Parent Education Attainment and Parenting

This chapter focuses on the behaviors of the parent toward their children. In much parenting research, a parent’s cognitive ability has been measured by proxy variable using the demographic information on the parent’s education attainment. The chapter reviews why this one variable is important for understanding both parenting beliefs and behaviors and subsequent influence on child development. It deals with an overview of the important role parent education provides as a demographic variable that relays information on the social resources that may be available for parenting children. The chapter outlines the literature on parent and school interactions and how parent educational attainment relates to parental educational involvement in school and home. Parental educational attainment appears to also increase positive parenting behavior across a wide spectrum of child outcomes. The relation between parents’ educational attainment and child development has been established in the parenting literature.