A comparison of factors influencing parent educational involvement when a child has diabetes or a bleeding disorder

The following study examines the relationships between home-based and school-based parent educational involvement and parent self-efficacy, teacher communication, and contextual factors, including time, energy, and social support. Most of these constructs were chosen from Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler's framework for parent involvement (2005). A group of parents with healthy children are compared to a group of parents with children who have chronic health conditions (CHC). Children were between 5 and 11 years old. Chronic health conditions included Type 1 diabetes and bleeding disorders, primarily hemophilia. Diabetes and bleeding disorders were selected because they involve similar levels of ongoing care from physicians and similar requirements for medication regimens.;Means for all variables and the predictive relationships between parent self-efficacy, teacher communication, and time, energy, and social support and the two types of parent involvement were compared across the two groups to assess the hypotheses. Potential interactions among these variables in the CHC group were also examined in a more exploratory manner given the lack of prior data for children with special health needs.;We had hypothesized that because parents of a child with a chronic health condition typically have more stressors, the groups would differ in parent educational involvement. In contrast, overall study results indicated that families with a child who has a CHC are resilient in maintaining involvement to address the child's educational needs. In addition, the results of this study suggest that teacher communication may be an important area to target in interventions designed to increase parent involvement. Also, when qualitative comments were examined, it appeared that interventions of this sort need to seriously consider the limitations parents face because of work demands and limited time and energy for educational involvement. Quantitative results additionally indicated that culture may be an important factor in predicting parent involvement, independent of socioeconomic status factors such as parent's highest level of education and per capita income. These results are an important contribution to the literature because supporting parent involvement has been associated with positive academic and psychosocial outcomes for children in general. Parent involvement may also serve as a protective factor for this specific at-risk group of children with CHC.