Socio‐economic background, parental involvement and teacher perceptions of these in relation to pupil achievement

Parental involvement and teacher perceptions of parental involvement in the education of children were studied in relation to level of parental education and pupil achievement. A questionnaire was administered to 218 parents and 60 teachers. Correlational analyses and paired‐sample analyses showed teacher perceptions to be weakly related to parental reports of their own involvement and to operate at a different level. Regression analyses and analyses of variance showed teacher perceptions of parental involvement to affect pupil achievement more strongly than parental reports. The results suggest that teacher perceptions of parents may be stereotyped and that such stereotypes can clearly affect academic results.