ABSTRACT
When examining the topic of parenting, the focus is often on the behaviors of the parent toward their children and, indeed, is often defined in this way. Parents, however, are individuals (generally adults) who derive the behaviors (parenting) toward their children based on the resources they have available to them. These resources can be quite complex, such as their self-regulation and personality traits (Bornstein, Hahn, and Haynes, 2011; Smith et al., 2007) but also their own problem solving and cognitive ability (Anger and Heineck, 2010; Rueter and Conger, 1998). In much parenting research, a parent’s cognitive ability has been measured by proxy variable using the demographic information on the parent’s education attainment (e.g., years of formal schooling). In this chapter, we review why this one variable is important for understanding both parenting beliefs and behaviors and subsequent influence on child development. This chapter begins with an overview of the important role parent education provides as a demographic variable that relays information on the social resources that may be available for parenting children. This is followed by a discussion of the important relation that parent educational attainment has with constructing the home environment in which children develop. In the next section, we outline the literature on parent and school interactions and how parent educational attainment relates to parental educational involvement in school and home. This chapter concludes with suggestions for the future direction of research in understanding the complexity of the family environment and child development.
