Coparenting and parental school involvement

Abstract

Parental school involvement is associated with positive social, psychological, and academic child outcomes. Beyond school, demographic, and individual influences, research is limited regarding the link between family-level processes and parental school involvement. Guided by family systems theory, this study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 1,896) to examine the link between coparenting support and mothers’ and fathers’ home-based school involvement and school-based school involvement when the child was nine years-old. Additionally, this study tested if parental union transitions (e.g., parental union dissolution; parental union formation; stably coresident relationship) significantly moderated these relationships. Latent variable structural equation modeling results revealed that higher levels of coparenting support was associated with higher levels of mothers’ and fathers’ home-based school involvement, and higher levels of mothers’ and fathers’ school-based involvement. Union transition was not a significant moderator between coparenting support and mother and father home- and school-based school involvement.