BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.14, No.2, 2023 1778 

 

 

 

 

Effects of Home-school Partnerships on the Academic 

Performance of Urban and Rural Junior Secondary 

School Students 

By Li, J. & Hu, Y. 
Correspondence to: Yongmei Hu, Beijing Normal University, China. E-mail: 

huym0718@bnu.edu.cn 

HE analyses of factors in the disparity between urban and rural compul-

sory education are beneficial for developing a more balanced and high-

quality education, improving social mobility of rural youngsters, and halting 

intergenerational transmission of poverty among rural families. It is well 

acknowledged that family capital is the most significant contributing factor 

in the academic performance gap between urban and rural students, out-

weighing school resources, particularly the quality of teachers. This study is 

a discourse on the two forms of home-school partnership, namely, the fami-

ly-school communication and parental voluntary participation in school ac-

tivities as well as their effects on the academic achievements of urban and ru-

ral middle school students. It was based on large-scale survey data and 

adopted the hierarchical linear model and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition 

method in the analysis. 

The research findings indicate that: (i) parents of urban middle school 

students experience higher levels of family-school communication and vol-

untary involvement in school activities than their rural counterparts; (ii) 

family-school communication poses substantially positive effects on school 

results of urban junior secondary school students, but has no impact on those 

of rural middle school students; (iii) there is an inverted U shape relation be-

tween the frequency of parental participation in school activities and student 

academic results, with the optimal frequency being higher for urban parents 

than for their rural counterparts; (iv) the family-school communication is a 

significant factor in the academic achievement disparity between urban and 

rural middle school students, whereas it has not been remarkably affected by 

parental voluntary participation in school activities. 

Based on the research results, the study recommends that the amount 

of parental participation in school activities be reasonably controlled with fo-

cus on its quality rather than formality. Meanwhile, help parents of rural 

middle school students to improve the effectiveness of their communication 

with schools. Rural parents’ rights to involvement in child school education 

should be respected and recognized. In addition, it is necessary to provide ru-

T 

mailto:huym0718@bnu.edu.cn


 

Vol.14, No.2, 2023 1779 

ral teachers with specialized training on home-school partnership to enhance 

their awareness of family-school co-education and skills in communicating 

with parents of their students. 

 

Source: Journal of Educational Science of Hunan Normal University, 2023; 

22(1):111-122.