School closures during the expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic on education have impacted 94% of the world’s student population (United Nations, 2020a). As a response to this scenario, 90% of the ministries of education have implemented some form of remote learning approaches, including radio, television, or the internet (UNICEF, 2021).

Research about the pandemic effects on children and adolescents is still emergent. Recent literature reviews have alerted about the impact of lockdown measures -and notably schools’ closures-on children’s well-being. Indeed, consistent evidence has shown not negligible effects on a range of emotional, behavioral, and restlessness/inattention problems, as well as a decrease in life satisfaction, which are expected to disproportionally affect disadvantaged students (Bathia, 2020; Rajmil et al., 2021; Viner et al., 2021). For example, evidence for children and adolescents aged 3–18 years in Italy and Spain states that 85,7% of parents perceived changes in their children’s emotional status and behavior, including symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, boredom, irritability, feelings of loneliness, uneasiness, and worries (Bathia, 2020). Moreover, data from Oslo (Norway) has identified a significant decline in life satisfaction among boys and girls during the restriction period (Bathia, 2020), and in Canada more than half of the children 9–15 years surveyed presented changes that contribute to a lower level of subjective well-being (Mitra et al., 2021).

Several studies have pointed out that the experience of home learning is an essential factor influencing their subjective well-being. In this area, research has posited that the quantity and difficulty of school homework is a predictor of well-being, i.e., when the school work load is high and/or difficult it has been related with a decrease in subjective well-being during the pandemic (Engel de abreu et al., 2021). Moreover, research has highlighted the association between academic activities and socioemotional problems, showing that learning activities are negatively associated with behavioral problems (e.g., emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, and peer relationship problems) (Tso et al., 2020). In addition, a recent study shows that students with better learning experiences at home report lower emotional reactions (e.g., “felt sad,” “felt angry,” “felt lonely”) and low somatic/cognitive responses (e.g., “had trouble concentrating,” “had headaches”) (Larsen et al., 2021). Considering these findings, international reports have called to enhance parental support of children’s homeschool experiences to protect their subjective well-being, while advancing on research about families’ involvement in learning at home (e.g., Engel de Abreu et al., 2021; O'Connor et al., 2020; OECD, 2020).

Different national studies developed in the context of the global pandemic have provided evidence about parents’ responses to school closures (Zancajo, 2020). In general, the results show the critical role of parents’ SES in supporting their children learning at home. In this sense, all the papers have shown how socioeconomic differences—measured as occupational status, educational level, or family income—are relevant factor predicting the quality of home support for schooling to face the COVID-19 pandemic in countries as diverse as Spain (Bonal and González, 2020), Chile (Treviño et al., 2021), England (Andrew et al., 2020; Bayrakdar and Guveli, 2020) and Netherlands (Bol, 2020). Most of these studies have been developed in middle and/or high-income countries through online surveys. In this way, while previous literature has provided initial evidence on the relationship between COVID-19, parental support, and subjective well-being, studies have not yet examined global patterns in a wider range of countries, including OECD and non-OECD members. Therefore, expanding research to a cross-national sample of countries opens the opportunity to study global trends in this area in diverse geographical, socioeconomic and cultural settings.

Based on these emergent results and adopting a supranational perspective, this article explores the parental practices of home-learning during school closures period in 19 countries and its explanatory factors through regression models, with the aim of discussing its implications for the subjective well-being of children and adolescents. The study uses the International COVID-19 Impact on Parental Engagement Study (ICIPES) database (Osorio-Saez EM. et al., 2021), which includes data from countries as diverse as Chile, United States, Ghana, China, Japan or Pakistan.

The article is divided into four sections. The first part presents the research framework of the study, in which we delve into the concept of parental involvement and its explanatory factors, as well as its relationship with children’s well-being. The second section describes the research method, including the data, variables and analytical strategy used. The third part presents the main findings. The paper ends with the core conclusions and a set of policy and research implications.

The expansion of the covid-19 pandemic can be defined as a global socio-natural disaster. It is socio-natural because, in contrast to the epidemiological views of the pandemic, COVID-19 can be understood as a both natural and social phenomenon, dissolving the modernist dichotomy that divided humans from nature (Rogers et al., 2013). It is a disaster, since it has interrupted routines and has caused the collapse and/or stress of several social organizations and institutions (Lavell et al., 2020). Finally, it is global, not only because of the scale of the problem, but also because of the transnational and relational nature of its consequences (Castells, 2006).

This conceptualization of COVID-19 as a global socio-natural disaster reinforces the idea that all systems and organizations in the world have been challenged by the pandemic. In education, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a global transformation rarely seen since the World War II. COVID-19 has forced schools to transform the learning process and to promote distance or online teaching. Additionally, students’ daily interactions with their peers have been interrupted, generating a decrease in the opportunities of peer-to-peer socialization of children and adolescents. Finally, homes adapted to the new education dynamics, with parents assuming a more active role in the school teaching process while, in many cases, working from home. In this context, parental involvement in the educational process has emerged as one of the central topics of research due to school closures during the pandemic (Bonal and González, 2020).

Parental involvement is as the participation of parents in the educational process and experience of their children (Wilder, 2013). More precisely, parental involvement refers to the “proactive engagement of parents in various activities and behaviors that aim to promote learning and development of their children” (Ma et al., 2016: 773). Different studies have demonstrated the benefit of parental involvement on student achievement (e.g., Ma et al., 2016), social-emotional skills (Van Voorhis et al., 2013), well-being, and mental health (Hornby and Blackwell, 2018). Considering the vastness of the concept (Goodall, 2013), researchers have operationalized the term as a continuum between involvement in/with school, involvement in schooling, and involvement with learning of children and adolescents (Goodall and Montgomery, 2014). There are also diverse types of involvement such as parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making and collaborating with the community (Epstein, 2011), which can be either overt or implicit practices (Tan et al., 2020). Parental involvement can be analyzed according to spheres of involvement in which a difference has been introduced between practices at school and at home (Hornby and Blackwell, 2018). Focusing on the home sphere, the literature distinguishes formal and informal educational practices. Formal educational practices directly aim at supporting schooling—such as teaching or practicing their numeracy or literacy skills—while informal educational practices, indirectly or spontaneously, expose students to opportunities to learn, for example through cooking or playing games (Skwarchuk et al., 2014).

Research has positioned parental involvement as a critical condition to support student learning and well-being. Simultaneously, the evidence shows the weight of the SES in the capacity of parents to provide support for schooling, due to inequalities in the distribution of economic, social and cultural capitals among families (Harris and Goodall, 2008; Lareau, 2000, 2011; Tan et al., 2020). For example, a recent metanalysis found that parental education is related to the capacity to provide support, showing that parents with higher education can offer more home support to their children (Tan et al., 2020). Adopting a broader perspective, Horbny and Lafaele (2011) have raised attention to four types of factors of parental involvement for all SES groups: a) individual parent and family factors (e.g., parental beliefs and perceptions on involvement, current life contexts, class, ethnicity, and gender); b) child factors (e.g., age, learning difficulties, disabilities or talents, and behavioral problems); c) school factors (e.g., differing goals and agendas, attitudes, language used); and, d) societal factors (e.g., historical and demographic, political, economic) (Horbny and Lafaele, 2011). Consequently, parental involvement seems to be the product of particular social, economic, and cultural conditions, in which the SES is a relevant factor, but not the only explanatory variable. In terms of the specific role of SES on parental involvement, research has outlined that low-SES families face barriers in terms of economic hardships, time-consuming work, lower pedagogical competencies, and scarce interactions with schools and teachers (e.g., Lareau, 2000; Horby and Lafaele, 2011; Wang et al., 2016).

Different national studies have investigated families’ responses to school closures, highlighting the critical role of parental SES on homeschooling practices (Zancajo, 2020). In this line, available evidence, proceeding primarily from OECD’s countries -such as England, Spain, or the Netherlands-has shown inequalities in the number of hours dedicated to learning at home and the type of activities in relation to family income (Andrew et al., 2020). The literature has also found variations on involvement with more educated families providing both higher quality and more intense support (Bol, 2020; Bayrakdar and Guveli, 2020). Also, higher SES parents are more confident on their abilities to satisfy their children’s learning needs (Bonal and Gonzalez, 2020; Bol, 2021). Finally, higher SES families tend to engage to a greater extent in informal homeschooling practices aligned to school logic as well as in extra-curricular activities (Bonal and Gonzalez 2020; Treviño et al., 2021).

Other family factors, along with SES, are also related to parental involvement. One study points out that single parents tend to spend significantly less time on schoolwork at home in comparison to bi-parental households during COVID-19 school closures (Bayrakdar and Guveli, 2020). This suggests that household composition (Myers and Myers, 2015) may be related to the burden that single parents may have faced during this period (Bayrakdar and Guveli, 2020). Complementarily, recent studies have discussed the trend of more significant support in primary school for boys and more intensive support for girls in secondary education (Bol, 2020). Finally, initial evidence shows that online learning is a factor that moderates the role of parents’ SES in homeschooling (Bayrakdar et al., 2020).

The intensity of school activities during the pandemic also may affect well-being in the households. As the teaching processes moved from classrooms to the households, parents or adults in charge do not necessarily have the skills or time to support intense school activities and homework (Ponce et al., 2021). Therefore, during the pandemic, the level of pressure on parents to teach their children at home (Fontenelle-Tereshchuk,2021; Parczewska, 2020) may create tension in the relationship and negatively affect subjective well-being of children and adolescents.

Recent evidence shows a positive association of parental engagement with facilitating conditions (e.g., the existence of tools and technological platforms provided or suggested by schools), as well as social influence (e.g., parents exposition and exchanges with other parents, teachers, children, etc). Finally, there is a negative relationship of parental engagement with the knowledge or performance when using technological devices (Osorio-Saez E. et al., 2021).

Summarizing, the literature shows that formal and informal parental involvement practices in home-learning are linked to children’s subjective well-being. This study explores home-learning parental practices during school closures due to COVID-19 in 19 countries and the factors that explain such practices. Consistently with available research, the study examines how formal and informal educational practices at home are related to family factors (e.g., SES, confidence using technology), children’s factors (e.g., age, gender), and school requirements for families when supporting home-learning.

The dimensions of parental involvement (formal and informal educational practices) by country show similar variations (Table 3). For such a reason, we decided to perform the analysis in 19 out of the 24 countries included in the ICIPES survey (Osorio-Saez EM. et al., 2021).

This paper explores the main predictors of formal and informal parental practices at home in the context of the evidence showing a relationship between such practices and children’s academic subjective well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak (e.g., Teso et al., 2020; Engel de Abreu et al., 2021; Larsen et al., 2021). Using an international database of 19 countries we analyzed the relationship between household SES and the type of parental practices. This section discusses our findings in light of previous literature and highlights our results’ potentialities, limitations, and implications.

The main result of the article shows—without ignoring the limitations specified below—that SES is a significant predictor of parental involvement in formal and informal activities during the pandemic expansion. Although research has extensively discussed SES association with parental educational practices (e.g., Harris and Goodall, 2008; Lareau, 2000), the Covid outbreak and school closures introduce a new scenario in which inequalities in this respect are reproduced. While national studies in some middle and high-income countries have provided evidence of the critical role of family SES in the pandemic (Bonal and Gonzlez, 2020; Andrew et al., 2020; Bol, 2020), our findings shed light on common global patterns of parental involvement gaps by SES by using a large data of different 19 nations and controlling by country effects. The consistent and statistically significant gaps identified in formal and informal practices indicate a worldwide trend, which negatively affects disadvantaged children cross-nationally and may have a considerable impact on their academic achievement and subjective well-being. The socioeconomic inequalities in parental involvement uncovered might be rooted in the unique difficulties faced by low-SES parents due to the barriers they face in their material resources, economic hardships, and the time and energy constraints of their workload, as well as their relative lack of educational/pedagogical competencies and self-efficacy for helping their children in transferring learning activities from schools to their homes (e.g., Lareau, 2000; Horby and Lafaele, 2011; Wang et al., 2016).

Our results indicate that other factors, different from SES, are related to parental involvement. On the one hand, regarding family factors, our findings highlight the role of the household composition in parental engagement in home learning during the COVID-19 crisis. This finding is aligned with studies underlining the role of family structure in involvement both before the pandemic (Myers and Myers, 2015) and during its period (Bayrakdar and Guveli, 2020). In addition, parental confidence in technology is identified as a significant predictor of involvement in education, suggesting the crucial relationship of the ICT competencies of families in their participation in the schooling processes of their children in the period. This result is consistent with former evidence that has shown in some countries differences between parents already familiar vs unfamiliar with technology in learning at home (Bhamani et al., 2020) and the struggles faced by low-SES parents due to the lack of digital tools to support their children (Pozas et al., 2021). On the other hand, the age and gender of students (in the case of informal activities) are variables associated with families’ engagement in home learning during the COVID-19 crisis, with involvement in formal activities decreasing as child age increases, and involvement being higher for boys in informal practices. The finding in terms of child age is consistent with former literature that has shown a decline in support and changes in parental strategies between elementary and middle/high school as students become more autonomous (Bhargava and Witherspoon, 2015; Wang and Sheikh-Khalil, 2014).

This paper has several limitations due to the fact that the study prioritized collecting data during school closures. First, similarly to other studies that took place during the COVID-19 outbreak (e.g., Engel de Abreu et al., 2021), the use of a non-probabilistic sample limits the generalizations of the findings, despite their consistency with previous studies. Second, the use of internet and institutional social media may have caused a bias towards higher SES families having access to internet, underrepresenting families without this service (e.g., Engel de Abreu et al., 2021). Third, sample data shows that more than half of the sample of parents hold a higher education degree, a situation that suggests an upward bias in terms of SES. Fourth, this upward SES bias led us to recode formal parental practices to create dichotomous variables, instead of creating the index with all the Likert scale. This may reduce the true variance of practices and, also, reduces the variability of the practices’ indexes. Fifth, although our models explain a limited proportion of the variance in formal and informal practices, the findings are consistent with previous studies. Sixth, parental involvement in formal educational practices presents low internal consistency, a result explained by upward bias of responses of families in the three practices that compose this indicator. This is also related to the bias towards higher SES families in the sample. Finally, the analysis for all countries (e.g., the sample size per country makes a comparative study difficult) limits the generalizability of the results, as the variables differ from country to country. The study results should be interpreted with these caveats in mind.

Without disregarding these limitations, our results introduce diverse policy implications aimed at supporting parents (especially those of lower SES) on their involvement in home learning in order to contribute to their children’s academic achievement and subjective well-being. On the one hand, echoing international policy reports, our findings posit the urgency of generating strategies that assist parents in contributing to their children’s educational experiences (e.g., OECD, 2020). Multiple alternatives have been proposed in this area, such as quality tutorials, teaching sessions, pedagogical material, child-oriented books, and enhancing school-family communication. On the other hand, our results point out the priority of investing in reversing the technological inequalities at home and improving families’ digital competencies to promote their confidence using ICT. Finally, the role of child age and gender on parental involvement claims for tailored strategies that support parents through the children’s different stages of development and combat the incipient gender gaps visualized.