The influence of African-American parents' educational values on the scholastic adjustment of their children with and without exceptional learning needs

The purpose of this study was to examine parents' perspectives to determine the influence of African American parents' attitudes (i.e., parent expectations, parent satisfaction with schools, parent attitudes towards school and education) and behaviors (i.e., parent encouragement, parent school involvement, parent-child interactions) on the scholastic adjustment of their child with and without exceptional learning needs (i.e., mental disability, emotional disturbance, specific learning disability). This study also sought to determine the rank order of the variables in relation to parental values. The participants included 111 parents of elementary school students and parents of middle school students who were enrolled in schools located in a rural parish in the south. For this quantitative research study, one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), descriptive statistics, and Bonferroni adjusted alpha levels were used to analyze the data. The instrument used to collect data for this study was a 57- item Likert-type questionnaire (Parent Survey I and Parent Survey II) that measured parental educational values (i.e., attitudes and behaviors). The results revealed there were statistically significant differences between parents in attitudinal parental educational value of parent expectations but no differences with the other attitudinal values (i.e., parent attitudes toward school and education, parent satisfaction with schools). The rank order of these values was revealed as follows: parent expectations, parent attitudes toward school and education, and parent satisfaction with schools. There were no statistically significant differences between parents in behavioral parental educational values. However, there were statistically significant differences in parent encouragement according to the grade of the child. The rank order of these values was revealed as follows: parent encouragement, parent-child interactions, and parent school involvement. These findings indicate that both the parents of students with exceptional learning needs and parents of students without exceptional learning needs have high and realistic expectations for their children.