Notwithstanding the U.S. Department of Education’s (2003) mandate, according
to Alkin and associates (1992) in Encyclopedia of Educational Research, parental
involvement needs to be better understood, especially for families of different cultural
and ethnic backgrounds, and characteristics such as race, social class, income, and marital
status. At the time of conducting this study (May 2010) searching the term “parental
involvement” in ERIC yielded 3,118 results, the oldest article dating to 1962.