Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

Background of the Study In any given classroom and school activity of relatively extended duration and complexity, students’ engagement is never homogeneously high and productive, but rather it fluctuates depending on a number of factors (Mcwayne et al., 2012; Mattingly et al., 2013) such as parental involvement (Ho & Williams, 2008; McNeal, 2009; Jose et al., 2010;). Students engage better in school when parents play a positive role in their learning process (Jackson, 2010; 2011; Green et al., 2012). Students are more likely to make a personal commitment to engage in rigorous learning when they know parents care about how well they do (Kilgore, Snyder & Lentz, 2008; Keyes, 2010). However, despite the crucial role of parents, studies in relation to their involvement remain scarce.
Students’ low engagement with academic activities is considered the main reason for dissatisfaction (Kuh, 2009), negative experience, and dropping out of school (Linnenbrink&Pintrich, 2009; Jimmerson, Campos & Greif, 2010). One of the contributory factors is the level of parents’ positive interference to the academic journey of the school (Brookmeyer, Fanti&Henrich, 2008). More significantly, most findings show positive relationship between parental involvement and students’ engagement in school and in the classroom (Dauber & Epstein, 2008; Gorard, Rees &Fevre, 2009;Cotton, 2011;Fantuzzo et al., 2012). Nevertheless, the understanding of parental involvement is largely limited to U.S. and Western studies.
In the Philippines, poor student engagement and inclination to take prohibited drugsand other delinquent behaviors are attributed to parents who have no enough time for their children’s academic difficulties (Catsambit, 2009; Castro et al., 2012). Teachers and other education stakeholders would like to see parents