Parenting Styles, Parental Involvement in School, and Educational Functioning of Children with Special Needs Integrated into Mainstream Education

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between parenting style and parental involvement in school and educational functioning among children with various disabilities integrated into mainstream education. It includes 116 parents of children with special needs who reported their children according to formal educational evaluations they possessed. The sample of children reported by parents disproportionately represents six age layers |=9.23, SD=1.85|and 3 main disability groups. Multivariate regression analyses indicated that parenting style and parental involvement in school explain a significant proportion of the variance in educational functioning among children with attention deficit disorders and complex disabilities. Within the first group, parental involvement significantly mediated the relationship between parenting style and educational functioning. Parenting style and parental involvement modestly predicted academic achievements in language skills and mathematics field (respectively) in the general sample. Significant relationships between parenting style and educational functioning and achievements in these tests pointed to better performance of children of authoritative parents compared with children of authoritarian parents. The main findings stress the need to encourage and nurture authoritative parenting traits, along with consistent parental involvement in school, as significant means of improving and strengthening the educational functioning among children with special needs integrated into mainstream education.

The theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed in the light of relevant literature.