Parental Involvement in School and the Role of School Security Measures

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the United States has experienced a significant increase in the use of security measures in public and private secondary schools. Measures including police officers, metal detectors, and security cameras are becoming more common in the hallways of American schools. Following this surge, a number of academics have become interested in understanding how these measures effect outcomes for students, yet little research has sought to explore the impact of security measures on parents. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (2002), the current project explores the relationship between formal and informal parenting involvement with the school and the presence of school security measures utilizing Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) regression. Results indicate the presence of a security guard and metal detectors is related to lower levels of formal parental involvement, all else equal. Security measures were not found to effect informal parental involvement occurring outside of the school proper.

Keywords

parenting schooling policing adolescents

Parents and Schools

Parents consistently cite involvement in the schooling of their child as among one of the most important functions of parenthood (Addington, 2009; Coleman, 1998). Regardless of race, ethnicity, social class, or educational-level, parents consistently highlight the importance of being involved in the educational progression of their child (Coleman, 1998; Muller, 1998). Studies have shown that parental involvement is directly associated with higher levels of academic achievement (Darling, Kleiman, & Larocque, 2011). Measurable indicators of this relationship include better student attendance, higher math and reading scores, higher graduation rates, and less grade retention (Darling et al., 2011). Furthermore, parental involvement has a positive impact on the overall quality of a student’s education, and is linked to a multitude of positive nonacademic outcomes (Darling et al., 2011).

Such findings highlight the important role parental involvement within the schools plays in the process of socialization for children. Studies overwhelmingly find that successful parents, those defined as raising pro-social children, often involve themselves in the educational realm to promote academic achievement, the endeavors of their child, and to emphasize the importance and value of education (Muller, 1998). Put simply, parental involvement with the actors in the school is crucial to a child’s cognitive development and their socialization. In becoming involved with the educational institution, parents are able to connect familial values and their relationship with their child to the broader context of the school setting (Steinberg, Brown, & Dornbusch, 1996).

Types of Parental Involvement

There are two primary forms of involvement parents engage in to become part of the process of education, namely, in formal capacities and informal capacities. Parents can informally become involved with the educational process by assisting their child with homework, school projects, or school-based athletics, thereby engaging with their child at home. Parents can also engage formally with the school by volunteering to operate within the school as a chaperone for field trips or school events, they can volunteer as tutors, and can participate in the Parent–Teacher Association (PTA; Muller, 1998).

Individuals Factors

While there are a number of ways parents can involve themselves in the process of education, there are also a number of important factors that contribute to parental involvement in schools. While most parents have been found to highly value involvement within the school (Coleman, 1998), research has also revealed that parental circumstances, such as socioeconomic status (SES) and race, highly impact a parents’ ability to do so (Schneider & Coleman, 1993).

Race and Ethnicity

A great deal of research has found that race and ethnicity play a significant role in predicting parental involvement in the school. Highlighting the ubiquitous role racial characteristics play in the role of parental involvement in education, past research has found that White parents are significantly more involved in the formal educational process than Black or Hispanic parents. However, Crosnoe (2001) found that this difference could simply be a broader reflection of the historical legacy of the exclusion of Black and Hispanic individuals from the institution of schooling, resulting in Black and Hispanic parents remaining less likely to become involved within their child’s school. In this light, prior research has found that racial minorities are much less likely to trust in traditional institutions, such as schools (Lareau & Horvat, 1999). For example, Elder, Eccles, Ardelt, and Lord (1995) found that Black parents face unique barriers in engaging with formal institutional participation, including schools. The authors find that African Americans face an historical legacy of distrust of the school systems; Black parents often feel that such institutions are resistant to act on their behalf.

It is important to distinguish that minority parents do not hold less value in educational involvement, but rather, they express their interest in their child’s education differently. Minority parents are less likely to become actively involved with actors within the school system, but are no less likely to assist their child in informal capacities within the home (Lareau & Horvat, 1999). Furstenberg (1993) found similar strategies in Hispanic families, too. In the case of Hispanic families, cultural norms are often misinterpreted as a lack of involvement. For example, Latino families tend to respect the teacher’s role as an expert with specialized skills, and thus questioning the teacher may be considered disrespectful (Bower & Griffin, 2011; Darling et al., 2011). In this vein, Williams and Kornblum-Williams (1994) found that Black and Hispanic parents tended to use strategies to engage their child with informal institutional resources, such as tutoring programs and recreation centers, with the goal of promoting positive social behavior. In general, minority parents’ involvement focuses on reinforcing academic aspirations, values, and expectations by maintaining a positive home environment that is conducive to learning (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995).

Socioeconomic Status

Along with race, the SES of a family greatly affects the parents’ ability to become involved in their child’s education. Parents who struggle economically often face rigid work schedules, transportation issues, and child care needs that prevent them from attending or volunteering for school events (Hill & Taylor, 2004). For some families, employment issues, as characterized by hourly jobs with inadequate benefits, result in an inability to participate to the extent that their counterparts that have salaried, stable employment can (Darling et al., 2011).

Beyond direct barriers to school involvement, SES can also be reflected in family stability, wherein “intact” families generally have a greater degree of social support, thus allowing them time and encouragement to engage themselves within the school in more formal capacities (Eccles & Harold, 1993). Likewise, the SES of a family also has implications for the parents’ own educational attainment. A parent’s level of education influences a parent’s ability to formally participate in the educational process. This is due, in part, to varying degrees in the understanding of how the educational system works. Parents with higher levels of education may feel more comfortable interacting with an institution they are familiar with. Moreover, as a child ages through the educational system, less formally educated parents may demonstrate decreased involvement because they become less comfortable in discussing their child’s curriculum (Eccles & Harold, 1993).

Overall, traditional definitions of parental involvement require investments of time and money from parents (Bower & Griffin, 2011) and, similarly to parents with racial barriers, parents who lack monetary resources are often deemed inadequately involved. Koonce and Harper (2005) found that the insights of such parents were often disregarded because they were not respected as active participants. Consequently, dismissal of their insights further alienates parents and leads to a cycle of increased withdrawal from involvement.

School-Level Factors

While individual factors are important when considering parental involvement within the school, Epstein (1995) argued that school-level characteristics are significantly more important in predicting parental involvement than any individual characteristic of the parent or child.

School Size

First, past research has established that the size of the school significantly correlates with parental involvement where larger schools experience lower levels of parental involvement (Lee & Smith, 1997). Large schools are characterized by lower intrapersonal relations between school officials and parents (Lee & Smith, 1997). As a result, private schools, which are typically smaller than public schools, and middle schools, which are typically smaller than high schools, tend to have greater levels of parental involvement due to increased levels of contact between actors within the school and the parents.

Moreover, Walsh (2010) found that large schools can become subject of public-good, wherein one parent’s efforts may provide spillover benefits to other families at the same school. This occurs in the case of school-based involvement efforts that focus on promoting quality of education and providing increased resources, for example, lobbying school administrators and volunteering at the school. These activities create a situation in which children of uninvolved parents reap the same benefits of those whose parents are involved. As a consequence, larger schools experience instances of free-riding, in which parental involvement for most, is decreased due to high rates of involvement by few.

School SES

Second, the SES of the school and neighborhood has also been found to greatly predict patterns of parental involvement. As Muller and Kerbow (1993) highlighted, educators in more affluent schools may believe that parents of such students have a higher degree of understanding the role of the school in socialization and education. In addition, as more affluent schools tend to have higher standardized test scores, there may be less tension between the administration of the school and the parents because the children are, overall, successful (Muller & Kerbow, 1993). Thus, in schools where the modal SES of the family is higher, there are generally greater levels of parental involvement.

In addition, schools in higher income areas tend to have access to better resources, often providing the newest forms of education and educational technology. The abundance of resources often attracts more highly qualified and experienced teachers (Fan & Chen, 1999), which often correlates with more active parents within the school. Furthermore, as Kozol (1992) demonstrated, schools in poorer neighborhoods are much more likely to have worsened or unsafe conditions—such as inadequate lighting, unpredictable pluming, and perceived unsafe outdoor space—more affluent schools typically do not, and as a result, parental involvement is often higher in such schools.

Racial and Ethnic School Composition

A third factor that plays a significant role in parental involvement has to do with the racial and ethnic make-up of the institution. Teachers and administrators in predominately White schools are more likely to view the involvement of minority parents as an interference to the process of formal education (Steinberg et al., 1996). Such situations generally occur because White administrators and teachers are less likely to believe the minority parent to be knowledgeable about the educational process compared with White parents.

In stark contrast, schools with a higher proportion of minority students—and a higher degree of minority teachers—generally experience a greater degree of minority parents who are formally involved with the schools. Kerbow and Bernhardt (1993) suggested this is due to feelings of similarity whereby schoolteachers and administrations feel more comfortable reaching out to minority parents, and minority parents, in turn, feel more comfortable becoming more involved with the school system. Researchers have, for example, found that schools with greater Hispanic populations are generally better prepared to deal with the language barrier of parents by hiring bilingual teachers and staff (Crosnoe, 2001; Smith, Stern, & Shatrova, 2009).

School Security

One school-level trait that has been noticeably overlooked within the current literature on schools is the relationship between school security measures and parental involvement. As Casella (2006) showed, the use of school security measures has drastically increased since the 1970s. By 2003, 97% of all secondary schools required any visitor, including parents, to sign-in in a designated areas upon entering the school, 15% of all schools reported using the use of metal detectors at their main entrance, 26% of schools reported using security cameras within the school proper, and around half of all secondary schools reported using a police officer or security guard everyday within the school (Coon, 2007; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2012).

It is possible that the growth in physical security measures such as the use of police officer and metal detectors represent a school that is less conducive to parental involvement than has historically been the case. For example, in a review of parent perceptions of school security, Addington (2009) found that parents who were more formally involved with the school did not support increases in the school security compared with parents who were not involved with the school. This supports other research that has found that parents do not believe more visible security measures are appropriate strategies for addressing school behavior (Peterson, Larson, & Skiba, 2001). It is possible that school security measures may negatively impact parental involvement within the school.

Current Project

Although prior research has established that individual factors, such as SES, and school-level factors, such as racial composition, affect parental involvement, little research has sought to understand the role of school security measures in predicting formal and informal parental involvement. Given the important role schools play in predicting parental involvement (Deplanty, Coulter-Kern, & Duchane, 2007; Griffith, 1998; Sheldon & Epstein, 2002), it is possible that schools using visible policing security measures may experience lower levels of parental involvement than schools without such measures. If this is the case, the employment of such security strategies serves as a proxy for a more punitive school climate resulting in a less inclusive school atmosphere for parents. This, it turn, may correlate with a lower likelihood of parental school involvement.

Hypothesis

Based on a review of the literature, the current research projects make three distinct hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Formal parental involvement will be significantly lower where there are security guards and metal detectors.

Hypothesis 2: Informal parental involvement will be significantly lower where there are required sign-in areas, security guards and metal detectors.

Hypothesis 3: Informal parental involvement is expected to be less affected by security measures than formal parental involvement.

There is an overwhelming amount of research that finds that racial minorities and lower income individuals are less likely to take an active role within the school proper (Schneider & Coleman 1993; Steinberg et al., 1996). However, researchers have also found that while some parents may feel uncomfortable interacting with school administrators and teachers, they are no less likely to informally interact with their child and the school. Therefore, the current hypothesis is that the presence of more security measures in schools will have a lower effect on informal parental involvement than formal parental involvement.

Method

Data

The data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS), 2002 (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2004) comprised a total sample of 16,127 10th graders in 750 different schools. The data are, overall, nationally representative of the school population in the United States. ELS used purposive sampling to oversample private schools and Asian American students to ensure that the sample sizes were large enough to make valid comparisons between groups. To correct for oversampling, sampling weights, derived by the ELS methodologists based on U.S. Census data, are utilized in the current study (see page B19, ELS codebook). The schools were selected using cluster sampling, and the students in each school were selected using random sampling.

Dependent Variables

Data were collected from one parent of each student surveyed. These items consisted of numerous measures of school involvement. To capture different measures of involvement, the current protect utilizes three distinct capacities of parental school involvement.

Informal involvement

Parents were asked about their formal involvement with the school. These measures include how often the parent had contacted the school regarding their child’s performance in school, behavioral problems, questions about available classes, question concerning the schools’ plans, and questions about their child’s academic program, their child’s attendance, potential volunteer work, help with their child’s homework, their child’s records, and any form of school activity the parent engages in.

To ensure validity of these measures, a rotated factor analysis was performed (results not shown, but available upon request). This yielded two distinct factors: informal academic school involvement and informal behavioral school involvement. Factor 1, academic involvement, comprised three measures: parents involving themselves with the school concerning school courses for their child, school plans for their child, and school programs for their child. This factor has a Cronbach’s alpha of .714. Factor 2, behavioral involvement, comprised four measures: parents contacting the school concerning problem behavior in school, poor academic performance, school attendance issues, and contacting the school for questions concerning their child’s performance on homework or questions concerning problems with their child’s grades. This factor has a Cronbach’s alpha of .709.

Formal involvement

Further data were also collected from each parent concerning more formal involvement in school activities; these measures include participation in the PTA and formal volunteer work within the school. These four measures (member of the PTA, attend PTA meetings, involved with the PTA, volunteer in any capacity with the PTA or teachers) were combined to create an index of formal parental involvement with a Cronbach’s alpha of .721.

Independent Variables

Individual level

As prior literature suggests, key individual-level factors may influence parental involvement. Race, gender, and SES have all been found to impact parental involvement formally and informally (Schneider & Coleman, 1993; Steinberg et al., 1996). In addition, family structure has also been found to correlate strongly with parental involvement (Eccles & Harold, 1993). Variables were created to represent Black, Hispanic, Other race, and Asian American students (White contrast). A variable representing female student (male contrast) and students whose parents are married (single parent contrast) were also created. Please see Table 1 for descriptive statistics.

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics (n = 16,197).

Variable	M	SD	n	α
Dependent variables
Formal parent involvement	1.234	1.356	11,904	.715
Informal academic involvement	1.021	1.440	11,789	.714
Informal behavioral involvement	1.190	1.902	11,747	.709
Independent variables
Security guard (Level 2)	0.505	0.499	8,033
Metal detectors (Level 2)	0.065	0.246	1,019
Cameras (Level 2)	0.283	0.451	4,409
Fencing (Level 2)	0.262	0.440	4,071
Sign-in (Level 2)	0.683	0.465	10,777
Control variables
Married family	0.782	0.412	10,501
Income	9.110	2.420	11,899
Female	0.502	0.500	7,717
White	0.570	0.495	8,682
Black	0.133	0.339	2,020
Hispanic	0.145	0.352	2,217
Asian	0.096	0.294	1,460
Neighborhood crime (Level 2)	1.530	0.859	13,908
% minority (Level 2)	4.890	10.030	14,625
School crime (Level 2)	27.380	5.890	12,822	.840

School level

The primary school–level independent variables under consideration are the presence of specific school security measures. These measures include the presence of a security guard, metal detectors, security cameras, fencing around the school, and required visitor sign-in. These variables are dichotomous (1 = the presence of a given security measure).

In addition, percent minority of each school has been found to correlate with security measures and parental involvement (Friedman, Bobrowski, & Geraci, 2006; Welch & Payne, 2010), as well as neighborhood crime rates and crime rates within the school. Data on school crime are measured using 12 different measures of delinquency and crime in the school that were collected from the administrator using a 12-item scale. The scale includes measures of fighting, cutting class, drug use, drug sales, gang activity, vandalism, theft, presence of weapons, abuse of teachers, presence of bullying, verbal abuse of teachers/staff, and general levels of disorder. The scale has a Cronbach’s alpha of .84.

Finally, previous literature suggests crime levels in the neighborhood of the school are often important predictors of the presence and use of school security measures (Nolan, 2011). Schools located in neighborhoods and areas with higher levels of crime tend to employ and use more security measures than schools in neighborhoods and areas with lower levels of crime. To account for this, data on neighborhood crime levels were collected from the school administrator (with 1 = very low levels of crime, 4 = very high level of crime) are included in the current analysis. Please see Table 1 for descriptive statistics of these measures.

Analytic Strategy

The current research project utilizes Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) regression to assess the relationship between formal parental involvement and informal parental involvement (academic involvement and behavioral involvement) and the key independent variables in the analysis. Individual-level measures are nested within the school using the school identification code supplied by the ELS data. We use a mixed-effects model as the results of a likelihood ratio test reveal the intercepts between schools vary randomly. In addition, prior literature suggests parental involvement can also be a proxy measure for SES, which supports research that finds racial minorities are less likely to be involved due to their over representation among the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder (Friedman et al., 2006; Warner, 2010); racial minorities, particularly Black parents, with higher levels of income have been found to be as involved within the school as their White counterparts (Kerbow & Bernhardt, 1993). To assess this relationship, interaction terms between race and income will be introduced into the model.

Important to note, the Hausman test of endogeneity revealed minor cluster-level confounding (p < .001) among the variables representing Black Students and students whose parents are reported as married for the formal parental involvement model. To account for this cluster-level confounding, group mean centering was used to generate group mean scores and group mean deviation scores for the variables representing Black students and students whose parents are married. These variables, therefore, represent between and within differences, respectively. In addition, group mean scores were used for income and Other race for the informal behavioral involvement model to account for cluster-level confounding. We begin the analysis by exploring the relationship between formal parental involvement and the key independent variables.

Results

The results of the regression, shown in Table 2, reveal students whose parents are married, and students from higher income families experience greater levels of formal parental involvement with the school. Hispanic and Asian students have parents who engage in lower levels of formal involvement compared with White students. Turning to the school-level variables, the results suggest that the school crime rate is positively related to lower levels of formal involvement. As hypothesized, schools with a security guard and metal detectors also experience lower levels of parental involvement (p < .05) compared with schools that do not use those technologies. Interestingly, the presence of fencing is significantly related to increased levels of formal parental involvement, while a required sign-in area is related to lower levels of formal parental involvement. The implications of this will be more fully addressed in the discussion section.

Table 2.

Hierarchical Linear Modeling Regression Predicting Formal Parental Involvement.

	Model 1		Model 2
Fixed effects	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE
Intercept	1.00	.258***	.956	.279***
Individual level
Married parents	.157	.041***	.150	.041***
Income	.067	.010***	.073	.013***
Black student	.087	.067	.080	.041
Hispanic student	−.121	.061*	−.188	.061**
Asian American student	−.163	.081*	−.150	.081^†
Other race student	−.060	.080	−.052	.081
Female student	.020	.031	.020	.037
Group mean Black student	.441	.167**	.495	.167**
Group mean married parents	.441	.226^†	.427	.226^†
Black × Income interaction		—	.045	.022*
Hispanic × Income interaction		—	−.086	.020***
Asian × Income interaction		—	.029	.022
Other race × income interaction		—	.001	.032
School-level variables
Neighborhood crime rate	−.017	.034	−.019	.033
School crime rate	−.028	.005***	−.028	.005***
Security guard	−.115	.054*	−.113	.054*
Metal detectors	−.007	.106*	−.013	.104*
Cameras	.052	.057	.045	.057
Fencing	.138	.065*	.136	.064*
Sign-in	−.142	.055*	−.137	.055*
Random effect
Intercept	.573	.021	.572	.021
Residual	1.612	.012	1.591	.013
Robust SE reported	n = 7,984/556 groups		n = 7,984/556 groups
R ²	.068		.072
Level 1/Level 2 variance	.018/.228		.023/.230
Unconditional/conditional Intraclass Correlation	.236/.196		.236/.196
χ²	234.05, p < .0000		270.21, p < .0000

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Turning to the second model of Table 2, the introduction of interaction terms reveals that income has a positive conditioning effect on formal involvement for Black and Hispanic students. Next, we proceed to examine informal parental involvement and the independent variables, the results of which are shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Hierarchical Linear Modeling Regression Predicting Informal Parental Involvement.

	Behavioral
	Model 1		Model 2		Academic
Fixed effects	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE	Coefficient	SE
Intercept	.710	.073***	.512	.110***	.795	.162***
Individual level
Married parents	−.047	.027^†	−.043	.027	.076	.047
Income	−.012	.005*	−.019	.007**	.041	.010***
Black student	.141	.040***	.155	.042***	.184	.079*
Hispanic student	.151	.036***	.149	.036***	.021	.071
Asian American student	−.225	.040***	−.229	.041***	−.151	.091^†
Other race student	.095	.052^†	.089	.053*	.242	.101*
Female student	−.171	.019***	−.170	.019***	−.099	.040*
Group mean income		—	.022	.009*		—
Group mean other race student		—	.252	.124*		—
Black × Income interaction		—	.027	.012*		—
Hispanic × Income interaction		—	.011	.013		—
Asian × Income interaction		—	.032	.012*		—
Other race × Income interaction		—	−.005	.019		—
School level
Neighborhood crime rate	−.019	.013	−.008	.013	−.073	.029*
School crime rate	.001	.002	.002	.002	−.003	.004
Security guard	−.027	.021	−.023	.020	.030	.048
Metal detectors	−.057	.043	−.038	.042	−.096	.097
Cameras	−.017	.022	−.020	.022	.070	.054
Fencing	.009	.024	.006	.024	−.011	.059
Sign-in	.006	.021	.009	.020	.014	.046
Random effects
Intercept	.222	.007	.218	.007	.525	.021
Residual	.611	.006	.610	.006	1.311	.023
Robust SE reported	n = 7,896/557 groups		n = 7,896/557 groups		n = 7,924/557 groups
R ²	.071		.076		.061
Level 1/Level 2 variance	.063/.127		.064/.160		.057/.079
Unconditional/conditional Intraclass Correlation	.124/.117		.124/.113		.141/.138
χ²	227.5, p < .0000		251.91, p < .0000		61.53, p < .0000

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

As revealed by the output, students whose parents are married, those from higher income families, and females experience lower levels of informal behavioral involvement. Black and Hispanic students experience greater levels of behavioral involvement compared with White students, and Asian American students experience less compared with White students. Turning to school-level covariates, no variable is significant in the model. With the introduction of interaction terms, income positively conditions the relationship between informal behavioral involvement for Black and Asian American students.

Turning to the latter half of the table, informal academic involvement, students from higher income brackets tend to experience greater levels of informal academic involvement. Black students receive greater levels of academic involvement compared with White students, and females receive less academic involvement compared with males. For the school-level covariates, only neighborhood crime rate was significantly related to informal academic involvement, negatively whereby schools with greater levels of delinquency and crime experience lower levels of informal academic involvement.

Discussion and Conclusion

The goal of this article was twofold. First, this article sets out to explore the relationship between school security measures and differing forms of parental involvement within schools. Second, the current piece of research explored the relationship between race, income, and forms of parental involvement. The results of this analysis suggest an interesting relationship between parental involvement in schools, school security, and race.

The first hypothesis that formal parental involvement would be lower in the presence of security guards, metal detectors, and security cameras is mostly supported. The presence of security guards, metal detectors, and a required sign-in area was found to be significantly related to decreased levels of formal parental involvement, even in the presence of theoretically important control variables including overall rates of crime and delinquency within the school and neighborhood. However, the presence of fencing around the majority of the school was found to correlate with higher rates of formal parental involvement. While this may seem contradictory to the hypothesis being tested in the current analysis, there is certainly a plausible explanation.

As Casella (2006) demonstrated, the use of a security officer within the school represents the newest and most visible form of school security measure, as opposed to the use of fencing, which represents one of the more traditional forms of parental involvement. Thus, it is highly likely fencing has been normalized with the context of schools, while school security officers remain unique to schools utilizing the newest forms and most “militaristic” forms of school security precautions. While prior research (see Kupchik, 2010) has found that all forms of security measures are generally normalized for students, no research has explored the normalization of such measures on parents.

Interestingly, the introduction of interaction terms between income and race revealed that Black students from higher income brackets reported greater levels of formal parental involvement than their lower income counterparts. Again, this is something prior research has found (Ferguson, 2001; Kerbow & Bernhardt, 1993). However, the current project found the inverse for Hispanic students; higher income Hispanic students correlated with lower levels of formal parental involvement. Some prior research has found marked trends between these two racial groups. Friedman et al. (2006) found that higher income Hispanic parents generally report greater levels of satisfaction with their child’s schooling than higher income African American parents. Such findings could indicate that Hispanic parents do not feel the need to become formally involved with the school as they are more satisfied with what the school provides; Black parents, on the other hand, may feel the need to be more directly involved with the school due to lower levels of satisfaction with their child’s experience.

The second hypothesis that informal behavioral involvement and informal academic involvement would also be affected by the presence of a security guard, security camera, and metal detectors was not supported. No significant relationship was found between any security measure and either form of informal parental involvement. A number of research projects have found that informal parental involvement does not vary across socioeconomic or racial boundaries irrespective of the fact that formal parental involvement does (Coleman, 1998; Muller, 1998).

Of interest, the results of the analysis on academic parental involvement found that Black students experienced greater levels of informal parental academic involvement than White students, while Asian American students experienced marginally lower levels of informal parental academic involvement than White students (p < .10). In addition, females experienced lower levels of informal parental academic involvement than males. Similarly, in exploring parental informal behavioral involvement, Asian American students and female students received lower levels of behavioral involvement than White students and males, while Black students and Hispanic students received increased levels of informal parental behavioral involvement. There are a number of theoretical explanations as to why such findings may be the case.

Research projects have found that Hispanic and Blacks students are more likely to be punished for offenses than White students, all else equal (Arcia, 2007; Reyes, 2006; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002; Townsend, 2000; Verdugo, 2002). Highlighting this in a recent project, Jung (2007) found that teenage Black males were 3 times more likely than Whites to receive in-school suspension for similar offenses. The author further found that Hispanic males were 2 times more likely than Whites to receive in-school suspension. In regard to parental involvement, Jung found that academic achievement and parental involvement in school had a protective effect for Black and Hispanic students at the level of minor discipline. This finding is mirrored in other research; however, these protective factors did not have any influence on the rates of in-school suspensions experienced by minority students (Jung, 2007). This means that while there are advantages for all racial groups in terms of parental involvement, minority students do not receive the same benefits within the system of discipline and punishment. It is highly possible that the higher rates of Black and Hispanic informal behavioral involvement are in response to greater degrees of discipline on their children as prior literature suggests. This would also explain why the interaction between income and race was positive. However, due to the cross-sectional nature of the research design; such a conclusion is merely theoretical.

Second, some prior research has found that racial minority parents will exercise greater degrees of social control in-home due to a mistrust of the traditional institutions, such as schools (Elder et al., 1995). For example, while White parents have been found to be more likely to trust in school administrators and teachers, Black parents have been found to engage in protective strategies to harbor their child form racial unfairness in the school perpetuated by administrators and teachers. In this vein, it is possible that the greater rates of informal parental academic involvement among Black parents are in response to perceive racial inequality within the school. Supporting this, Elder et al. (1995) found that parents use “promotive” strategies, such as helping their child with schoolwork, to assist in the development of the child’s talents and to protect their child from inequality. Moreover, as a result of this historical legacy of distrust, Black parents often report that they must take a more active role in teaching their children coping strategies than White parents to protect their child (Elder et al., 1995). This could explain why informal academic involvement is greater in Black parents than White parents.

The third hypothesis that formal parental involvement would be more affected by school security measures than informal parental involvement is also partially supported. The presence of a security guard, metal detectors, and required sign-in areas were significantly related to lower levels of formal parental involvement, but was not related to differences in either form of informal parental involvement.

This study is not without limitations. First, due to the cross-sectional nature of this study, we are unable to make casual claims about the relationship between security and parental involvement; it is outside the scope of this article to determine whether security measures cause lower parental involvement. Future research should longitudinally assess the relationship between involvement and security measures. Second, we are unable to control for school funding or budget, which may relate to the presence of school security measures; schools without adequate funding may not be able to implement costly security technologies aside. Finally, although we control for income levels of individual families, past research has established that schools located in less affluent areas are more likely to utilize security measures (see Nolan, 2011).

Overall, the results of this analysis suggest that only formal parental involvement is affected by the presence of a security. Future research should assess, qualitatively, what specific school processes encourage and dissuade parents from becoming involved. As schools continue to implement greater levels of school security (Casella, 2006), it becomes correspondingly important to assess changes in levels of parental involvement as school security evolves into more advanced, and possible more intrusive, forms.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Lisa Killary for providing valuable support in the preparation of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Thomas J. Mowen is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He is currently pursuing his PhD in sociology. His areas of interest are within criminology, youth, delinquency, and family. His recent work has appeared in Justice Quarterly and Youth & Society.

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