- Parental engagement is effective, cost-efficient
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) rates parental engagement as having a moderate positive impact for low cost. EEF - Equity, voice, and representation in parent engagement
- Some researchers warn that parent engagement efforts sometimes privilege more vocal or resourced parents, leaving out less represented or marginalized families (e.g. immigrants, non-native speakers). Bera
- Meaningful engagement must include efforts to reach diverse communities and ensure all parents feel heard. Bera
- Sustained interventions / repeated engagement yield better impact
- In STEM engagement programmes, one-off events help but are limited; sustained programmes over months or years that engage both young people and their influencers (parents, teachers) are more effective. arXiv
- Similarly, public engagement with students over time has shown measurable improvements in awareness, motivation and sometimes academic outcomes. arXiv
- Intersectional inequalities in student achievement
A study of London students applied a multilevel intersectional analysis (looking across ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special needs, etc.) and found that student achievement differences are driven by additive effects rather than fully interactive ones. arXiv- The study suggests that support and interventions may need to be more precisely targeted to address multiple overlapping disadvantages.
- From a parent awareness perspective, this emphasizes that different families may have compounded challenges, and a “one size fits all” parental outreach is unlikely to work.
