Linguistic services and parental involvement among Latinos: A help or hindrance to involvement?

• Examine the effect linguistic services had on parental involvement among Latino parents.
• Linguistic services played only a marginal role in parental involvement among Latinos and in some instances even decreased involvement.
• Having a school official who could speak Spanish to discuss a child's performance decreased parental involvement.
• Bilingual parents were less involved in their child's school activities when able to receive a report card in Spanish.
• Only find minimal support for programs that promote the use of linguistic services to increase involvement among Latinos.

Despite being one of the most consistent predictors of achievement among youth, parental involvement among Latinos continues to be low. In an attempt to increase involvement among Latinos, schools have implemented programs that provide linguistic services for parents who face language and cultural barriers. In order to understand the effectiveness of these programs, a subset of data are used from the National Survey of Latinos: Education to examine the relationship between four linguistic services and parental involvement. Results demonstrate linguistic services play only a marginal role in parental involvement among Latinos, and in some instances, even decrease involvement. Consequently, there is minimal support for programs that provide linguistic services to Latino parents in schools, suggesting policymakers should revisit the impact these services have on the Latino parent community.