Early childhood educators working to establish and maintain productive parent-teacher relationships are essential to the success of school-community partnerships in military- connected schools. The purpose of this study was to seek understanding of what early childhood educators had experienced while working with military families. Epstein's model of school, family, and community partnerships provided the conceptual framework for this study. The questions that guided this case study were designed to explore how early childhood educators established and maintained relationships with military families. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with 8 early childhood educators in military-connected schools. Inductive data analysis was used to code the data initially and then to determine these 5 themes: (a) educators used many methods to communicate with families; (b) parent involvement was influenced by educator communication, family life, and school culture; (c) deployments impacted student achievement; (d) strong community resources were deemed necessary; and (e) military children benefitted from having resilient educators. Participants believed timely training addressing the unique needs of military families would be advantageous. A 3-day professional development for early childhood educators was developed to incorporate the findings of this study. School districts implementing the professional development for early childhood educators in a strong school, family, and community partnership will result and will lead to positive social change by increasing the academic achievement, emotional wellbeing, and social welfare of children of military families attending military-connected schools.

Studies have increasingly shown that more parent involvement leads to higher academic achievement for kids. However, studies have also shown a difference in the ability of parents to effectively further their children's interest based on social class. Middle-class parents are described as being able to activate their cultural and social capital in order to further their interests, while working-class and low-income parents have been described as frustrated and marginalized- lacking the ability to activate their capital in a way that benefits themselves and their children. The intent of this study is to explore how parents understand their role in the parent teacher relationship to look for evidence that social class might not be as much of a factor as previous literature suggests when it comes to activation of cultural capital. Building on a study that found some working-class parents were able to activate cultural capital through their conversations with teachers, I wanted to find out if how parents understand and perform their role would offer more insight into how cultural capital is activated. Based on the premise that how parents understand their role in conversation with teachers might be able to affect their ability to activate their cultural capital, I conducted a qualitative interview study to explore how parents of 5th grade elementary students view their role in the parent-teacher relationship. Results of the study show that parents gained confidence in their role through conversations with teachers and that they also gained an increased ability to collaborate and engage in partnership with their childrens' teachers. Confidence in role and collaboration with teachers were seen as indications of activation of cultural capital. In this study, parents were able to activate their cultural capital by having collaborative relationships with teachers 9 out of 10 times, regardless of class background. I draw conclusions that parents in my study developed the ability to activate cultural capital regardless of social class background. Because of this, parents' experience of their relationships with teachers might not be as dichotomous as previous research suggests. My findings suggest that frequency of communication is an important mechanism that contributes to successful parent-teacher relationships. Communication that was particularly helpful included informal conversations and email. The use of email in parent-teacher conversations in particular is an area that deserves further study.

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Studies examining student-teacher relationships have indicated that certain relationship qualities, as well as teacher qualities, play a role in the development of student outcomes. Research suggests that this is particularly so for students who enter the classroom with preexisting risk factors (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). This study examined the way in which warm and caring teachers, as perceived by students themselves, moderate the link between the risk factor of early development of behavior problems at school and future problems, as defined by behavior problems and student-teacher conflict. Behavior problems were measured with an overall externalizing behavior composite. Participants in the analysis included 649 children from the longitudinal National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care. Variables in this study were measured from the 4 th through the 6 th grades. Though preliminary analyses indicated that having a warm and caring teacher in the 5 th grade was correlated with reduced behavior problems and better relationships with teachers in the 6 th grade, results of the moderation analyses suggested that there was no difference in extent of benefit for students with varying degrees of behavior problems. The results of this study may assist in determining how school psychologists can apply developmental theory through consultation with teachers to maximize student success and minimize problems in the classroom environment.

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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

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of South Africa, 2002.

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.