The given report is created by Child Trends Data Bank, an organization that fulfills the examination and monitoring of the factors that influence the development of children. The task of the report was to give information on parental involvement in the educational activity of their children. The report presents a vast amount of data. Among its advantages are the coverage of various aspects of the problem and a proposed solution to the problem. However, the report makes an unjustified conclusion. It does not include non-black and non-Hispanic immigrant families, as well as the families where a mother is separated from her child.
The report presents a result of serious research and provides a wide range of data on the issue. The main advantage of the work is that the authors have studied various aspects of the problem. Not only have they calculated how many parents are involved in their children’s schooling but, more importantly, they have also pointed out the diversity of parents by race and origin, by education, by the spoken language, and by income (being below/above the poverty line) (Child Trends 4-6).
Additionally, the authors do not automatically assume that parental involvement in a certain family is stable for all the years of a child’s education; they make a distinction between the years of primary school and the rest of the time (Child Trends 4). Comparing the data related to different periods, they managed to find the trends in parental involvement over a particular period (Child Trends 3). Moreover, the authors do not merely point out the problem; they offer a solution to the problem of low parental involvement (Child Trends 7).
Nevertheless, the report has some essential disadvantages. Having studied the figures and information, the authors conclude that the children, whose parents are more involved in their schooling, have fewer problems with behavior, lower risk of school dropouts, and have better academic performance (Child Trends 2). This is a serious conviction, and to support it, a significant amount of data and professional psychological analysis are needed, as well as the work has to be up-to-date. Instead, the authors cite a 1994 research with a narrow range of study groups. The authors of the research, Anne T. Henderson and Nancy Berla are educators, not child psychologists.
Therefore, the conclusion of the report is weak and unsupported by proper evidence. Apart from that, the report covers the problem of fathers not living with their family (Child Trends 2) but it does not suppose (and, hence, provides no information) that it can be mothers that are separated from the family. The other flaw is that, even though the authors recognize the problem of disadvantaged families, they only study black and Hispanic families (Child Trends 4).
However, the families of non-black and non-Hispanic immigrants, such as Asian or Western European ones, can be disadvantaged as well, which is not included in the research. The report does not present any data on state and local estimates and international estimates of parental involvement.
To conclude, the benefit of the report is that the authors address various aspects of the problem, such as the background of parents. Among the drawbacks of this work are not including non-black and non-Hispanic immigrant families and families with separated mothers into the study. The conclusion of the report can hardly be supported by proper evidence.
Works Cited
Child Trends 2013, Parental Involvement in Schools. Indicators on Children and Youth. Web.