A decade ago, Hoover‐Dempsey and Sandler offered a model of the parental involvement process that focused on understanding why parents become involved in their children’s education and how their involvement influences student outcomes. Since then, we and others have conducted conceptual and empirical work to enhance understanding of processes examined in the model. In this article (companion to Walker and colleagues’ article about scale development on the model in this issue), we review recent work on constructs central to the model’s initial question: Why do parents become involved in children’s education? Based on this review, we offer suggestions for (1) research that may deepen understanding of parents’ motivations for involvement and (2) school and family practices that may strengthen the incidence and effectiveness of parental involvement across varied school communities.