Structural and Relational Parental Practices Among Latino Immigrant Families: Predicting Youth School Engagement and Parent Self-Efficacy to Navigate the School

Latino immigrant families face numerous barriers to school involvement, yet little is known about how their involvement—despite these barriers—relates to youth and parent outcomes. Guided by a family–school partnership framework that emphasizes integrating structural and relational elements to enhance family–school collaboration, we used multiple regression to examine whether four structural practices (e.g., tutoring homework, checking homework, home structure, and school familiarity) and four relational practices (e.g., proactive school engagement, school belonging, school endorsement, and parent–teacher relationship) were associated with youth academic outcomes and parent self-efficacy to navigate the youth’s school. Data came from 94 Latino immigrant parent–youth dyads. Most parents were born in Mexico, whereas most youth were born in the United States. Structural practices were generally unrelated to youth outcomes, except for checking homework, which predicted higher youth school engagement. In contrast, relational practices, particularly school belonging and school endorsement, were positively associated with parent self-efficacy. The parent–teacher relationship was negatively associated with youth school engagement. These findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between structural and relational forms of parental engagement and highlight the value of practices that foster parents’ emotional connection to their youth’s school.