Parental involvement in the education of their children is acknowledged to be a major factor in children's successful growth. However, the changing nature of families, particularly low income, minority families has had a significant effect on the nature and extent of such involvement. The national Head Start\Public School Transition project is designed to maintain, among other purposes, the high level of parent participation found among parents of Head Start children as these children enter public schools. The shifting character of these families has made this a difficult task. Little is known of the perceptions of schools and the barriers to participation in public school functions which are present in these families. The purpose of this study is to discover these perceptions in a group of African American and Hispanic families who are part of the Virginia component of the Transition Project. Five families with children currently attending first and second grade classrooms where Transition services and opportunities for participation are offered were selected for in-depth study. The family, the program, the teacher, and the school were studied in detail using observation, interviewing and document analysis in a standard case study format. Field notes and interview material were transcribed and coded using the software package, Ethnograph Themes, story lines, and concepts were allowed to emerge and were then summarized. Several themes relating to constraints to participation were identified including: motivational characteristics, expectations of the school, goals for children, teacher receptivity and the culture of the school. It was discovered that these specific parents were interested in participating in their child's education, yet in the Transition program, guidelines and expectations were unclear to them and intimidating to others. A recommendation for working with the parents of children enrolled in Head Start\Transition Programs include providing a variety of opportunities, based on the interest of the parents are available. Additional suggestions for programs such as the Transition Project are provided in this study. / Ed. D.

Parental involvement is the foundation of every child‟s progress in school. Those whose parents are fully involved in their education tend to do better academically than those whose parents are not. This qualitative study explores the parent‟s perception of their involvement in education of their children. The method employed was a semi-structured interview and the participants were 12 Nigerian parents who had children within the age range of 6-13 in three schools in Stockholm, Sweden. The findings from this study indicate that parents acknowledge the importance of parental involvement in education while at the same time acknowledging the challenges experienced in participating fully in the education of their children.

This research examines the involvement of the parents of secondary school children in career education and guidance (CEG). It is based on a secondary analysis of existing data from a research project I was involved in. This initial research evaluated the impact of a parent-involved career intervention, 'Parents Turn', in which six career teachers delivered four successive sessions to parent(s) accompanied by their child in the third or fifth year of their secondary school (HAVO) in the Netherlands. The study is important both to the field and to practitioners. Examples of parentinvolved career intervention in CEG are limited, scantily researched, and most were not sustained, which may explain why knowledge on involving parents in CEG is underdeveloped. I discuss these gaps in the evidence by providing an overview on the literature on parental influences and roles in their child's career development, an international inventory of and taxonomy for parent-involved, school-based career interventions, and providing relevant knowledge on parental-involvement in education in general. I then present new analysis of data collected by an earlier evaluation of the 'Parents' Turn' intervention. My secondary analysis approaches this data with new research questions, in-depth analyses and a non-parametric methodology. I integrated the quantitative and qualitative results to understand who was involved in the intervention, why, and whether the impact differed for the learning of parents with and without higher education (HE) qualifications. I also sought to understand the role of the school in the intervention. The findings suggest that a school-initiated career intervention involving parents, in the form of family learning and community interaction, can build and enhance parents' capacity to be involved in and support the career development of their child: their knowledge and skills, parental self-efficacy and parental role-definition. However, the career intervention works differently for parents who have different levels of HE level attainment. Lower-educated parents seem less aware of the consequences of early educational decisions in their child's career and also have different needs for being involved in the career intervention compared to highereducated parents. Despite the impact of the career intervention on their parental capacity, lower-educated parents remain unsure as a parent of how to make use of gained information, guidance and support tools. Third-year (14-16-year-olds) parents' information and support needs are the greatest and they are open to changing their attitude to grant their child autonomy in managing their own career development. The study also finds that features of the present school system are major barriers to sustaining the intervention. Recommendations for policies and practice at school level are offered. A more focused public policy for parental involvement in career education and guidance in secondary schools could both improve the efficiency of the education system and combat social injustice.

No description available.

The Junior primary teachers have the task of catering for the needs of pupils of varying abilities in their charge. With the admission of culturally different groups of children (many of them from disadvantaged communities) to schools previously accustomed to having one cultural group, this task of catering for the needs of pupils presents a problem as teachers are not trained to deal with disadvantaged children. The aim of this study was to formulate scientifically sound guidelines according to which class teachers can plan and implement language programmes for disadvantaged learners. In order to formulate such guidelines, a theoretical investigation was undertaken on normal language development and on the effects of disadvantagement on the scholastic and language performance of the child. Various programmes available for disadvantaged learners which are being implemented in other countries were evaluated. On the basis of these findings guidelines were suggested to class teachers for planning language programmes for disadvantaged learners. / Teacher Education / M. Ed. (Orthopedagogics)

The Junior primary teachers have the task of catering for the needs of pupils of varying abilities in their charge. With the admission of culturally different groups of children (many of them from disadvantaged communities) to schools previously accustomed to having one cultural group, this task of catering for the needs of pupils presents a problem as teachers are not trained to deal with disadvantaged children. The aim of this study was to formulate scientifically sound guidelines according to which class teachers can plan and implement language programmes for disadvantaged learners. In order to formulate such guidelines, a theoretical investigation was undertaken on normal language development and on the effects of disadvantagement on the scholastic and language performance of the child. Various programmes available for disadvantaged learners which are being implemented in other countries were evaluated. On the basis of these findings guidelines were suggested to class teachers for planning language programmes for disadvantaged learners. / Teacher Education / M. Ed. (Orthopedagogics)