ABSTRACT
The role of family and parents is recognized as important in the development of giftedness and gifted children (Olszewski-Kubilius, 2008). Chinese students perceive parental expectations displayed through their involvement and the family cohesion as vital parental functions in enhancing their excellence (Chan, 2005). This indicates that parental influence in children’s excellence is crucial for their development, socially and educationally. This chapter explores how parental involvement in children’s lives can be interpreted using the actiotope model of giftedness to understand its broad implications to high-achieving East-Asian students. To complete this examination, this chapter begins with a theoretical review of the actiotope model and how its components of action repertoire and subjective action space can be viewed in relation to parental involvement and children’s achievements. This is followed by a literature review of parental involvement and its contribution to children’s education and achievements. Using a methodology of synthesis of eight meta-analyses, we put forward an empirical discussion of how parental involvement serves as the environmental stimulus to children’s action spaces and helps them toward their goals.
