Thesis (MEdPsych)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Includes bibliography / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: According to the results of the Annual National Assessment (ANA) of 2011 in South African schools, approximately 53% of learners in grade 3 and 70% of learners in grade 6 did not reach a partially achieved level of reading. As a result of the reading difficulties, these learners have varying degrees of learning and behavioural difficulties and also experience psychological and emotional challenges. This figure indicates that a high number of people are parenting a child identified as having reading difficulties. Bronfenbrenner’s theory of the ecology of human development indicated the importance of interconnections between school, home, and community settings in order to foster children’s learning. Parents may be better supported and empowered to assist their child by collaboration among teachers and families. This collaboration may be strengthened by utilising knowledge gained from parents’ lived experiences of parenting a child identified as having reading difficulties. The primary research question guiding this phenomenological study involved understanding the experiences of parents with children identified as having reading difficulties. The study’s research methodology can be described as basic qualitative research which is embedded within an interpretive paradigm. Purposive sampling was used to select three parents as research participants. Three methods of data collection were employed, namely written reflective notes, structured individual interviews and observations. Furthermore, qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. The analysis revealed that four interconnected contexts emerged concerning parents’ lived experiences, namely their relationship with their identified child, their relationships with other family members, their interactions with teachers and the child’s school, and their perception of social support in raising their child. The study found that parents experienced a variety of dismaying emotions regarding their child’s reading difficulties and that parents adopted roles such as caretaker, motivator and advocate in order to obtain the intervention and educational services needed for their child. The findings of this study inform and encourage educators and other support personnel to support parents and promote collaboration with parents of children identified as having reading difficulties, potentially enabling those parents to better support their identified child. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Na aanleiding van die uitslae van die Jaarlikse Nasionale Assessering (ANA) van 2011 in Suid- Afrikaanse skole, het ongeveer 53% van leerders in graad 3 en 70% van leerders in graad 6 nie ‘n gedeeltelik bereikte vlak van lees behaal nie. As gevolg van die struikelblokke met lees, ervaar hierdie leerders verskeie grade van leer- en gedragsuitdagings, asook sielkundige en emosionele uitdagings. Hierdie syfers dui aan dat ‘n beduidende hoeveelheid mense in die rol staan van die ouer van ‘n kind met leesstruikelblokke. Bronfenbrenner se teorie van die ekologie van menslike ontwikkeling dui op die belangrikheid van interkonneksies tussen die leerder se skool, tuiste en die konteks van sy gemeenskap vir die bevordering van leer. Ouers kan moontlik meer effektief ondersteun en bemagtig word om hul kind meer effektief te ondersteun, indien ‘n medewerking tussen ouers en onderwysers bewerkstellig kan word. Hierdie medewerking kan versterk word deur kennis aan te wend aangaande ouers se ervaringe in hul rol as die ouer van ‘n kind met leesstruikelblokke. Die navorsingsvraag wat hierdie fenomenologiese studie lei, handel oor ’n begrip van die ervaringe van ouers van kinders wat met leesstruikelblokke geïdentifiseer is. Die navorsingsmetodologie wat in hierdie studie gebruik is, kan beskryf word as basiese kwalitatiewe navorsing binne ’n interpretivistiese paradigma. ’n Doelgerigte steekproef is gebruik om drie ouers as deelnemers te identifiseer. Drie metodes van data insameling is gebruik, naamlik geskrewe, reflektiewe notas; gestruktureerde, individuele onderhoude en waarnemings. Verder is kwalitatiewe inhoudsanalise gebruik om die data te analiseer. Die data analise het aan die lig gebring dat vier kontekste wat telkens met mekaar verband hou, na vore gekom het rakende ouers se ervaringe as die ouer van ‘n kind met leesstruikelblokke, naamlik die ouers se verhouding met hul kind, die ouers se verhoudinge met ander lede van die gesin, die ouers se interaksies met die kind se onderwysers en skool asook die ouers se persepsie van die sosiale ondersteuning wat hulle ontvang in hul rol as ouers. Die bevindinge van hierdie studie het aangetoon dat ouers verskeie ontmoedigende emosies ervaar rakende hul kind se leesstruikelblokke en dat ouers in die rol van versorger, motiveerder en advokaat optree om sodoende die nodige intervensie en opvoedkundige dienste wat hul kind benodig, te bekom. Die bevindinge het ten doel om opvoeders en ander ondersteuningspersoneel in te lig en aan te moedig om ouers te ondersteun en medewerking tussen opvoeders en ouers van kinders met leesstruikelblokke te bevorder. Sodanige medewerking kan ouers in staat stel om hul kinders meer effektief te ondersteun.

The study is in response to the recently enacted South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 (SASA), which sees the legislated inclusion of parents in school governing bodies. The Act promotes four distinct representative participants or stakeholders. These include parents, who constitute the majority, educators, learners and non-teaching staff. There is an indication that the SASA has tensions, ambiguities and contradictions which could allow either &quot / consumer market&quot / or &quot / citizen equity&quot / visions to prevail in practical terms. However, I argue that the SASA in practice is becoming dominated by the consumer vision that has a danger of creating unfair competition amongst schools and perpetuating the already existing inequalities in our society. In this mini-thesis, I attempt to investigate the nature of parental involvement in school governance in practice. I focus on their responsibilities in relation to policy matters as enshrined in the SASA, their commitment to executing their functions. The aim is to determine their capacity to fulfil their responsibilities with respect to their powers and functions.

This needs assessment research project concerns itself with the lack of parental involvement in preschool programs. The lack of communication between educators and parents is examined in relation to its effects on the child and the community. One possible way to begin to solve this problem is presented through the use of a survey questionnaire for parents and teachers concerning what each group feels are the primary considerations, or needs, for quality preschool educational programs. The considerations surveyed resulted from an in depth review of the literature pertaining to major early childhood concerns. This research examined five areas of review; the relationship of parents to preschools, the background of early childhood education and philosophies, the curriculum objectives in the affective domain, the curriculum objectives in the cognitive domain, and the curriculum objectives in the psychomotor domain. The resulting questionnaires consisted of twelve questions with three different types of responses. Three hundred parental questionnaires were distributed to four private nursery-kindergarten schools in a middle to upper-middle class section of a large Southern city. Fifty teachers, half who taught in the same schools surveyed and half who taught in the same area of the city, were surveyed. The resulting responses were tabulated individually and percentages totaled for each response. A large percentage of the parents--55.3%-- and all the teachers responded to the questionnaire. Both groups were in agreement on most of the questions. The parents expressed the same basic concerns for their children's preschool education as did the teachers themselves. Parental apathy, misplaced values, and ignorance were ruled out as possible reasons for their lack of involvement. Instead, the major cause for lack of parental involvement in preschool programs was determined to be a feeling of intimidation on the part of the parents. In order to remedy this situation, it is suggested that the educators involved need to be the ones to actively structure parental involvement in their educational programs. Several suggestions for this structuring are presented in the conclusions section of this project.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-09-28T12:24:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Novaes.pdf: 2181591 bytes, checksum: 16d947c6a272aa84595807b157d1a3ea (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-28T12:24:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Novaes.pdf: 2181591 bytes, checksum: 16d947c6a272aa84595807b157d1a3ea (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-31 / Working with families from babies and children assisted by the child education school units have proven confrontational in many aspects, due to the presence of many beliefs and judgements that emerged from this relationship from both sides. After fifteen years after the transition from the Child Education Centers – CEC of São Paulo from the Secretariat of Social Assistance – SSA to the Municipal Secretariat of Education – MSE, we can identify units that are showing a quality result regarding the early childhood attendance. This research has the purpose of investigate one Child Education Center opened exactly during this transition period between the two secretariats, whose work with families is recognized in its region and among educators. Therefore, the issue from this study emerge from the questioning: how the relationship among school and family is conceived by parents, relatives and legal representatives from babies and children from a Child Education Center and what is written in the official documents of the Municipal Secretariat of Education from São Paulo. The theoretical reference sought to identify researches carried out with the themes of the family and school relationship in educational institutions that care for infants and young children and the diversity of possibilities for the construction of a participatory and responsible work between the two instances. The qualitative research used as methodological procedures: observation, interviews, analysis of questionnaires formulated by nursery teachers during the training hours in context, consultation of the records of the educational unit, analysis of official documents and publications of the Municipal Education Department related to children education and the school's relationship with families. Given the analysis of the data collected in light of the theoretical references used, it can be concluded that the quality work with the families and caregivers of children attending the educational institution results from a set of practices built gradually from a reflexive evaluation work, resumption of significant actions and constant dialogue between managers, teachers, education and family support staff, and observation of their needs and interests of infants and children / O trabalho com as famílias de bebês e crianças atendidos em unidades escolares de educação infantil tem se mostrado conflituoso em alguns aspectos, devido à presença de crenças e julgamentos que emergem dessa relação por ambos os lados. Após quinze anos da transição dos Centros de Educação Infantil – CEIs da prefeitura do município de São Paulo da Secretaria de Assistência Social – SAS para a Secretaria Municipal de Educação – SME, podemos identificar unidades da rede que apresentam um trabalho considerado de qualidade no atendimento à primeiríssima infância em instituições de educação infantil. A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo, investigar um Centro de Educação Infantil municipal inaugurado em pleno processo de transição entre as Secretarias, cujo trabalho com as famílias apresenta uma trajetória reconhecida em sua região e entre os educadores que acompanham seu percurso. Dessa forma, a problemática deste estudo emerge do questionamento: como a relação escola e família é concebida pelos pais, responsáveis e familiares de bebês e crianças de um Centro de Educação Infantil e nos documentos oficiais da Secretaria Municipal de Educação do Município de São Paulo. O referencial teórico buscou identificar pesquisas realizadas com os temas da relação família e escola em instituições educativas que atendem bebês e crianças pequenas e a diversidade de possibilidades para a construção de um trabalho participativo e responsável entre as duas instâncias. A pesquisa de cunho qualitativo utilizou como procedimentos metodológicos: observação, entrevistas, análise de questionários formulados por professores de educação infantil durante os horários de formação em contexto, consulta aos registros da unidade educativa, análise de documentos e publicações oficiais da Secretaria Municipal de Educação relacionadas à educação infantil e a relação da escola com as famílias. Diante da análise dos dados coletados à luz dos referenciais teóricos utilizados, pode-se concluir que o trabalho de qualidade com as famílias e responsáveis de crianças que frequentam a instituição educativa resulta de um conjunto de práticas construídas gradativamente a partir de um trabalho reflexivo de avaliação, retomada de ações significativas e diálogo constante entre gestores, docentes, equipe de apoio à educação e familiares, e da observação das necessidades e interesses de bebês e crianças

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Mar. 10, 2010). Thesis advisor: Priscilla Blanton. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In general, a particularly complicated and difficult relationship has existed between parents and educators, due in part, to the fact that educators have always been seen as the experts and proverbial holders of knowledge in the educational process while parents have been seen to be peripheral to this process. This inequality is seen to be problematic as a child's significant learning is increasingly understood to occur in both the home and school contexts. This study explored the perceptions of a selection of parents and educators across the three levels of the educational process with the aim of facilitating a dialogue amongst all the participants in order to establish partnerships that would assist in the integration of the formal and informal learning processes. Using the Dialogue Game as a research tool, the participants in this study revealed many of the dilemmas that inhibit the establishment of partnerships between the two contexts. While the educators appeared resistant to the idea of a partnership as they perceived themselves to be 'experts' in the area of education, parents were aware that significant learning occurs in many contexts, but felt unconfident in their abilities to educate children. Some of the findings from the current study mirror those of two earlier studies (Van der Riet, 1997 and Danckwerts, 2002) conducted in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, respectively. Although all three samples were drawn from different socio-economic and cultural groups, the findings would suggest that the parents and educators of South Africa have essentially similar perceptions regarding formal and informal education. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

Research indicates that the limited communication between English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers and parents is a serious problem confronting educators. However, no serious study has been done to date on ESL parent-teacher communication that adequately recognizes the problematic nature of such communication and that approaches the discourse data from a functional linguistic perspective. This study investigates the communication processes between ESL teachers and Chinese immigrant parents (chiefly from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China) through a focal communication event, ESL Parents' Night, when they discuss their views of an ESL program in particular and the education of immigrant adolescent students in general. The study falls within the theoretical perspectives of learning organization, negotiation of intercultural conflict in a multilingual situation, language socialization, and sociocultural views of activity. Data were collected by multiple methods: 1) observations of twelve ESL department planning meetings and three annual Parents' Nights, 2) individual interviews of teachers and bilingual assistants who acted as intermediaries between teachers and parents, and 3) a focus group discussion. Specifically, the methodology combines qualitative research approaches and discourse analysis. Results indicate that teachers viewed the ESL program positively whereas many parents perceived it negatively. Teachers and parents were deeply divided both by what and how they were discussing at Parents' Night. This 'double difference' creates a major difficulty for intercultural negotiation of conflict, and preconditions aiding dialogue and negotiation become vitally important. Noting variation in interaction in different parts of Parents' Night, the study discusses various conditions that may have promoted or hindered the intercultural negotiation of these conflicts. The researcher's analysis of the difficulties of communication between Chinese parents and Canadian teachers at Parents' Night demonstrates less a solution to intercultural conflict than a need for continuous negotiation between the two cultural groups. Implications of this research include the need to expand the boundaries of language socialization theory to give a greater role to reflective processes, and learning organization theory to include multilingual and multicultural issues. It also provides practical suggestions for improving intercultural communication between parents and teachers in the interest of adolescent ESL learners frequently caught between conflicting sets of attitudes and expectations.

Parental involvement in schools has been contested for decades. Although it is clear that parents have a responsibility to care for and nurture their children, the legislated role of schools to educate children leaves somewhat ambiguous the role of parents. Using Hannah Arendt's notions of public and private and the emergence of a social sphere this conceptual research examines the complex relationship of parents to schools. Using the British Columbia Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC) Parent Advocacy Project as one model, this study illustrates how parents can play an important role in the public school education of their children. Parental involvement and legislated governance of schools have emerged as major educational issues in Canada. The struggle for control in education has its roots in the history of public education, legislation, the emergence of unions and the postindustrial global production/consumption market place economy. These issues reveal the emergence of a "social" sphere blurring the public/private distinctions, dominated by bureaucracy and alienating citizens from their political responsibilities to determine a good life. The emerging role of parents as advocates for their children in the schools may restore some balance to the public/private relationship, however, it may also reveal some of the problems of power and control within the system.

The study is in response to the recently enacted South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 (SASA), which sees the legislated inclusion of parents in school governing bodies. The Act promotes four distinct representative participants or stakeholders. These include parents, who constitute the majority, educators, learners and non-teaching staff. There is an indication that the SASA has tensions, ambiguities and contradictions which could allow either &quot / consumer market&quot / or &quot / citizen equity&quot / visions to prevail in practical terms. However, I argue that the SASA in practice is becoming dominated by the consumer vision that has a danger of creating unfair competition amongst schools and perpetuating the already existing inequalities in our society. In this mini-thesis, I attempt to investigate the nature of parental involvement in school governance in practice. I focus on their responsibilities in relation to policy matters as enshrined in the SASA, their commitment to executing their functions. The aim is to determine their capacity to fulfil their responsibilities with respect to their powers and functions.

Text in Afrikaans / The focus of this qualitative study is the way teachers experience parental involvement in the learning process of mentally disabled children. Five participants, teaching at a school for disabled children for more than ten years and working with children between the ages of six and 18, participated in this study. Individual, unstructured interviews were conducted with the participants to describe how they experience parental involvement in the learning process of mentally disabled children. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Nine recurring themes were identified in the transcriptions and compared with current literature. The aim of the study was not to generalize the findings, as it was a qualitative study and the participants were given the opportunity to share their experience. The result of this study is a detailed description of how teachers experience parental involvement in the learning process of mentally disabled children. / Social Work / M.Diac