Parental involvement is a key ingredient in school policy and various parental involvement programs aim at raising children’s school success. Adding to existing meta-analyses summarizing the findings on the effectiveness of parental involvement programs, we included academic and nonacademic outcomes, and analyzed the correspondence between changes in parents’ involvement and changes in children’s outcomes. We synthesized findings regarding the effectiveness of parental involvement interventions for children’s academic and nonacademic outcomes from preschool to third grade. A total of 307 effect sizes were obtained from 39 studies included in the meta-analysis. Using a random-effect approach, the average effect suggested that parental involvement interventions had a positive and moderate effect on children’s overall performance, as well as on academic and nonacademic outcomes when considered separately. School-based and home-based interventions were not significantly associated with the overall effect. Further characteristics of the intervention were analyzed as moderators. The effects of the intervention on parental involvement itself were significantly associated with the effect size differences on children’s outcomes. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Parental involvement in children’s education is critical for children’s school success (Hill & Taylor, 2004). Even before children start school, parents play an important role in supporting them to develop the skills necessary to succeed in school and reduce school readiness gaps (Ma et al., 2016). Parental involvement is often referred to as parents’ “investment” in children’s schooling. This investment may involve dedicating resources such as time, money, and energy to the child (e.g., Barger et al., 2019; Boonk et al., 2018; Pomerantz et al., 2007).

For the past 2 decades, the positive influence of parental involvement on elementary, middle, and secondary school children’s academic performance,...