Home Environment and School Learning

From a systematic search of educational, psychological, and sociological literature, 18 studies of 5,831 school-aged students on the correlation of home environment and learning in eight countries over a 19-year period were selected. Correlations (the units of analysis) of intelligence, motivation, and achievement with indexes of parent stimulation of the student in the home are considerably higher than those with indexes of socioeconomic status (SES); specifically the medians (and ranges) of 92 simple correlations of home environment and learning are .37 (and .02 to .82) and of 62 multipleregression-weighted composites are .44 (and .23 to .81). Jackknifed regression estimates indicate that gender and SES of the sample affect the sizes of the correlations and suggest priorities for future primary investigations. The analyses suggest that ability and achievement are more closely linked to the sociopsychological environment and intellectual stimulation in the home than they are to parental socioeconomic status indicators such as occupation and amount of education.