Parental Involvement in Schools - Research Paper Example

Parental Involvement in Schools I. Introduction This paper will primarily study parental involvement in two subject schools and determine the extent of the involvement as well as the parental perspective and/or awareness on the concept. Specifically, the question as to why parents are not involved in school organizations or the lack of parental involvement in school run programs would be addressed. The conventional wisdom in educational rhetoric is that the involvement of parents is a key element in educational reform and improvement. This variable in education has been incorporated in several approaches and strategies in order to achieve optimum learning experiences, particularly in the wake of an increase in attention on education reform today. Recently, such aspect in education has received the attention of policymakers. For instance, the eighth US Education goal in ‘Goals 2000’ states that, “every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.” (cited in Fiore 2006, p. 118) Over the years, the concept of parental involvement has been studied and researched extensively and these bodies of literature have consistently documented the positive effects of parental involvement especially in facilitating greater learning among students. The specific definition of the concept of parental involvement is still difficult to determine or outline. Academicians have already employed several incomplete measures that manifest a semblance of the concept such as parent-student reading together at home, assistance in take-home assignments, and parents attending events in school, among others. In a multidimensional model that was proposed by Grolnick and Slowiaczek, parental involvement is broadly defined as “the allocation of resources by the parent to the child in a given domain.” (cited in Hoghughi and Long 2004, p. 204) Specifically, these authors described three types of parental involvement in the context of education, namely: behavioral, cognitive-intellectual and personal. The roots of parental involvement in schools can be traced back to the early nineteenth century in the USA, albeit somewhat tenuously. By the first decade of the twentieth century, relevant initiatives begin to be documented some certainty. This development seems to have withstood social pressures resulting from a state of flux in the child-rearing practices advocated by the experts. Shifts in the ethnic and class composition of Western societies have added to the acceleration in the rate of change, as have movements in family composition, such as increased incidence of stepparenthood. (Topping 2006, p. 15) II. Literature Review Numerous studies have documented that benefits and positive impact of parental involvement on their children’s academic achievement at all grades and levels. For example, Bandura (2007) stated that at the most basic level, children (in the social learning theory) who observe their parents engaging in activities supportive of the educational process will learn to value education themselves. (p. 171) Epstein (2001), on the other hand, found that parental involvement appears to be correlated with the age of the child. She demonstrated that parental involvement in elementary schools (ages 5-12 years old) tends to be more welcomed and to occur more frequently than in the succeeding levels. The coverage of the educational system was also part of dilemma – why parents cannot easily involve themselves. “It is much easier,” wrote Hornby, “to establish high levels of parental involvement in countries like New Zealand where nearly all children walk to their local schools than in Barbados where many children are transported to schools outside the area in which they live.” The idea behind this is that the school system must be identified with the local community so as to ensure satisfactory levels of parental involvement. Furthermore, socio-economic status is also found to have a significant impact in parental involvement in the educational process. Lareau (2000), for instance, stressed that these factors are related to the degree to which parents became involved in the educational process because economically disadvantaged and culturally diverse parents tend to shy away from direct, collegial interactions with school personnel. She posited that parents’ values, although often implicit explanation why social class influences parent involvement in schooling. (p. 6-7) Trumbull et al., reported the difficulty in involving parents in school, citing cross-cultural research that demonstrate the lack of universally successful way to involve parents. It was suggested that parents might fear that certain kinds of involvement taken for granted in schools such as questioning teachers about assignments or grades will be interpreted as interference or disrespect. (p. 33) Demographic changes have also been suggested as a reason why parents are not getting involved. According to Gary Hornby (2000), this is because: first, a majority of mothers of school-aged children are now in the workforce; and, since in many countries almost half of all marriages end in divorce, a substantial proportion of children live in single-parent families. (p. 3) It is easy to understand that when both parents are working or there is only one parent at home, it is more difficult for parents to achieve high levels of involvement. Hornby also cited the school culture as a barrier for parental involvement in their children’s education. To quote: The more autocratic the management structure of schools, the less likely they are able to sustain parental involvement which is based on partnerships between parents and teachers. Where collaboration is not a norm among staff at the school it is unlikely that the collaboration between parents and teachers… will be possible. (p. 4) Geiger et al. (2000) in their work published in the American Journal of Health Studies outlined several barriers to parental involvement in education: time constraints; mistrust of schools; miscommunication between parents and schools; lack of knowledge about subjects that children are learning about in school; and, lack of parent understanding of how to be involved. (p. 193-198) Interestingly, Lorraine McDonnell, McLaughlin, Margaret and Patricia Morison explored a position that goes against the logic of the positive impact of parental involvement in school. While this was not entirely the subject or the point of their study, which was undertaken for the National Research Council, it was still cited as important variable in the issue. A specific example in this regard was given by Elizabeth Graue: “In other settings parents were rabidly active in advancing an agenda for their children, working to gain an advantage by academic redshirting and garnering as much knowledge about the school program as they possibly could.” (p. 257) All in all the conclusion of the corpus of literature points to the positive relationship between parental involvement and achievement of children in general. These studies overwhelmingly conclude that parental involvement, parent-school contacts, parental monitoring of student activities, or parents working with students at home, is positively related to achievement as measured by standardized test scores, grades, high school completion, and the absence of behavioral problems. (McDonnell, McLaughlin and Morison 1997, p. 100) Parents know this and so it is not the lack of interest in parents that leads to low levels of parental involvement. As has been demonstrated by many studies, so few of the parents know what the schools expect from them or how they might be able to contribute to their child’s schooling. The lack of knowledge is, hence, ideally, the main problem in parental involvement. Although several studies report a lack in parental involvement in schools particularly after the primary or elementary levels or that socio-cultural as well as economic variables affect this dimension, this does not signify that parents do not want to be involved. Lawrence Balter and Robert McCall cited several evidences indicating that parents want to be more involved. (p. 531-532) III. Methodology For this research, I would be collecting data from parents at least two subject schools. The research would be initiated by obtaining permission from school authorities in regard to the study being undertaken. Cooperation from school head/administrator/principal is important here particularly that they may be of help responding to parent questions and inquiries regarding the study and also they may be of help in regard to the survey draft and the logistics of the research implementation. A survey would be formulated to be distributed among parents through the classroom teachers who would be hading his or her students with the questionnaire. This questionnaire would come with a cover letter detailing the purpose of the study as well as important information in answering the questions therein. Parents who would choose to participate would be encouraged to return the questionnaire after a week. The questionnaire would be divided into three parts: 1) parent involvement at home; 2) parent involvement at school, and 3) barriers to involvement. A Likert-type response would be used for the first two parts of the survey questions. The scale would follow the format of a four-point scale with 1 – Strongly Disagree; 2 – Disagree; 3 – Agree; 4 – strongly agree. IV. Survey (Suggested Questions/Statements) A: Parental involvement at home. 1. Parental involvement in school is very important. 2. I know about the concept, “parental involvement in school”. 3. I want to spend time helping my child get the best education.1. I must make sure that my child does his/her homework. 4. I communicate with my child’s teacher and cooperate with them when necessary and when required. 5. Teachers should give ideas about raising children and acquire the habit of helping students do their homework. 6. Teachers must provide me with more information about classroom learning activities. 7. I should be responsible for getting my child involved in school. B. Parental involvement in school. 1. I have little to do with my child’s or children’s academic success in school activities. 2. I don’t believe in parental involvement in my child’s education. 3. Teacher must initiate contact with parents. 4. I usually attend events, conferences and other activities involving parents in school. 5. I want teachers to inform me about classroom learning activities. 6. I am amenable to doing volunteer work at school. 7. I inquire in school if I have questions about my child’s homework or school projects. C. Barriers to parent involvement 1. I do not really expect parents to be involved in school or children’s education and that they are best left to educators. 2. I am a working parent and I do not have time to be involved in school activities. 3. I am hesitant and embarrassed to ask the school about my child’s academic activities. 4. The school is not accommodating and receptive to parental involvement. 5. It is hard to coordinate and communicate with my child’s school. 6. I am not aware of any contribution that I could make for my child’s curricular activities. References Bandura, Albert. (2007). Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. Freeman. Epstein, Joyce Levy. (2001). School, family, and community partnerships: preparing educators, and improving schools. Westview Press. Fiore, Douglas. (2006). School-Community Relations. Eyes on Education. Geiger, Brian, Macrina, David, Nagy, Stephen, Petri, Cynthia, Snyder, Scott and Winnail, Scott. (2000). Barriers to Parent Involvement in Middle School Health Education. Graue, Elizabeth. (1993). Ready for What?: Constructing Meanings of Readiness for Kindergarten. SUNY Press.American Journal of Health Studies. Vol. 16.4. p. 193-198. Hoghughi, Masud and Long, Nicholas. (2004). andbook of Parenting: Theory and Research for Practice. SAGE. Hornby, Garry. (2000). Improving Parental Involvement. Continuum International Publishing Group. Lareau, Annette. (2000). Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education. Rowman and Littlefield. McDonnell, Lorraine, McLaughlin, Margaret and Morison, Patricia. (1997). Educating one & all: students with disabilities and standards-based reform. National Academies Press. Topping, Keith. (2006). Parents as educators: training parents to teach their children. Taylor & Francis. Trumbull, Elise, Rothstein-Fisch, Carrie, Greenfield, Patricia and Quiros, Blanca. (2001). Bridging cultures between home and school: a guide for teachers : with a special focus on immigrant Latino families. Read More