Impact of Parental Involvement towards School Education between Boys and Girls

Children are the building blocks of the nation and home is the first and most important school for the child, will ever have. Parental involvement has been recognized as the most important factor to influence the childhood and adulthood. Any enrichment programme, for maximizing the potentials of all the children has to have active parent-child interaction. The role of parents in bringing up their children is quite important both in terms of their devotion with respect to time spent with them, money and other consideration. Parents transmit the culture and custom of society to the incoming generation. Parent involvement implies how the parents involve themselves in developing overall personality of the child. It may be described as the allocation of resources to the child’s school behavior. Parents’ involvement in education either in school or at home, will create a partnership between school and parents. The resulting partnership between parents and school will develop effective communication from home to school and school to home. The main objective of the present study was to compare the parent knowledge, attitude and involvement towards school education between boys and girls children. Data was collected with the help of standardized tool ‘Parent Involvement Scale’ by Dr. Rita Chopra and Surbala Sahoo. Sample size was 100 boys and girls of IVth and Vth Standards, will be selected from Agra city. Analysis of data was done by percentile technique. Findings of the study indicate that involvement of parents towards boy is more than girls. Although they support both of them but in some areas like tours from schools, outdoor group study, financial matter etc, they still ignore girls.


Impact of Parental Involvement towards School Education Between Boys and Girls
© The International Journal of Indian Psychology | 73 According to Gandhi Ji (1869-1948, "There is no school equal to decent home and no teachers equal to honest virtuous parents".
The role of parents in bringing up their children is quite important both in terms of their devotion with respect to time spent with them, money and other considerations. Parents contribute in many subtle ways to the development of children's general interests, welfare, discipline, interaction with one another, leisure time activities, academic growth and vocational plans.
Parental involvement implies how the parents involve themselves in developing overall personality of the child. All the parents have expectations, likes and dislikes and preferences regarding how children should be handled, brought up and educated. When parents are rational and their attitude towards their children is logical and considerate, it is sure to pick up a behavior pattern, which is analytical and co -operative. In case parents are too emotional and their attitude is non -rational and they act more in terms of expediency in an authoritative manner the child will fail to attain proper emotional training thus lacking in emotional normality.

Most of the parents expect better performance from their children in the school. They become happy if their perform better as compared to other peers in their class. Due to this reason parents wants to spend more time for the development of their children but at parents in the industrial areas have less involvement with their children in the home and school activities. The personality of the child mostly depends on the involvement of their parents in their school and day to day activities.
Midraj and Midraj (2011) studied on 63 female and 68 male fourth-grade students found that parents' education level and occupational status influence student's reading achievement. The results also noted that parents who provided more learning resources for their child and who were more involved in literacy activities at home also were associated with their child's reading achievement.
These days' parents support their children in their education but they more support boys than girls. Although they support girls too, but in some cases they ignore them like outdoor group studies, tours, financial matters etc. Girls are more close to their family especially their father but still they have some insecure feelings regarding their daughters. So they avoid their daughters' trips and outdoors hangouts and all.
Research suggests that both, sex of parent and sex of child may affect parental effects. For example, a consistent finding is that fathers in two-parent families are more likely to be involved in the care of sons than daughters whereas mothers do not seem to differentiate their involvement between sons and daughters Wood and Repetti (2004) further corroborated this distinction with the finding that fathers, but not mothers, engage in more interactions with their sons than their daughters over time. As their sons get older, fathers engage in more play, companionship, and school-related activities with them.
The relationship which parents establish with their children has a powerful influence upon the development of the personality of the child. Generally speaking, if parents are relaxed, affectionate, mature, caring and understanding, children will grow normally and become happy, socially useful adults.

OBJECTIVE
To compare parent's knowledge, attitude and involvement towards school education of girl and boy children.

METHODOLOGY:
Sample Selection: -The study was conducted in urban area of Agra city as it was convenient to the researcher. Sample of 100 children (Boys-50, Girls-50) were selected randomly for the present study. The Stratified Random Sampling Technique was used for the selection of the unit of information.
Tool: -In the present study, a standardized schedule "Parent Involvement Scale" by Rita Chopra and Surabala Sahoo was used to collect the data.

Analysis of Data: -
The collected data was analyzed by percentile technique.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION: -
The collected data was tabulated and the results obtained are presented under the following tables:-

CONCLUSION
Parental involvement gives an important influence on children's academic performance. But sometimes they create some differences between their son and daughter. Results indicate that at school level, they are more supportive for boys (80%) than girls (66%) because they do not allow doing their daughters some outdoor activities with their friends. But at home level and in parentteacher association, their involvement is almost same. As at home level parents support boys at 86% and girls 78%. Same as in parent teacher association parent takes participation in meetings at school at 82 % for boys and 74 % for girls. These differences may be occurring due to the interaction of father and mother with their children. Study by Pomerantz (2004) revealed that fathers' parenting was more closely associated with daughters' school adjustment than sons'. In turn, maternal interpersonal involvement was more allied with sons' enjoyment of school than daughters'.