title: Classroom Race/Ethnic Composition, Family-School Connections, and the Transition to School.
abstract: Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (N= 13,970), we examined whether two aspects of school-family connections-parental involvement and communication quality-accounted for the association between classroom composition and children's academic and socioemotional functioning following the transition to elementary school. For students with more same-race/ethnic representation in their classrooms, greater classroom race/ethnic diversity promoted more parental involvement, which in turn promoted children's interpersonal skills and reading achievement. Classroom diversity made little difference on parental involvement when students had fewer same-race/ethnic peers in the classroom. Teacher-parent communication quality did not emerge as an explanatory mechanism, and findings did not vary by the race/ethnic match between students and their teachers.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
authors.forename: Aprile D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Benner
authors.affiliation: Southwest University Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Ni
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yan
keywords: achievement; classroom race/ethnic diversity; parental involvement; school transitions; socioemotional well-being