The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships among preschool teachers&rsquo / and preschoolers&rsquo / parents&rsquo / developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) and developmentally inappropriate practice (DIP) beliefs in relation to parental involvement attitudes and perceived parental involvement barriers. To reach to the purposes of the study, data were collected from 279 teachers and 589 parents via a demographic information questionnaire and two main data collection instruments. The demographic information questionnaire aimed to obtain information about the participant&rsquo / s gender, age and educational level. In order to collect information from teachers and parents regarding their beliefs about developmentally appropriate practice / Teachers&rsquo / Beliefs Scale (TBS) (Burts et al., 2000) and the parent adaptation of the scale, Parents&rsquo / Beliefs Scale (Yen, 2008) were used. To ascertain parents&rsquo / and teachers&rsquo / attitudes and the barriers on parental involvement, the School and Family Partnerships Questionnaire (Epstein &amp / Salinas, 1993) was used. The investigation of the relationship between the teachers&rsquo / and parents&rsquo / DAP and DIP beliefs in relation to their parent involvement attitudes (PIA), parent involvement barriers (PIB) revealed significant results. The findings of the study revealed that both the teachers&rsquo / and parents&rsquo / PIA and PIB made significant contributions to their DAP and DIP beliefs. As found in the current study, the interaction between the teachers and parents should be increased to help children develop in the most appropriate way. In order to increase this relationship, a detailed focus on the parental involvement paradigm should be undertaken.

Thesis ( M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / This study was undertaken with the purpose of investigating the involvement of educators in community development in the lnsikazi Circuit. In terms of research design, the study used a case study, namely the lnsikazi community. In-depth interviews were carried out with participants. Focus group discussions were also used to weigh the different standpoints of stakeholders and establish areas of agreement and disagreement. In line with the dictates of qualitative research, data analysis was done using the constant comparative method. Each interview was transcribed, labelled and appropriately coded using emerging themes. The researcher found that educators should act as promoters of community education by inviting the community to school meetings and sensitizing them about the need for their children's' education. However educators do not get the opportunity to do so since the majority of parents do not honor such meetings. Some of the key findings include: • Educators were seen as sources of information for the community by bringing awareness to the community but their busy schedules usually mitigate against their playing this role. • Educators should be community mobilizers but they are not effective in this role as they are usually out of touch with community needs. • Educators should play the role of as organizers and coordinators of the different stakeholders, but the majority of them indicated that they were not interested in community work as it is demanding. Some of the reasons that hampered effective educator participation in community development include a lack of time, unresponsive parents/community and lack of monetary incentives. It is therefore recommended that to overcome all these problems there needs to be regular interaction between the community and the educators. During such interactions, issues pertaining to community development and how community development should benefit both the community and the educators should be highlighted. It is the researcher's hope that through such interactions, it will be possible to build genuine partnerships between the community, educators and other stakeholders.