Socialization and Education

Parents play an important role in their children's education before and after they start school. Prior to the start of formal schooling, parents prepare their children for school through a combination of parenting cognitions, styles, and practices. After children start school, parents' interactions and relations with their children's schools become important. The combination of parents' cognitions, styles, and practices—collectively called socialization processes—fosters children's interest in learning and appropriation of academic skills. This entry reviews the complexity of parents' socialization processes relevant for children's educational outcomes. Although the focus in this entry is parents' socialization processes and the effects on children, there is a bidirectional relation between parents' socialization patterns and children's characteristics and behaviors. That is, children's interests and behaviors predict parents' views and practices, ...