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Education Sciences
Special Issues
The Crucial Role of Parents in Child Education
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The Crucial Role of Parents in Child Education

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 1234

Editor

Dr. Sinem Siyahhan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Education, California State University San Marcos, San Marcos, CA 92096, USA
Interests: parent-child interaction; family learning; intergenerational play around video games; informal stem teaching and learning; making; design thinking

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Journal of Education Sciences invites submissions for a forthcoming Special Issue on “The Crucial Role of Parents in Child Education”. Parents are a child’s first and most enduring educators, shaping learning trajectories long before formal schooling begins and continuing to provide guidance into adulthood. This Special Issue seeks to examine the multiple dimensions of parental involvement—ranging from home learning environments and early literacy practices to advocacy in schools and adaptation to digital learning contexts.

We welcome manuscripts that investigate how parental engagement influences children’s academic achievement, motivation, and socio-emotional development. Submissions may include empirical studies, theoretical papers, meta-analyses, or case studies. We are particularly interested in contributions that highlight equity considerations including, but not limited to, how parents from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds support their children’s education, and how systemic barriers can be addressed to foster inclusive formal and informal learning environments in the preK-12 spectrum.

Potential areas of focus include the following:

  • Parent–teacher partnerships and collaboration models;
  • The role of parents in shaping STEM, literacy, or digital learning;
  • Parenting in multilingual or multicultural contexts;
  • Policies and practices that empower families as co-educators.

Through this Special Issue, we aim to advance knowledge and provide actionable insights into how educators, researchers, and policymakers can strengthen partnerships with parents to support children’s lifelong learning, well-being, and success. 

Dr. Sinem Siyahhan
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • parents’ role in children’s learning
  • parent–child interaction
  • family learning
  • family digital learning
  • family STEM learning
  • family–school partnerships
  • parent–teacher relationships

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 1619 KB  
Article
Using a Storybook App to Promote Latino Preschoolers’ Literacy Skills: A Pilot Study
by Qianjin Guo, Luis Perez Cortes, Ana Clara Ventura, Jordan Barria-Pineda, Deniz Sonmez, Diego Chaves-Gnecco, Erin Walker and Diana Leyva
Educ. Sci. 2026, 16(8), 1190; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16081190 - 25 Jul 2026
Viewed by 161
Abstract
Parents play a central role in the development of preschoolers’ literacy skills. Prior parent-focused literacy interventions have promoted preschoolers’ literacy skills through either dialogic reading or elaborative reminiscing, but rarely have these approaches been combined. This is a pilot study of Cuéntame Cuentos [...] Read more.
Parents play a central role in the development of preschoolers’ literacy skills. Prior parent-focused literacy interventions have promoted preschoolers’ literacy skills through either dialogic reading or elaborative reminiscing, but rarely have these approaches been combined. This is a pilot study of Cuéntame Cuentos, a 6-week app-based intervention for Latino families, which included digital storybooks with embedded conversational prompts promoting dialogic reading and elaborative reminiscing. Associations between conversational prompt engagement during app use and gains in preschoolers’ literacy skills from pre- to post-intervention were examined. Participants were 40 Latino parents and their preschoolers living in the U.S. (child M age = 55.12 months; 52.5% girls). Positive quadratic associations between conversational prompt engagement and one measure of children’s story retelling skills (story memory) were observed. At moderate levels of conversational prompt engagement, the associations with gains in story memory were positive. However, at higher levels of conversational prompt engagement, the associations became negative, suggesting unproductive cognitive effort. No associations with other literacy skills were found. While preliminary, these findings underscore the importance of considering not only whether parents and children engage with app-based conversational prompts but also their level of engagement. Implications for the design of digital family literacy interventions are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Crucial Role of Parents in Child Education)
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21 pages, 307 KB  
Article
Becoming a Recognisable Parent: Parental Voice, Migrant Positioning and the Politics of Belonging in Norwegian ECEC
by Hilde Hjertager Lund
Educ. Sci. 2026, 16(7), 1103; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16071103 - 10 Jul 2026
Viewed by 547
Abstract
This article examines how differently positioned migrant parents gain unequal access to voice, trust and participation in parent–ECEC collaboration in Norway. Rather than understanding parental engagement primarily as a matter of parents’ willingness or interest, the article analyses how engagement is shaped by [...] Read more.
This article examines how differently positioned migrant parents gain unequal access to voice, trust and participation in parent–ECEC collaboration in Norway. Rather than understanding parental engagement primarily as a matter of parents’ willingness or interest, the article analyses how engagement is shaped by institutional expectations and by the forms of communication, trust and participation that ECEC staff recognise as legitimate. This article draws on selected material from a broader qualitative project, including interviews with refugee parents, professional interviews and focus groups with ECEC professionals, and fieldwork in four ECECs. It also includes a newly analysed interview with an American migrant father, used as a contrast to the refugee-parent material. The analysis is conducted as a theoretically informed, abductive and reflexive thematic analysis through the lens of the politics of belonging. The findings identify four forms of positioning: guarded belonging, confident belonging, normative belonging and bounded participation. The analysis shows that migrant parents are not positioned as one group. Rather, their possibilities of being recognised as legitimate co-educators are shaped by language, institutional familiarity, trust, cultural recognisability and staff expectations of “the good parent”. The article contributes to parental engagement research by showing that equitable parent–ECEC partnerships require more than formal opportunities for involvement. They require institutional conditions in which different parental voices are heard as sources of legitimate knowledge about children’s education, care, and belonging. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Crucial Role of Parents in Child Education)
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