The Relationship between Parenting Styles, Dimensions of Parenting and Academic Achievement of African American and Latino Students

Parents' involvement with their children's schooling has been shown to affect students' academic achievement. Using the construct of parenting styles, authoritative parenting has been found to result in optimal academic achievement among Caucasian students, but research on parenting styles among African American and Latino students has yielded mixed results, and only a few studies have been done with elementary aged students of all ethnic groups. This study surveyed 5th grade, African American and Latino students in one school district to examine the relationship between parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglecting), three parenting dimensions (responsiveness, autonomy granting and demandingness), parental school involvement items, and academic achievement (scores on the New York State 4th grade, English Language Arts, Math and Science assessments). Gender differences were also examined.;Because of sample recruitment difficulties, only 51 students participated in the study. Of that number, 25 of those students were African American and 19 were Latino, including 20 males and 24 females. There was a statistically significant difference in English Language Arts scores and the three parenting styles Authoritarian (M= 719.50), Authoritative (M = 676.11) and Permissive (M = 682). However, there was no relationship with Math and Science scores. There was also a significant negative correlation between autonomy granting and English Language Arts scores. In addition, there were also significant differences in parenting dimensions by ethnicity: while most African American and Latino parents in this sample were classified as authoritative, when scale scores on dimensions of parenting were examined, African American parents were significantly more demanding than Latino parents. Differences in parenting by dimensions and gender were also significant. The scores on the Responsiveness Scale were significantly higher for females than for males indicating that parents in this study were more responsive to their daughters than their sons.;This study has major implications for educational and school social work practice. Although the literature supported that there are cultural differences in how parents parent, this study indicated that parents seem to be parenting in a very similar ways using authoritative parenting). In addition, several parenting behaviors such as the availability of homework help, parent concern for school work, parent attendance at school meetings were positively related to academic achievement in the study sample.