Journal Article

How Parental Homework Stress Affects the Effectiveness of Parental Homework Involvement in China: A Family Stress Approach

Gao, Qin, Zhang, Zenan, Bian, Ran, Xie, Wenhui

2025

Overview

Assisting children with homework can be a major stressor in Chinese parents’ lives. Drawing upon the Family Stress Model (FSM), our study examines the indirect effects of parental homework stress on children’s academic functioning, as well as the moderating effect of family socioeconomic status (SES). A pilot study is first conducted to develop and test a parental homework involvement style scale to capture the characteristics of supportive and controlling parental homework involvement in Chinese culture. In the main study, a total of 291 parent-child dyads participated in our survey. The results showed that parental homework stress is linked to negative aspects of children’s academic functioning through the chain mediation of lower levels of coparental support and supportive homework involvement. Multiple group path analysis revealed that, however, in low-income families, parental homework stress undermines children’s academic functioning through both reduced supportive involvement and increased controlling involvement, whereas in high-income families, this impact is channeled solely by the chain mediation of decreased coparental support and supportive involvement. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the parental homework stress process by applying the FSM to the homework context for the first time. It also adds to the homework involvement literature in exploring the potential antecedents of homework involvement styles. Highlights Parental homework stress is linked to negative aspects of children’s academic functioning through the chain mediation of decreased coparental support and supportive homework involvement. Parental homework stress undermines children’s academic functioning through both reduced supportive involvement and increased controlling involvement in low-income families. Parental homework undermines children’s academic functioning solely through the chain mediation of decreased coparental support and supportive involvement in high-income families.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Behavioral Science and Psychology / Child and School Psychology / Children / Families & family life / Family (Sociological Unit) / Family relations / Homework / Indirect effects / Low income groups / Mediation / Original Paper / Parent Participation / Parent-child relations / Parents & parenting / Participation / Path analysis / Pilot projects / Psychology / Social Sciences / Socioeconomic status / Sociology / Stress