This research examined whether or not relationships exist between preschool teacher quality and parent involvement as indicated by the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler Model of Parent Involvement Survey. Additionally, the study also considered family income and child membership in special education as predictors of parent involvement. The survey instruments included the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale, Revised (ECERS-R) and the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler Parent Involvement Survey. A total of 306 parents across 35 preschool classrooms participated in the study. Effect sizes, beta weights and structure coefficients from a series of multiple regression analyses measured the relationship between variables. A regression equation comprised of teacher quality, family income and child membership in special education was statistically significant in predicting parent school-based involvement. In the school-based involvement model the predictors teacher quality and child membership in special education accounted for a greater percentage of variance than did family income. Teacher quality demonstrated a small, negative beta weight but accounted for the greatest amount of variance among the three predictors within the school-based parent involvement model. A negative relationship between teacher quality and school-based parent involvement suggested that as teacher quality improved, parents reported less involvement in school-based activities and events. Findings for special education membership, however, demonstrated a reverse effect in the model and appeared to have a positive significant effect on school-based involvement of parents. The study contributes to the literature on the relationship between teacher quality and parent involvement in early childhood preschool programs.

The focus of this study will be on how the stigma attached to mental illness impedes adolescent’s experiencing suicidal ideation & depression, willingness to seek out mental health services. The purpose of the study is to determine what action needs to be taken to address these issues to facilitate adolescent’s willingness to seek services. The study was qualitative and was conducted utilizing the constructivism approach with a theoretical orientation emphasized on the labeling and empowerment theory. The literature reviews focus on labeling of mental disorders and stigma, preventing factors and interventions that influence help seeking and mental health services utilization, and willingness of seeking services. The major themes identified include the following barriers: parental stigma, cultural beliefs, lack of understanding, mental health as a last resort, and accessibility of services. Recommendations made to encourage utilization of mental health services amongst adolescents include parental involvement/engagement and mental health education.

Current data reports approximately 46% of children ages 13-18 are affected by a mental health issue. Of those, 21% will experience a serious mental health disorder throughout their life. Due to the high percentage of school aged children that are affected by mental health disorders, school based mental health services have grown in popularity. Despite the positive attributes associated with providing mental health treatment in a school setting, various factors including race and levels of parental engagement have been identified as barriers to successful implementation. This study sought to identify the effects of parental engagement on the treatment, academic, and behavioral outcomes of Latino students receiving school based mental health services. Furthermore, the study utilized a quantitative approach by reviewing available archival and survey data. Findings were analyzed and themes were drawn for the purpose of identifying additional areas of research and ultimately improving the delivery of services.

Before entering school, children begin their science learning with their parents at home. This study proposes that parents' beliefs and actions regarding science shape their children's knowledge and skills that they then bring to school. Studying parents' beliefs about and practices with their children within the topic area of science provided insight into their influence in helping their children make sense of the world. Therefore, the purpose of this study aimed to investigate parents' beliefs about children's science learning and their actions in facilitating their children's science learning when they visited a science museum from socio-cultural perspectives. To investigate this, a qualitative case study examining nine Taiwanese parents of kindergarteners was conducted. The study was conducted in two parts. Data sources included field notes, parent interviews, and documents such as pictures of the equipment these parents bought for their children. First, through interviews with parents, their beliefs about their children's science learning were identified and examined. Four parts including parents' gendered science beliefs, parents' perceived importance of science learning, parents' beliefs about how science learning should proceed, and parents' beliefs about their engagement in science learning were found. Part two of the study examined how these nine parents' beliefs guided them in making decisions when they interacted with their children in a science museum through observations and follow-up interviews. In most cases, parents' beliefs appeared to be important resources for helping them find a proper way to interact with their children. Three issues including the person who took the lead at the family visits, the quantity of parents' intervention, and the scaffolding strategies these parents employed were found in their interactions with their children. Parents were aware of why they behaved in particular ways: because of their beliefs. Based on the findings, the researcher suggested that parents' beliefs were an important mechanism for influencing children's science learning. A seemingly simple behavior, such as letting children explore one object longer than others, might reflect what was recognized as important in their beliefs. Lastly, the implications for early childhood educators, parents of young children, and future research were provided. / text

The parenting literature predominately focuses on individual or family level factors that influence parenting behaviors. The field can benefit from focusing on factors outside the family that influence family roles and behavior. Utilizing a symbolic interactionist and gender perspective, this study examined how perceptions of work spill over into the family roles. More specifically, this study focused on how perceived work factors influence marital conflict and subsequently parental engagement. I specifically examined these perceptions in a sample of parents that frequently travel overnight for work. Traveling for work has become very common in the workplace, yet it is understudied in the research. I aimed to answer the following research questions: a) Are there differences among mothers and fathers who travel for work in their reports of work overload, effort recovery, job satisfaction, marital conflict and parental engagement? b) Do perceived work factors predict parental engagement over and above parent gender and marital conflict? c) Do perceived work factors predict marital conflict, which in turn predicts parental engagement? I used data from a larger multi-method project that examined the influence of travel on work, health, and families. Data were collected using questionnaires. I used traveler reports of their work and family roles, as I was interested in their perceptions of their roles. Results suggested that work factors predicted a significant amount of variance over and above marital conflict and parent gender. The mediation model suggested that job satisfaction, but not work overload or effort recovery, had a significant direct effect on parental engagement. Marital conflict did not mediate the relation between perceived work factors and parental engagement. The results suggest that the parenting field should look beyond the marital dyad when examining factors that influence parenting behaviors, as marital conflict did not assist in explaining parental engagement. Clinicians and practitioners should also focus on factors outside the family (i.e., the work environment) and the influence these factors have on parenting. Workplaces and employers should focus on increasing their employees' job satisfaction in order to enhance parenting behaviors. Limitations and future directions for research are also discussed. / Master of Science

Paper One: Developing positive relationships between schools and families has become an increasing priority within education in order to best support children and young people’s learning and development. Despite an increasing focus on seeking the parental ‘voice’, the views and experiences of school staff, parents and children appear to have limited prominence within the literature. This paper presents a piece of illuminative Community Psychology research that explored home-school relationships from the perspectives of school staff, parents and children from four Primary schools in a local community. A mixed-methods approach to data collection involved twenty-eight staff and sixty-four parent questionnaires, a focus group with eight children, and semi-structured research interviews with six staff and five parents. The importance of effective communication to encourage home and school to ‘work together’ is highlighted along with the need to provide support tailored to local needs focused around developing parental knowledge and skills to support children’s learning. The findings offer valuable insights into the views and experiences of parents, school staff and children around the current communication and engagement practices of schools in a local community. There are also implications for educational practice, including within Educational Psychology, in developing more effective home-school relationships in the future. Paper Two: With an increasing focus on supporting parental involvement within education, the development of effective ‘partnerships’ between schools and families is widening. Despite the wealth of information and advice around engaging parents in education (DfE, 2011), there appears limited training and ongoing support for school staff on how to foster and maintain these positive interactions and how to tackle ‘real life’ issues faced within home-school relationships. This research explored the role of a Community Educational Psychologist working with school staff to develop and maintain positive home-school relationships. Through support and facilitation from a Trainee Community Educational Psychologist, a series of education and supervision sessions were developed with a group of school staff to increase knowledge and confidence around the applications of psychology within education and the influential factors in home-school interactions. A model of reflection was introduced through the supervision sessions to assist the creation of a sustainable support network for staff within school concerning their work with families. The findings highlighted a ‘need to’ and ‘desire for’ developing school staff knowledge and confidence and the significant impacts of the education/supervision sessions in achieving this. Factors enabling and preventing progress through these sessions were noted along with the value of ‘sharing’ within supervision. The necessity of continued practice in order to embed supervision into teaching practice was acknowledged, and the positive impact of a Community Educational Psychologist facilitating these groups was found. Implications for educational practice, including within Educational Psychology, in supporting school staff with home-school relationships are discussed.

Managing language choice in speech-language intervention is increasingly an issue for speech-pathologists treating bilingual children. Frequently L2 approaches only are implemented, resulting in negative effects on L1 acquisition, familial ties, and cultural transmission. This study examined the impact of a bilingual intervention on a school-aged child and her family. Providing intervention and therapy activities in the L1 resulted in increased parental engagement, increased L1 use by the child, and increased awareness of strategies for treating bilingual children among SLPs at the study site.

This thesis reports a study of parental engagement in children's learning in three Pakistani heritage families in England. The aim of the study was to explore the perspectives and beliefs of Pakistani parents on how and why they engage with their children's school-related learning and beyond, and to investigate the perspectives of children on how their parents' engagement impacted on their behaviour as learners. The study aims to fill gaps in the existing research literature pertaining to examining parental engagement through the eyes of parents and students who face barriers to engagement. Contributions could be made in this area through studies focused on how parents engage with their children in the home. To achieve this, four questions were proposed: What are the forms of parental engagement in terms of children's school-related learning and beyond in a sample of Pakistani homes? Do parents have a clear view why they are engaging in such a way: if so, what is that view? To what extent do these forms of engagement appear to be shaped by distinctive cultural characteristics of Pakistani parents? How do their children view the impact of parental engagement on themselves as learners? These questions were investigated through an overarching ethnographic methodology to understand a small part of the cultural practices of this group. The data was collected through a combination of mixed qualitative methods: solicited diary interviews; photo voice interviews; video footage interviews; documents; field notes; and semi-structured interviews. The findings illuminated the issues of parental engagement and ethnicity, on which there is little literature, and made implications for policies and practices aimed at raising the achievement of this group. The data revealed how the parents engaged with their children in school-related issues; reading, writing and attending school functions. Moreover, the parents were engaged with aspects beyond school; such as, religion, culture, play and computers. The parents had a very broad understanding of education that encompassed not only school, but also activities outside the school environment. This is a very significant aspect, as the parents recognised that school does not teach everything. Data moreover revealed that the parents had different capacities ofengagement according to their own educational background and occupational stance. Those educated in Pakistan relied on the children's to help each other with school work, while some parents could provide more resources to their children consequently of their occupational stance. The parents wanted to preserve their culture and religion. They did this by teaching their children about their religion and culture; Quran, Arabic, Urdu and by sending them to the mosque. All this had a positive influence on their children's spiritual, cultural, personal, social and moral development. The children viewed parental engagement as a positive contributor to their lives. The main purpose of this engagement was to shape the children into good human beings. The children understood the importance of being self-confident, comfortable with who they are and motivated to succeed. Parental engagement made the children confident and wanting to strive for the best, while religious development made them understand the concept of right and wrong. The study moreover contributes to knowledge in several ways;1. the study highlights the diversity in the Pakistani population;2. the study adds to the understanding of how working-class Pakistani parents can have broad understandings of education which extend far beyond school-based learning, and include developing the skills, attitudes and resources to lead a 'good' life;3. the study demonstrates that religiosity is shown to be integral to Pakistani parents' engagement in their children's learning;4. the study highlights that Pakistani parents are shown to take responsibility for their children's 'holistic' education, and are also shown to use siblings as 'educational resources' to support school-based learning when they are unable to do so;5. the study reveals the relevance of Yosso's (2005) Community Cultural Wealth theory to the Pakistani community;6. the study also makes a contribution by presenting an insider account of parenting practices in Pakistani families.

The educational achievement and well-being of looked after children are a priority nationally and locally. The majority of looked after children enter the care system due to abuse and neglect and foster care is the most common placement type (DfE, 2012). Early experience of abuse and neglect is associated with changes to development in the frontal brain regions resulting in executive function difficulty. Executive functions are a collection of interrelated but distinct functions with responsibility for purposeful, goal-directed, problem-solving behaviour (Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000). Evidence of neural plasticity in the prefrontal cortex suggests executive function development can be supported. The two main methods of support are computer based training, such as in working memory training which yields immediate gains but may not be sustained or generalised (Melby-Lervåg & Hulme, 2013) and ecological executive function interventions, which are promising but are mainly used with pre-school samples (Bryck & Fisher, 2012).Parental involvement in children’s education is promoted nationally (DCSF, 2008) and valued by carers (Cooper & Johnson, 2007). Consultations between carers and professionals can indirectly support fostered children (Osborne & Alfano, 2011) but few studies have evaluated the use of consultation to support executive function development in fostered children (Lansdown, Burnell, & Allen, 2007). A multiple case-study design, with embedded units of analysis, was adopted to qualitatively explore the implementation processes and outcomes of a school-based intervention that adapted conjoint behavioural consultation (CBC) (Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2007) to support executive function development of children in foster care. Both cases consisted of a school-aged fostered child, living in the north west of England, with prior experience of abuse and/or neglect. The participants across cases were two educators and three carers and data gathering consisted of semi-structured interviews and participant-observation. Data analysis utilised thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and a cross-case analysis (Yin, 2009) identified common themes alongside themes pertinent to each case. The findings indicate that an adapted CBC retains the relational objectives which are received positively by participants but outcome objectives are more variable. The limitations of the study and the implications for educational psychologists, stakeholders, and future research are highlighted.

Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / Parental involvement in the process of implementing inclusive education is one of the major considerations for ensuring support, especially to learners with learning difficulties. The involvement of parents in their children’s education has been found to have a positive contribution and results in good learning outcomes. In the South African context, the Education White Paper 6 (EWP 6) and the policy on Screening, Identification, Assessment and Support (SIAS) emphasizes the importance of the role of parents in the process of implementing inclusive education. This study aimed to explore the ability of teachers to engage parents to assist their children with learning difficulties. A qualitative research method with a phenomenological research design was deemed suitable for the nature of this study with Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological systems theory as a theoretical lens to underpin this study.