The Relationship Between Parental Education and Student Outcomes A Systematic Literature Review Following the PRISMA 2020 Framework

Education is one of the strongest tools of society, but success in education is still not uniformly attained. Parental education is one of the many variables affecting student achievement that has proven to be a strong one. Parents who have completed higher education are more likely to have positive environments at home, high expectations for their children and to feel more confident in interaction with educational institutions. This SLR aimed to bring together the fragmented and inconsistent evidence base on the impact of parental education on student outcomes, and to explore the ways in which researchers have examined the link between these two concepts in different global contexts, as well as patterns that emerged from these. The method used involved systematic identification, screening and analysis of peer reviewed empirical studies using PRISMA 2020 guidelines from 2015 to 2025. The search was done in comprehensive manner in the following databases: Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis Online, SAGE Journals, JSTOR, Wiley Online Library and NepJOL. Studies where parental education was used as an independent variable and student outcomes as dependent variable were included. In order to account for the expected methodological diversity, narrative synthesis was used The analysis of 13 good-quality studies gives a clear yet complex picture of the results. Pupils from higher educated parents tend to achieve higher academic attainment, adopt more positive attitudes to school, have a greater sense of engagement with the school, and have a higher expectation for themselves on the educational path. But this is not a relationship that is usually expressed directly. Rather, educated parents enact their knowledge in multiple ways, highly educated parents are more likely to be involved in their children's education, create more intellectually stimulating homes, have higher expectations for their children, and offer more opportunities to learn. The relevance and dynamism of this connection is different from one country to another and from one culture to another. Parental education cannot be considered or understood as a linear determinant of student success, but rather as a resource in a larger context of family, school and community influences. School improvement should be part of an inclusive discussion of educational policies to reduce inequality, alongside strengthening family-school partnerships, enhancing home learning environments, and the removal of structural barriers to the translation of parents' education into students' achievement.