Submitted in fulfillment for the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Technology: Education, Durban University of Technology, 2010. / In this critical reflective self study I have examined the Family Literacy Project (FLP) to determine the influences that contributed to the development of an approach to family literacy. This study responds to the question What influences contributed to the development of an approach to family literacy relevant to the needs of families in rural KwaZulu Natal? By identifying and exploring and critically reflecting on these influences I provide insights that can inform policy and practice in the adult education and early childhood development sectors in South Africa. The study includes my critical reflections on finding a voice within a self study and how this has contributed towards the development of a methodology. In the process, I have developed a deeper understanding and appreciation of what has been achieved in the FLP during the first eight years under my directorship, and why. In the study, I report on these insights. The FLP project in this study is situated in deeply rural KwaZulu Natal, where the existing extensive knowledge base is almost exclusively oral, and informed by well established insights, understandings and values. In this context, I have examined the roles of families, adult literacy and early childhood development to establish their impact on the development of literacy in families. Through critical reflection, I then identified the principles – active learning, holistic development, community and children‟s rights – underpinning the FLP and was able to establish how these impacted on the development and success of the project. I then examined the roles, practices and characteristics of the FLP facilitators, and the experiences of facilitators and those who engaged in the project. I also looked at the roles played by the community, the external evaluators, and the effect of exposure of the project in the public domain through attendance at iv conferences, publication of journal articles, and awards made to the project because of its successes. I conclude the study by suggesting how the insights from the study might provide support for others engaged in such initiatives and indicating how the topic may be further investigated. / National Research Foundation.

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, social changes in South Africa have impacted on schools. In the past, parent involvement in the township schools was viewed as unimportant. However, with the change to a democratic South Africa, parents as critical stakeholders were put under tremendous pressure to get involved in the education of their children. The role that parents are expected to play in education has grown immensely and has been receiving greater interest. The South African Schools Act (Act no. 84 of 1996) makes provision for parents‟ participation in the activities of the schools. The underlying principle is to ensure that parents are actively involved in the governance and management of schools with a view to create a conducive environment for a better teaching and learning. According to Bloch (2009:22) the more parents are involved in their children‟s schooling the better their children‟s academic achievements, the more confident their attitudes to schooling and the lower the drop-out rate. However, the parents in the township schools in South Africa have dismally failed to live up to these expectations. Almost 80% of dysfunctional schools in South Africa are predominantly located in the townships (Smit & Oosthuizen, 2011:64). These schools are ineffective and inefficient; and lack of parental involvement has been cited as a key reason for the decline of academic achievement. Efforts to improve the culture of teaching and learning in these schools have failed. In this study, the extent to which parents in the township schools are involved in the education of their children is interrogated as the focus area. Similarly, the objective of this study is to investigate and evaluate the factors that influence or inhibit parents‟ participation in the education of their children in the township schools. The study confined itself to three secondary schools in Ekurhuleni North district and used both educators and parents as its sample. The sample was purposefully selected. A mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative approaches was used for this study. The data presented in this study are mainly derived from the responses to the ninety questionnaires that were distributed to educators as well as the responses of the six parents from the interviews with them. In this study, the ethical considerations of the research as espoused by Merriam (1998:198) were adhered to. This study v stems from the necessity to contribute to the scholarly debate on the involvement of parents in education as it seeks to determine the factors which hamper parental involvement in the education process of the learners in the township schools; and to suggest possible solutions to eliminate them wherever feasible. The reluctance of parents to participate in the education of their children in the township schools remains a mystery which needs to be unravelled. This is the basic premise of this research. The researcher further hopes that when the Findings and the Recommendations of this study are completed, they will be able to add value to the education system in the township schools by conscientising parents about their full role in the governance of the schools as mandated by legislation. / Department of Educational Leadership and Management / M.Ed. (Education Management))

Thesis (MSc (Rehabilitation))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The school that was studied caters for learners with special educational needs in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. The learners at the school have a variety of physical, intellectual and learning disabilities. They receive rehabilitation inputs aimed at optimising their potential as school learners and as adults. These include occupational and speech therapy, physiotherapy, learning support and educational psychology. The therapists who work with them often utilise home programmes to involve the parents in their child’s therapy and to achieve carry-over from the therapy sessions. Among the professionals at the school there is currently a perception that therapy home programmes are poorly complied with and that the rehabilitation outcomes of the learners are being disadvantaged as a result. A need therefore arose to explore this issue. This study aims to determine the extent of compliance with therapy home programmes by parents and learners of this school. The study also attempted to elicit factors identified by parents and therapists as inhibitors to and/or facilitators for compliance with the home programmes. A descriptive, analytical study design was used. All therapists working at the school, as well as the parents of learners who were expected to comply with a home programme, were invited to participate. Data was collected using two self-compiled, self-administered questionnaires. A parent focus group was added later in an attempt to elicit more depth with regard to some of the issues explored. The data was analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. Seventy-one percent of parents reported complying at levels adequate for therapeutic benefit to be achieved. However, 25% of the parents reported complying by less than 24% of the time prescribed. The barriers to compliance identified in this study include the quality of teamwork between the parents and the professionals, attitudinal barriers from both the parents and the therapists, the quality of training for the parents and practical difficulties. The family-centred, collaborative model of teamwork was recommended to both the therapists and the parents to facilitate parental input at all levels of the planning and design of the rehabilitation programme.

Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Parental involvement is a term that is associated with parental participation in schools and parents’ support of their children’s education. It is subjective in nature and often difficult to evaluate. In the late 1990s, many Somali families immigrated to South Africa due to the on-going factional wars in their country to take up employment opportunities and start a new life as immigrants. Limited knowledge exists about such parents’ understandings of education and their role in the educational development of their children. In this study, the researcher explored the various forms of support that Somali immigrant parents provide to their school-going children. This basic qualitative research study is situated in an interpretive paradigm. Through snowball sampling, five parents from a Somali community in the Helderberg area of the Western Cape were selected for the study. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, a focus group interview and observations and was subjected to content analysis. The study found that there are various forms of support that Somali parents offer their primary school children. The support that these parents offer is mostly of physiological nature, such as to feed and to clothe them. The challenges that these Somali participants face are educational, cultural and linguistic. The study found that because the majority of the participants are uneducated, they face limitations in how they can support their children academically. Due to their lack of schooling experience together with their linguistic constraints, the parents’ participation tend to be limited to attending meetings and participating in social events. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ouerbetrokkenheid is ’n term wat algemeen in die skoolgemeenskap gebruik word en word gewoonlik vereenselwig met ouers se deelname aan skoolaktiwiteite asook hul ondersteuning ten opsigte van hul kinders se opvoeding. Ouerbetrokkenheid is subjektief van aard en dikwels moeilik om te evalueer. In die laat 1990’s, net na die beëindiging van apartheid, het baie Somaliese families, as gevolg van die voortdurende stamoorloë in hul land, na Suid-Afrika geëmigreer om nuwe werksgeleenthede te soek en sodoende ’n nuwe lewe as immigrante te begin. Beperkte kennis bestaan oor die uitdagings wat hierdie immigrantefamilies in die gesig staar asook hul rol in die opvoedkundige ontwikkeling van hul kinders. In hierdie studie het die navorser gepoog om die verskillende vorme van ondersteuning wat Somaliese ouers bied, te verken. Hierdie basiese kwalitatiewe navorsingstudie is in ’n interpretatiewe paradigma geleë. Deur middel van ’n sneeubalsteekproef is vyf deelnemers van ’n Somaliese gemeenskap in die Helderberg-gebied in die Wes-Kaap as deelnemers aan die studie gekies. Die data is ingesamel deur semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude, ’n fokusgroeponderhoud en waarnemings, en is toe inhoudelik ontleed. Die studie het bevind dat daar verskillende vorme van ondersteuning onder Somaliese ouers bestaan, wat hulle aan hul skoolgaande kinders bied. Die ondersteuning wat hierdie ouers aan hulle kinders bied, is van fisiologiese aard, byvoorbeeld om kos en klere, te voorsien. Die uitdagings wat hierdie Somaliese deelnemers in die gesig staar is opvoedkundig, kultureel en taalkundig. Die studie het bevind dat omdat die meeste van die ouers ongeletterd is, hulle nie hul kinders met hul skoolwerk kan help nie. As gevolg van hul gebrek aan skoolopleiding asook hul taalkundige beperkinge, is dié ouers se deelname geneig om beperk te wees ten opsigte van die bywoning van skoolvergaderings en deelname aan sosiale geleenthede by die skool.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

The purpose of this study was to determine whether using integrated, networked testing and skills software combined with parental participation would increase students' achievement in reading, improve students' self-esteem and improve attitude toward school. Further, the purpose was to determine if parental participation promotes improved attitude toward school.

School leaders often contemplate implementing measures that will increase community and parent involvement in schools. There is a shortage of research that concisely takes school leadership through a process that details how to integrate parent and community input in a school transformation initiative and careful analysis of student outcomes. Within this study, I provide an in-depth look at one school district’s efforts to engage its community through strategic planning and mission and vision redesign. This process includes community involvement at every phase. For the purpose of this study, community refers to both community members who do not have children in the school system and parents of current students. In this study, I outline the inception of the transformation effort, the ongoing efforts to include community input in decision-making and campus implementation, and finally a review of the overarching impact on leadership, staff, students and community. Data collection analyzed in this study include assessment data, survey data, discipline data and walk through data collected by the school district.

The purpose of this dissertation was to add to the literature on the school choice debate and educational voucher programs through an analysis of Florida’s John M. McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities. This dissertation looked at the major aspects of school choice theory, parental satisfaction, and reasoning for choice. A theoretical framework for analyzing school choice programs was put forth in this dissertation through an analysis of the over-arching dynamical elements that have shaped the administrative and political arguments for and against these programs. A comprehensive review of the literature on school choice comprised a substantial part of this study due to the need for citizens to better comprehend the origins and evolution of school choice planning and programming. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-09-28T12:25:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Somekh.pdf: 1105964 bytes, checksum: e95f09685cf91805d123f838a61a6076 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-28T12:25:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Somekh.pdf: 1105964 bytes, checksum: e95f09685cf91805d123f838a61a6076 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research is part of the ECOFAM group and was developed by inspiration from the phenomenological perspective according to some Arendtian and Heideggerian understandings systematized by Critelli (1996), and the method used was based on the qualitative research of an interventional character. The research and fieldwork process were carried out at a Center for Children and Adolescents (CCA) and the guiding question was: in what way does the partner institution dialogue with the families of the students? We could perceive that the dialogue exists in some ways, starting with the importance that the partner institution’s professional team gives to the necessity for a relationship with their families and a constant work for its improvement, which, in fact, made possible this research. The general purpose of this work was to improve the dialogue between the families and a CCA and, to achieve that, we looked for: a. identify how family issues appear in the educational process of learners; b. understand how the team dialogues and approaches the families to the educational process; c. to promote meetings and reflection spaces for professionals to improve their dialogue with families; d. work in partnership with families whose issues impact the educational process. During the intervention process we used as a procedure a logbook, participative observation and group and individual reflective meetings. The phenomena that appeared were compiled in two types in the analysis stage: a. limitations for dialogue within the family; b. obstacles to an educational improvement in a non-formal education institution. The analysis carried out, among other issues, points to the possibility of a deepening in how to improve the conversation field about daily issues that appear in families, and how to regulate non-formal education so it will be not only a complementation of formal education, but a structuring guideline / Esta pesquisa faz parte do grupo ECOFAM e foi desenvolvida sob uma inspiração da perspectiva fenomenológica, segundo algumas noções arendtianas e heideggerianas sistematizadas por Critelli (1996), e o método utilizado para produção de conhecimento deste trabalho se vale da pesquisa qualitativa de caráter interventivo. O processo de investigação e atuação em campo foi realizado junto de um Centro para Crianças e Adolescentes (CCA) e a pergunta norteadora foi: de que forma a instituição parceira dialoga com as famílias dos educandos? O que se percebeu foi que o diálogo existe de algumas formas, a começar pela importância que a equipe profissional da instituição parceira dá à necessidade de uma relação com as famílias e uma constante busca para seu aprimoramento, o que, inclusive, possibilitou esta pesquisa. O objetivo geral deste trabalho foi aprimorar o diálogo entre as famílias e um CCA e, para tanto, buscou-se: a. identificar como as questões familiares aparecem no processo educativo dos educandos; b. entender como a equipe dialoga e aproxima as famílias do processo educativo; c. promover encontros e espaços de reflexão para os profissionais aprimorarem o diálogo com as famílias; d. trabalhar em parceria com as famílias cujas questões impactam o processo educativo. Durante o processo interventivo, utilizamos como procedimento um diário de bordo, observação participante e encontros reflexivos grupais e individuais. Os fenômenos que apareceram foram compilados em duas constelações na etapa de análise: a. limitações para o diálogo na própria família; b. entraves para um aprimoramento educacional em uma instituição de educação não formal. A análise realizada, entre outras questões, aponta para a possibilidade de um aprofundamento em como aprimorar o espaço de conversa sobre questões diárias que aparecem nas famílias, e como regulamentar a educação não formal para que ela não seja apenas uma complementação da educação formal, mas uma diretriz estruturante

This sociological investigation examines the changing role of parents in the education of their children in Catholic schools in New South Wales over the twentieth century. Catholic Church documents specifically state primary parental responsibility for their children???s religious education. Catholic schools were established to inculcate faith, and assist parents??? role. This thesis asks, to what extent that role has been realised? It unravels the processes that determined and defined the changing role of Catholic parents during this period, and identifies significant shifts in institutional thinking and practices related to parents and resultant shifts in cultural and social perceptions. After half a century of conformity and comfort, a significant era followed as the Australian Church responded to challenges, including financial crisis for Catholic schools, reform in the Australian education system, and the impact of the Second Vatican Council. Cohorts from three generations were selected. Interviews and focus groups elicited memories that were recorded and analysed, in terms of the integral questions; the role and involvement of parents in Catholic schools. Participants recalled their own childhood in Catholic schools and, where applicable, as parents educating their own children, or as religious teachers. The analysis was theoretically informed by the work of Durkheim, Greeley, Coleman and Bourdieu. A review of Church documents and commentaries through the twentieth century, bearing on the education of children, showed the official Church position. Despite numerous rhetorical statements issued by Catholic authorities, emphasising the role of parents as ???primary educators???, the practical responses ranged from active encouragement to dismissal. Teachers in Catholic schools and related bureaucracies were, seemingly, reluctant to initiate a more inclusive partnership role. Gradually, and in a piecemeal fashion, the Catholic Church and its schools have been responding to growing parental consciousness of their role and responsibilities. A significant shift was signalled by the New South Wales Bishops in establishing the Council of Catholic School Parents, to be supported by a full-time, salaried Executive Officer, in 2003. But any accommodation to new understandings of parent/teacher, or family/school relation is complex and not to be oversimplified as a simple sharing, or ceding of authority.