International Journal about Parents in Education
International Journal about Parents in Education (IJPE) is the official journal of European Research Network about parents in Education (ERNAPE). The publications of IJPE contain peer-reviewed articles on several topics within the general field of “Parents in Education”.
Latina Mothers as Rightful Learners at Home, in Schools, and Their Communities.
This study examined how a partnership between elementary teachers and the parents of their students (in this case, mothers) created a space where the teachers and mothers could learn about each other’s mathematical strategies as they related to the mothers’ funds of knowledge and the teachers’ school based strategies. Using the lens of the Rights of the Learner, we report on how the mothers’ experiences of working with the teachers valued the mothers’ right to speak, listen, and be heard, the right to do, and represent only what makes sense to them, and the right to feel safe and have their ideas respected. This qualitative study describes the findings of the mothers’ reflections across the two-year collaboration. Our work illustrates the importance of creating spaces for parents/caregivers to engage in mathematics collaborations with teachers that are grounded in the Rights of the Learner.
home-school mathematics partnership, Latinx mothers, asset based orientation, qualitative research
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr. Kathleen Stoehr, Dr. Traci Elmore, Dr. Marta Civil https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Defining Engagement: A Study of Parent-Educator Perspectives
Developing professional, reciprocal relationships between parents and educators that leads to meaningful parental engagement in schools is challenging and often the result of differing definitions of engagement and associated activities. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to investigate parent and educator definitions of parental engagement. It was further to investigate educators’ expectations for parental engagement, and whether parental engagement activities match those expectations. Parents and educators of school age children were surveyed to investigate their proposed definitions of parental engagement and associated activities. Surveys were delivered electronically to parents and educators residing and working in local schools and early care programs. An analysis of results points at similarities and differences in proposed definitions and associated engagement activities. Educator implications and characteristics important to developing parent-educator partnerships aimed at enhancing parental engagement in schools is further discussed.
Copyright (c) 2025 Stephanie Baker, Natalie Andzik https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Helpless” or “feckless”: Perspectives of higher vocational college students on their working-class parents’ education involvement style
The education involvement of parents plays an important role in the student’s learning and development. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, this study explores Chinese higher vocational college students’ perspectives of their working-class parents’ education involvement. A qualitative research approach was adopted and eight students from two higher vocational colleges in mainland China were interviewed. The findings of this study indicate that laissez-faire, reliance on others, and in-person styles are the three main styles that Chinese working-class parents are involved in the education of their children. Furthermore, it was found that working-class parents’ educational involvement is mainly related to the higher vocational college students’ academic learning, academic choices, interest and hobby cultivation, and cultural leisure activities. This study contributes to the use of cultural capital theory to understand working-class parents’ education involvement styles in Chinese contexts. This study provides new insights to reconsider the influence of parental education at different levels among Chinese parents in their child’ s development. It also offers an insight into the perceptions of higher vocational college students, which could prove invaluable in enhancing their higher education learning outcomes, fostering school-family collaboration, improving educational quality in vocational schools, and mitigating educational disparities between general universities and higher vocational education in China.
Copyright (c) 2025 Junjun Huang, xiaojing Liu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Perceived Parental Autonomy Support, Psychological Control, and Grit among High Schoolers in Pakistan
Parent-adolescent relationships facilitate or debilitate the development of interests and perseverance to achieve long-term goals. This question is addressed by examining the role of perceived maternal and paternal autonomy support and psychological control in grit development among high schoolers. Two factors of grit i.e., perseverance of effort and consistency of interest are separately measured. Participants were 300 high school students in grades 9-12, aged 15-19 years. Data were collected on self-report measures of the Perceived Parental Autonomy Scale and Grit-Original Scale. Findings show that perseverance of effort and consistency of interest have a positive relationship with parental autonomy support and a negative relationship with psychological control. Autonomy support was a positive predictor while psychological control was a negative predictor of grit. Adolescents had a homogenous perception of maternal and paternal behaviors. The findings offer practical guidelines to parents to adopt autonomy-support behaviors for grit development among adolescents.
Copyright (c) 2025 Najia Zulfiqar, Hifza Akram; Kifayat Khan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Type 1 Diabetes & Schools: Parents Experiences
The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences, and meaning ascribed to those experiences, of parents of children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in U.S. school settings. Twenty-nine parents (19 mothers and 10 fathers) participated, and four sources of data were collected for this interpretivist, phenomenological study; a demographic questionnaire, written prompt, semi-structured focus group interviews, and reflective interview notes. Three themes were constructed: (a) I’m fighting for my child, (b) nurses are central to experiences, and (c) physical education problems. The findings highlighted parents’ frustrations with resistant schools and the need to be advocates for their child’s needs while also emphasizing the importance of an available, and T1D-competent, nursing staff in reducing fear and anxiety associated with in-school care. Uniquely, parents discussed contextual experiences and how experiences changed throughout the day with particular emphasis on the problematic and negative experiences associated with physical education.
Copyright (c) 2025 Justin A. Haegele, Steven K. Holland, Eddie Hill, Ron Ramsing https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Mothers as educators: the empowerment of rural Muslim women in Israel and their role in advancing the literacy development of their children
In 2003-2005, the authors implemented Success for All (SFA)-ALASH, an innovative pedagogical program to facilitate students' advancement in literacy, and School Family Partnership program (SFP) among first and second graders in two neighboring, rural, and low-SES Arab villages. The teachers implemented SFA-ALASH, combining bi-weekly workshops for the mothers to enhance their role as facilitators of literacy at home, according to Epstein's six-folded model (1995, 2001, 2006). Mothers' perceptions in creating a home environment which inspires their children to become successful learners in the school were evaluated using: 1. Participant observations of SFP activities 2. Semi-structured interviews with 47 SFP mothers. The teacher's evaluation of each child's academic performance in reading, writing and math as well as the mothers' familiarity and her participation in the programs. Findings indicate that the SFA-ALASH programs elevated the student's achievements. The teachers' evaluations of their students' academic achievements correspond with the mothers' involvement in the SFP and their active academic and social interactions with their children at home. The paper will discuss the cultural and social empowerment and transformations of the rural lower SES Muslim women via school partnership.
Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Strengthening home-school links through family literacy programmes: a comparative European case study
Family literacy programmes have become increasingly popular, particularly in England since the implementation of the Skills for Life (SfL) agenda (DfEE, 2001). Programmes are perceived by policy makers as a means of addressing low levels of literacy and numeracy in families who are viewed as underachieving, economically and socially, (Atkin, Rose and Shier, 2005). They can also be used to develop links between the home and school fields, (Bourdieu, 1977) and to re-engage adults who have a habitus (Bourdieu, 1993) of none-involvement with formal learning. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of habitus and field this paper looks at family literacy programmes in England, Ireland and Malta and the role, if any, of such programmes in strengthening links between the home and school. Based on the findings of a European comparative doctoral study, research found that the fundamental difference between the three case study areas was the absence of children participating in family literacy programmes in Ireland compared to England and Malta largely due to the fact that in Ireland programmes did not involve schools. This paper explores reasons why programmes in Ireland are not delivered in conjunction with schools and the impact collaboration has on home and school relationships.
Learning communities: schools, parents and challenges for wider community involvement in schools
This presentation will focus, for the most part, on a project of parental involvement in a state primary school located in a predominantly working-class area in a Mediterranean country. It will draw briefly on qualitative empirical work carried out with a colleague (Carmel Borg). The presentation gives an account of the socio-economic context of the school, and foregrounds, through empirical data culled from transcribed semi-structured interviews, the voices of parents, administrators, school-council members and teachers. It will be argued that, if this project is to develop into a genuine exercise in democratic participation, parents must begin to be conceived of not as “adjuncts”, but “subjects”. The parents interviewed in this empirical work see themselves as such, and derive confidence from the fact that, at the time of the interview, their claims and recommendations were translating into concrete developments. The second part of the presentation will discuss the issue of parental involvement in schools within the context of a wider discussion on ‘changing the face of the school’ by helping it develop into a community learning centre. Insights from the work of Paulo Freire and his Education Secretariat, when he served as Education Secretary in the Municipal Government of São Paulo, Brazil, and from SMED in Porto Alegre, Brazil, will be drawn upon.
Emotional space. Home vs institutionalised space. Kindergarten, as a meaningful place for six-year-old children
Why home and kindergarten, these meaningful places, are such different worlds? Why are there different meanings attached to meaningful places? And why do two places have absolutely different meaning to a six-year old child? What does the social process in the places look like, and how is this influences by ‘meaningful others’? These questions are the core of me paper. Such different spaces also: people such as ‘meaningful others’, child, his/her parents and peers make a child become a part of a society. And the way in which the space influences the child, depends on his/her socialisation process. Through the semiotic analysis of children’s drawings I am going to show how the emotional level connects with places and people, that I selected. I am going to characterise these places, that is: home and kindergarten, but also I am going to show that these places are not empty. They are full of people, who are more or less meaningful to the child.
Childhood in a rom/gypsy camp in southern-Italy:an anthropological perspective
The object of the study is the Rom/gypsy/ camp in Palermo, Sicily, in the south of Italy, where three groups of so-called “gypsies” or “travellers” live together; they originally came from the Balkans and have been settled in this zone for twenty years. Out of a population of about 300 individuals, as many as 55 children go to 7 different schools. The study is carried out using the anthropological method of participant observation. The aim of the research, which is still going on, is to monitor the progress of their schooling and to study their parents’ roles; particular attention is given to the fundamental interplay of relationships and socio-educational intervention in the capable hands of volunteers and the public administration. In fact, the latter have represented and continue to represent a solid support network during this process of encouraging the Rom/gypsy families to send their children to school. This support is needed right from the initial accompanying phase, and especially during the delicate support phase, from the moment the children pass from the Rom/gypsy world to the non-Rom/gypsy world of the “others”, the gagé.
Perspectives on parents’ contribution to their children’s early literacy development in multicultural western societies
In this paper a review is provided of literature on early literacy programs with an emphasis on the role of parents in supporting their child’s early literacy development. Many early literacy programs emphasize the role of parents in supporting their child’s early literacy development. Suggested parent involvement activities in these programs mainly focus on reading activities (e.g. reading to children, shared reading), which are said to be very effective in promoting children’s literacy skills. Perspectives on parents’ role in supporting early literacy development, however, may vary across programs. Early literacy programs focus on parents’ supporting roles with varying levels of culture responsiveness. As current academic debates on early literacy development shift towards increased responsiveness towards minority cultures and try to link early literacy practices to strengths of existing cultural defined family practices, the current socio-political climate in western multicultural societies seems to call for less responsive practices, because culture responsiveness might endanger integration of minorities and negatively affect social cohesion. It is argued that a future challenge is to broaden intervention studies with socio-political perspective
Family-school cooperation in the context of traumatic transitions in Serbian society
The main topic of this paper is to clarify from a point of a researcher and practitioner a complex issue of parent-school cooperation under the pressures of long lasting and traumatic transitions in Serbian society. The paper consists of two parts. The first part includes «vertical» research based analysis focused on the parallel processes of change in a broader society and family’s functioning with reflections upon new meanings and potentials for parent involvement in academic socialization of their children. In the discourse of leading sociological and socio-psychological researches conducted during the last ten years, parental position and their potentials are described with the following words: confusion, stress, material deprivation, collapse and demoralization of family life, short-term adaptation strategies in rapidly changing environment, time and energy draining and lack of physical and psychological presence in the life of their children. The second part of the paper deals with «horizontal» research based analysis focused on actual and concrete manifestations of parent-school cooperation, parent’s needs and resources connected to elementary and secondary level of their children’s schooling. Leading psycho-pedagogical quantitative, qualitative and action-based researches conducted during 2006 are presented, with the aim of analyzing the actual state of functioning and identifying systemic knots that support, hamper or block family-school cooperation. Words like disengagement, passivesation, tension and dissatisfaction, pseudo-cooperation, decreasing of parental and school authorities, are emphasized in the discourse of this group of research. Finally, the author integrates two levels of analysis and suggests ways of improving the quality of parent engagement in school/education.
Parent involvement in teacher education in South Africa
Parent involvement in South African schools has been primarily limited to financing schools and parent volunteering. Legislation extended the right to parents and the community to participate in the school’s governing structures. This creates a framework for formal parent involvement but home-school partnerships should not be limited to this practice. A comprehensive model of partnership can provide a broader view of family, community and school relations. In order to prepare teachers to implement effective school, family and community partnerships, a Certificate in Parent Involvement was introduced at the University of South Africa through distance education. The curriculum is designed around the Epstein model of family, community and school partnerships. A brief review is given of the theory underlying the Epstein model and the typology comprising six types of parent and community involvement. A qualitative inquiry explored the implementation of this model in a small sample of schools. A document analysis was made of assignments written by teachers as part of their course work. Rich data (personal accounts corroborated by supporting material) was elicited by the assignment which required teachers to describe the implementation of one type of parent involvement in their school. Findings show how teachers adapted the model in pre-primary, primary and high schools in diverse communities in South Africa. Teachers created family friendly environments for parent encounters; used various strategies to communicate with the home; employed an expanded view of parent and community; introduced innovative volunteering; and illustrated positive results for teachers, learners and parents.
Parent management’ or ‘Take care out there!’
This paper is based on a morning session at a pedagogical training course for a group of teachers at a small Danish public school. Using role-play, these teachers, under the guidance of a consultant and an actor, were practicing ‘the difficult conversation’ with parents. I had been given permission to be present and to videotape the morning’s role-play.1 In this paper I inquire into the underlying assumptions behind such training in conversational skills. What is the purpose of this ‘difficult conversation’? Who possesses relevant knowledge that can be used as input in the conversation? What can teachers and parents say given these assumptions? Which management responsibility is addressed through such training of the difficult conversation? My conclusions are, briefly, that the difficult conversation is more correctly to be called an impossible conversation. It is an asking for the parent’s consent to the teachers’ description, and the teachers’ authority is very easily threatened by parents who suppose that their experiences are relevant. The training situation in itself confirms that the parents are the opponents, and that the teachers should take care.The training course had been developed by the school’s Coordination and Development group, which consists of the headmaster, coordinators and union representative. As a basis for the discussion, the Coordination and Development Group had defined five types of difficult parents and had written them on a flip chart. The headmaster referred to them as “types that we all know”:- The extremely well prepared mother2- The egotistical mother- The mother who says yes but does not follow it up, is evasive- The angry/aggressive mother who seeks to place blame- The disagreeing parentsOne of the first things I asked myself – and a few of the teachers present – was how an extremely well prepared mother can be ‘difficult’?
Conditional aspects of school-home conversations
The focus of this study is the conditions in which conversations between school and home take place, and the discussion highlights questions such as the following: Are the participants sincere? Do the participants express the truth about the pupils’ school facilities? How does pupil participating impact the conversation? The background for the study is that conversations between school and home should, according to laws and proposals, be characterized by dialogue (1995; 1998a; 1998b), and research results which show that dialogue in these conversations is quite frequently absent (Lidén, 1997; Nordahl, 2000; Nordahl & Sørlie, 1996; Vestre, 1995). Dialogue is understood here as being communicative action as described by Habermas in The Theory of Communicative Action (1984; , 1987). This theory is criticised, however, this is not commented upon in this paper. Certain conditional aspects are tied to the conversation if it is to be considered as communicative action, and the research question is therefore: “What characterizes the conversation between school and home, and how does the conversation coincide in communicative action?” Through studying the participants’ everyday practices and comparing these with communicative action, one may acquire knowledge about how the conversation corresponds with/does not correspond with communicative action, and in this way get insight into the conditional aspects of school-home conversations.
The concept of parent involvement. Some theoretical and empirical considerations
This paper focuses on some conceptual and methodological problems inherent in many empirical studies on parental involvement. On the basis of twelve selected studies in which quantitative measures for parent involvement have been used, we discuss the reasons for the diversity of empirical outcomes, partly due to the complexity and multi-dimensionality of the concept, but also due to the variety of operationalizations as well as methods that have been applied to assess parents’ levels of involvement. In particular, empirical evidence of involvement obtained with questionnaires should be considered as doubtful because of the biases in ratings, whereas the use of multiple informants, as suggested in the literature, does not seem satisfactory to overcome this problem. We suggest the use more qualitative methods for measuring parent involvement, for example by interviewing parents in depth about their own accounts for their behaviours. This seems also the best guarantee to detect the more hidden features of their involvement in their children’s education.
Mobile-mediated home-school partnership: attitudes and expectations of teachers, parents and students
In the past decades, mobile communication has been one of the fastest growing businesses in the world. In Italy, like in others European countries, there are more mobile phones than inhabitants. Everyone is able to use a mobile phone (contrary to a computer, the simple training necessary to use a cell-phone is done quickly and informally). Mobile communication has become an important part of our everyday life. In schools, mobile phones are generally considered to be a nuisance; but given their pervasive diffusion, they could also be used as a means to foster parent-teacher communication. In our paper, the results of three focus groups are presented, showing different and sometimes conflicting expectations and attitudes of teachers, parents and students toward a mobile-mediated home-school partnership.
Experiences of disabled children’s families concerning school-family collaboration
The role of families in the education of disabled children is one of the prominent factors influencing their educational course. Parents’ aspirations for their children, their expectations and their experiences are determinant factors in the education of their disabled children. In the Greek context the role of familial environment appears reinforced since historically the majority of society has considered education as an individual responsibility of families. The scope of this study is the exploration of the experiences of a group of disabled children’s parents concerning school-family collaboration in relation to the functioning of the special educational structures following discourse analysis approach. The exploration of the experiences of disabled children’s families took place using semi-structured interviews. The analysis of parent’s experiences follows the social model of disability, which is contrasted with the clinical model and the theory of personal tragedy. The discourse analysis approach reveals a growing number of incidents concerning the feeling of personal tragedy. The experience of personal tragedy appears more often at the level of collaboration with structures and professionals from the educational context, projecting the individual model approach of disability at the level of school-family collaboration.
Parental associations and education politics regarding disability: the case of Cyprus
This paper is about parental associations and their impact on educational developments regarding the education of disabled children in Cyprus. It mainly comments upon parents’ conceptualisations of disabled children’s rights which guided their responses to education politics. The historical and interpretative nature of this paper is achieved by building arguments through interpreting qualitative data covering the period 1970-2007. Four periods associated with important developments were identified to facilitate understanding of parental involvement in politics: early forms of parental mobilization, parents’ groups acting as ‘non-pressure’ groups, parental power through networking and resolving issues of identity and power between parents’ pressure groups. The paper ends with a critical discussion of parental involvement in education politics in relation to the nature of parents’ associations which constitute this evolving pressure group.
Reconstructing special educators’ knowledge about families with members in the autistic spectrum through befriending experiences
The role of parents within special education teacher preparation programs has been widely recognized. Traditional approaches for preparing special educators to interact with parents of children with special needs have been mainly classroom based promoting a narrow view of the disability, as a construct isolated from its micro-level social context (i.e., the home). Befriending has been increasingly supported as an emerging approach for the social support of vulnerable families in the community. Drawing upon the limitations of the traditional approaches and the need for reforming special education teacher training towards experiential learning and greater community engagement, in this paper we will share the insights from the development of a three-year befriending project between a university department and two charities of parents with members in the autistic spectrum. Overall, the scheme involved 35 families with persons in the autistic spectrum and 75 befrienders, the majority of which (n=60) were trainee special education teachers. Finally, we will discuss how befriending, viewed as a process for reconstructing special education teachers’ knowledge about families with persons in the autistic spectrum, can be embedded within curricula in special education teacher training programs.
Cooperation between school and parents of SLI children
Starting school is a significant turn-point in the life of every child, especially so for children with speech-linguistic impairments (SLI) and their parents. The cooperation between the parents and the teacher heavily influences school attainments of such children. This, of course, means that constant help of professional speech therapists is also necessary in order to eliminate or reduce maximally the consequences of the detected disorders. School attainment of these students is largely determined by their speech-linguistic development and particular impairments. Hence this paper focuses on basic manifestations of the most common disorders and, in the same context, on the duties of the teacher in relation to the parents of the SLI children. It is necessary that the teacher achieve a continuous cooperation with the parents in order to enable the SLI students to integrate into school environment as fully as possible. Suggested are some measures for improving the quality of teacher-parent relations which can stimulate the progress and development of the SLI students, especially in the sphere of their socio-emotional development. This includes the development of their emotional stability, sense of security, acceptance and satisfaction.
Parents of disabled children. The educational system and the everyday challenges
The purpose of this presentation is to present how parents with disabled children view and understand the existence of their disabled children through the lens of special education professionals and also how professionals experienced and are affected from this understanding. After a lot of discussions and also after the completion of a questionnaire it had been discovered that parents of disabled children seemed to be a great issue for the professionals who work with their disabled children in case of Cyprus. Thus the Ministry of Education and Culture decided to organize a program which its aim will be to evaluate the difficulties that the professionals faced and secondly it will provide them with the right skills in order to make them able and ready to come across those difficulties. This program consisted of two meetings during the school year 2005-2006 and six meetings during 2006-2007. Parents of disabled children seemed to be a big issue to professionals, since their behaviour sometimes caused lot of difficulties in the everyday life of a school. The group of professionals was made of 22 “special” education teachers who work in the Ministry of Education and Culture. The group was closed for everyone else apart from the two educational psychologists who were responsible for the program and the representative of the Special Education Department. All the information that was mentioned in those groups could not be shared or discussed anywhere else apart from the specific group. It was decided from the organizing team as well that those meetings must be held in places other than school places, since this will provide the participants the chance to talk freely in a much different environment than their everyday environment at work. The analysis on the results is based on qualitative methods, since the group of professionals acts as a focus group.
Constructing ‘the parents’ in primary schools in Greece: special education teachers’ whispers
The Greek educational system is highly centralized and the communication between parents and teachers is considered as a marginal or a grey area in the school function. Educational legislation favours parents’ involvement rather than participation and implies an imbalance between parents and professionals. Drawing on a study using a life history approach, this paper considers the ways in which special education teachers in both special education schools and integration units perceive the parents of their students. The boundaries between expert knowledge and personal experience form a contested terrain of power relationships. These relationships are shaped by circumstances and are highly contextualized. Special school teachers deem parents in a deficit discourse while Integration unit teachers deem parents in a client discourse. The construction of the “parents” seems to be a gendered and social class issue as well. This work also reveals some implications for the teachers’ training programmes in order to ensure a more equal partnership at more inclusive and democratic schools.
The rights and roles of parents on school governing bodies in South Africa
The South African Schools Act of 1996 mandates the establishment of school governing bodies (SGBs) comprising parents, educators and non-educator members of staff. Since parents form the majority on SGBs they have been placed in a powerful position and are able to influence the school budget, language policy, discipline and the appointment and promotion of teaching and administrative staff. In addition, the new structure of school governance provides the opportunity to establish a new relationship between the state and parents, set a new direction for education, and provide a learning space where the critical skills of civic capacity might be extended. This paper examines the extent to which this has been achieved. Data was obtained by means of a questionnaire completed by parents and teachers, followed by in-depth interviews with selected principals and school governing body members. Findings suggest that problems still exist around issues of marginalisation of black parents in racially mixed schools, levels of education of parent governors, poverty and lack of resources in rural communities and a lack of understanding between governance and management of schools. Ways in which the rights and roles of parents in school governance can be improved are included in the paper.
The paradox of parental influence in Danish schools. A Swedish perspective
In this article I discuss the boards of compulsory schools in mainly Denmark and Sweden to a less extent where parents are in majority. Questions of interest for my study are: Why is parental interest in being elected to school boards so low? Why do teachers react negatively to questions about school boards? How are the various interests of teachers, pupils, parents and politicians balanced in the actual partnership? What impact do neo-liberalism and marketplace policies have on the participation of parents in schools? All the questions emanate from the paradox that traditional Danish ways of ensuring parental influence no longer seem to work with the current type of school boards. Utilizing concepts from the frame factor theory I explore the consequences of this for school boards. Data collection is designed as case studies and the methods used are interviews, participation in board meetings, school visits and document analysis. The conclusion shows that school boards are complex and even contradictory. Politicians´ aims regarding boards are not clear. Boards cannot be a relevant response to the political threat from private school policy or a general solution to problems of local democracy.
The relation of home and childcare/school environment to differential trajectories of externalizing problems
This paper uses data from the NICHD study of Early Child Care to investigate how exposure to different home and childcare/school environmental settings are associated with children’s trajectories of externalizing problem from age 2 to age 12. The sample included 1232 children (52% male). Different classes of children exhibiting low, moderate desisting, moderate, high desisting and chronic externalizing problems across the 10 year period were identified. Boys were more likely to be identified in the chronic group and girls in the low group. Furthermore, the findings suggested that the chronic externalizing problems group was also at high risk for experiencing a negative home environment across time, being born into a low familial socio-economic environment, and for experiencing a low quality classroom environment during middle childhood. Therefore, the quality of both the home and school environment are important for identifying these children at high and continuous risk for externalizing psychopathology. Finally, the findings suggested that the quality of the child’s home environment had the more pervasive consequences for the establishment and continuation of externalizing problems in comparison to the quality of the child’s childcare environment.
Congruence between teachers’ and parents’ role construction and expectations about their involvement in homework
This study explores individual, family and student factors in relation to parents’ and teachers’ role construction and mutual expectations regarding homework. Survey data were collected in spring 2005 from parents and teachers at both the elementary and the secondary levels. Parents’ positive attitudes toward homework are associated with more perceived responsibilities on their part. Contrary to parents at the secondary level, parents of elementary students with learning difficulties, as compared to parents of students who succeed well, do not believe as much that “checking homework and making sure that it is done” is part of their parental role. There is no difference among teachers regarding the understanding of their role in homework, regardless of attitude and work experience. At both the primary and secondary levels, teachers have higher expectations of the parents’ role in homework than parents do. Obviously, more work needs to be done related to the activities parents think that they are responsible for with respect to homework. Relative incongruence between parents’ role construction in homework and teachers’ expectations about their role should not be overlooked if we are to promote more positive family-school relationships.This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The two authors are regular researchers at the Centre de Recherche et d’Intervention sur la Réussite Scolaire (CRIRES).
What hinders and what motivates parents’ engagement in school?
In this paper we discuss what hinders and what promotes parental involvement in regular school, on account of the supplementary school which children attend alongside their regular school education. The main study lasted from autumn term 2002 to spring term 2004. A home-school mediation project was established in an urban school in Sweden to promote parental involvement. Here we will present the part of the study which is concerned with supplementary schools. The questions to be discussed in this paper are: is there a mutual distrust between parents and school, what motivates the parents to be engaged in supplementary schools and what hinders them from directing their engagement to the regular school? First we discuss trust and distrust between parents and teachers, secondly, on account of the answer to the question addressed, we try to understand why the parents put their energy and hope to supplementary schools.
School – family relations: Greek parents’ perceptions of parental involvement
While the value of the school-family partnership is universally accepted, it is not always easy to promote effective parent-teacher partnership. A central question that emerges is how schools can ensure that they develop their home-school relationship in a way that acknowledges the needs and perspectives of children, parents and teachers and enhances parents’ participation in school activities. Our main assumption is that we can better understand school-family relations, by examining the beliefs held by both teachers and parents about their relationship. This study addressed Greek parents’ perceptions of teachers, as well as their own role and responsibilities, parental involvement activities and areas of cooperation with teachers. Analysis of 581 questionnaires to parents revealed that parents perceived distinctly separate roles between teachers and parents. Teachers were perceived as “experts” in academic domains, while parents were perceived as “guardians” of children’s social and emotional growth. Both teachers and parents’ role was to keep each other informed about children’s achievement in school and home setting respectively. Results of the study are discussed in terms of implications for initiatives to develop school-family relations in teacher training programmes.
Reading between the lines: exploring the assumptions and implications of parental involvement
Parental involvement in the Northern American literature has been portrayed as the newly discovered way of improving school effectiveness and academic performance. However the cultural assumptions behind ubiquitous calls for parental involvement have been left largely unexplored. Critics of current notions of “parental involvement” argue that the term itself has been poorly defined in the literature and that it has often been described as an aspired ideal whose demands on the parents and the implications for the nature of home-school relations remain un-scrutinized. This paper seeks to explore existing literature on parental involvement though a cultural lens and draw on theoretical arguments that problematize the assumptions behind the discourse and practice of “parental involvement” or “home-school partnership”. The discussion focuses particularly on the implications that culturally- and class-specific assumptions about parental involvement may have for minority and immigrant families who run the risk of becoming marginalized while being held responsible for getting “involved” (de Carvalho, 2001).