Even before a student enters school parents may provide a rich home environment to prepare their young child for learning and success. Sociologists and developmental social psychologists now realize that what parents do with and for their child makes a difference in how a child succeeds in school. Recent studies have focused on the importance of the social relationships in educating a child. Parents with money help their child succeed in school only if they maintain a relationship with their child that facilitates their productive use of the money. Likewise, parents with knowledge about how the system works are effective only if they offer guidance appropriate to the child's needs.
Parental involvement is complex to evaluate because there are many ways for parents to be involved.
It is through the relationships parents have with their child that their resources are conveyed. It is important to distinguish between the resources of parents and the relationships parents have with their child. Otherwise it would be impossible to determine whether an observed statistical relationship is a function of the parents' resource or the parent's relationship with the child. Parental action is likely to have a differential impact depending on the circumstances and needs of the child. Yet similarities exist among the consequences of involvement for students despite the complexity.