Children’s Educational Outcomes, Parental School and School Characteristics: Does Parent-Teacher Race Matching Make a Difference?

Littisha A. Bates, Arizona State University

Based on prior literature we know that minority children overall have less academic success than their majority counterparts. A number of previous studies point to the importance of family characteristics when predicting children’s educational outcomes. While others suggest that school characteristics are of greater importance for determining children’s educational success. However, although the individual effects of families and schools on children’s educational outcomes have been examined, less attention has been paid to the interaction of the two, in particular similarities in parents and teachers. Initial analysis using data from spring of 1st grade from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 indicate that having a race match between parents and teachers is a significant predictor of both parental school involvement and math scores. Future analysis will include multilevel growth curve models with in-depth measure of family-school interactions for predicting both parental school involvement and children’s educational achievement.