Social Disparity of Family Involvement in Hong Kong: Effect of Family Resources and Family Network.

Abstract Using data from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this study examines the social disparity of family involvement. A total of 4,405 students from 140 Hong Kong secondary schools participated in the first cycle of PISA study identifying four types of family involvement: cultural communication, social communication, homework supervision, and cultural activity. Multi-level analysis was used to examine the major family factors related to these types of family involvement. Consistent with previous research, working-class, immigrant, and single-parent families tend to have lower levels of parental involvement. The effect of these structural factors decreased after family resources, family network, and family norms entered into the multi-level regression model. It can be argued that the social disparity of family involvement is mediated by the deprivation of useful resources, lack of network, and low educational aspiration of the disadvantaged families. The results also suggested that it is not only cooperation between home and school, but also connection between parents and their children's peers that provides the necessary chemistry for success. Educators, parents, and policymakers should be aware that family networking should be extended to include the peers of the teenagers if they want to enhance family involvement in education. Key Words: family involvement, family resources, family network, secondary school students, parents Background of the Study and Literature Review The contribution of family involvement to children's education has been a major topic in the field of education over the past decade. From an economics perspective, family involvement represents a potentially cost-effective resource for schools. Family involvement may bring additional resources into public schools to enrich the learning environment for children (Coleman, 1994), and parents may enhance the responsiveness of the schools to the needs of the community (Brown, 1998). From a sociological perspective, family involvement may be one of the mechanisms linking children's schooling outcomes to the social background of their families. Family participation at home and in school not only can improve the quality of student learning but also can reduce the inequality of learning outcomes among students from different social origins (Ho & Willms, 1996). Overall, family involvement in education appears to be a promising avenue to improve school quality and enhance children's learning (e.g., Coleman, 1988, 1994; Epstein, 1990; Epstein & Lee, 1995; Epstein & Salinas, 1995; Fehrmann, Keith, & Reimers, 1987; Greenwood & Hickman, 1991; Ho & Willms; Keith et al., 1993; Muller, 1993). In exploring the facilitators and barriers for family involvement, researchers have consistently found that family factors are essential determinants of the time and resources devoted to children. Empirical evidence from Brown (1991, 1998), Coleman (1987, 1994), Harker, Nash, Durie, and Charters (1993), Ho and Willms (1996), Lareau (1989, 1994, 2003), and Milne, Myers, and Rosenthal (1986) suggest that family socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and family structure are the most powerful predictors of the extent of family involvement in children's education. Nevertheless, our understanding of family involvement is largely limited to the American or Western experience. Little research examines the nature of family involvement in Asian countries (Ho, 2003; Shen, Pang, Tsoi, Yip, & Yung, 1994). Students from Hong Kong performed well in a number of international studies (OECD, 2001; 2003; Mullis et al., 2000; Mullis et al., 2001). In both the first and second cycles of the PISA study, Hong Kong 15-year-olds ranked first in mathematics and third in science. More interesting is that family involvement was found to be one of the major contributors to the students' academic success (Ho, 2005; Ho et al. …