications for Black, Latinx, and Asian families

Author(s)

Lin, Lynda C

Issue Date

2021-11-29

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Pomerantz, Eva M

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Pomerantz, Eva M

Committee Member(s)

• Rudolph, Karen D
• Briley, Daniel A
• Tan, Kevin
• Cimpian, Joseph

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• teacher-student racial or ethnic match
• parental involvement
• racial or ethnic diversity

Abstract

Research on parents’ involvement in their children’s education consistently finds that when families from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds are more involved in their children’s schools, children benefit (Barger, Kim, Kuncel, & Pomerantz, 2019). However, racial and ethnic minority families sometimes do not feel comfortable visiting their children’s schools and tend to be less involved in them (Hill & Torres, 2010). One promising avenue to promote the school involvement of racial and ethnic minority families is through the increased presence of racially and ethnically diverse teachers, who can act as cultural brokers and create culturally inclusive environments. However, support for this idea has been sparse. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K:2011) national study, the goal of my dissertation was to better understand whether, and under which contexts, the racial and ethnic diversity of children’s teachers contributes to parents’ school involvement. Every year beginning when children were in kindergarten until 5th grade, parents (N = 12,740) reported on their school involvement. Multi-level modeling indicated that having a teacher-student racial or ethnic match at kindergarten was more positively associated with parents’ kindergarten school involvement for Black, Latinx, and Asian children compared to White children. These findings generally held over the elementary school years for Black and Asian, but not Latinx, children. At kindergarten, having a racially or ethnically matched teacher was particularly beneficial for the involvement of parents of Latinx and Asian children attending schools with a low proportion of same-race or ethnicity teachers. Taken together, the findings point to the importance of diversifying the teacher workforce, particularly as it can be an avenue for increasing parents’ school involvement in racial and ethnic minority families who tend to be less involved on the school front compared to White families.

Graduation Semester

2021-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113974

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2021 Lynda Lin

Owning Collections