UC Santa Barbara

Latinx students and their families represent a large and growing population within the U.S. education system and experience significant opportunity gaps, inequities, and barriers in pursuit of academic achievement. Parent engagement (PE) is an important mechanism to increase academic outcomes and close opportunity gaps. However, efforts to accurately measure and understand Latinx PE are inhibited by existing PE measures that are based upon euro-centric middle-class frameworks of PE that do not consider the culturally situated PE behaviors or barriers to engagement unique to Latinx parents. Deficits in PE measurement also exist for the general white population that include a lack of comprehensive and salient domains of PE that are multidimensional and contain behavioral indicators of PE that are important to PE outcomes. The present study contributes to the PE literature for elementary-aged students by developing and validating a culturally sensitive PE questionnaire (CSPEQ) to improve PE measurement in two ways 1) creating a culturally informed PE measure for Latinx families and 2) creating a comprehensive PE measure that captures multi-dimensional PE domains with salient PE behavioral indicators that could also be potentially used for White families. Factor analyses were conducted to assess whether the CSPEQ’s factor structure is consistent with the theorized PE dimensions for both Latinx and White parent groups. An additional objective included the examination of the instrument’s psychometric properties through invariance testing to discern if the constructs of the CSPEQ are being measured in the same way across Latinx and White parents of elementary-aged children. The separate group CFA results indicated that the theoretical PE models may be different for Latinx and White parents, including differences across Latinx and White parent model fit, areas of localized strain, and parent endorsement of item response categories. Overall, the results of the CFA indicated that the theorized model does not support the Latinx parent data after failed efforts to improve model fit for the Latinx group CFA. Research objectives to further conduct multiple groups invariance testing were abandoned to prioritize the exploration and identification of a theoretically interpretable factor structure for Latinx parents through EFA analyses. The results of the EFA produced a reliable and theoretically supported 4-factor PE measure consisting of 35 items that reflect culturally embedded PE behaviors for Latinx parents across home and school settings. These PE domains include Bien Educado, School Engagement, Academic Supports, and Academic Socialization. Key findings of the EFA demonstrate that PE is a multidimensional construct that can consist of culturally informed Latinx PE behaviors and PE behaviors that are salient indicators of positive student outcomes. The CSPEQ affirmed the culturally centered PE behaviors of Latinx parents supported by the research literature and illuminated how those PE behaviors are related to various dimensions of PE across home and school. Taken together, the development and validation of the CSPEQ provide significant steps to conceptualizing and measuring PE for Latinx families in culturally responsive ways that can more accurately capture Latinx PE.