Paper abstract

This paper provides novel evidence on the causal effect of parents’ involvement at school on
pupils’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Furthermore, it shows how the impact of more
involved parents on their children is amplified at the class level by peer group interaction. We
build on a large scale controlled experiment run in a French deprived educational district,
where parents of middle-school children were invited to participate in a low-cost program of
parent-school meetings on how to get better involved in their children’s education. At the end
of the school-year, we find that treated families have increased their school- and home-based
involvement activities. In turn, pupils of treatment classes have developed more positive
behavior and attitudes in school, and received better marks from their teachers. In particular,
truancy and disciplinary sanctions are reduced by more than 20% in treatment classes. Our
results suggest that improving parents’ involvement in their children’s education can
represent a highly cost-effective input in the human capital production technology.

Sponsored by: Applied Microeconomics Recruiting Seminar

Download Seminar Materials: http://www.ewi-ssl.pitt.edu/econ/files/seminars/130118_sem_Nina%20Guyon.pdf