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The purpose of this study was to examine the parent involvement attitudes and practices of early care and education teachers. A sample of 171 early care and education teachers rated the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with 25 statements regarding general attitudes of parent involvement, as well as family and teacher and/or center obligations in creating family-school partnerships. Teachers were also asked to indicate the frequency in which they engaged in 9 specified activities that could be used to engage families in their young child's education. The surveyed teachers were from 31 early care and education centers that were participants in a quality improvement initiative designed to improve the school readiness of the children they serve. Fifteen of the 31 centers received additional services from a family engagement specialist, who worked to increase parent involvement at the centers and to strengthen family-school partnerships. Results indicated that, overall, the teachers reported positive views about parent involvement and the families they served. They recognized the benefits of family-school partnerships for young children. The teachers reported feeling that it was an important part of their job to involve all families and that all families had strengths and abilities that could be used to help their children get ready for kindergarten. Modest differences were found in the responses between teachers who had received assistance from family engagement specialists and those who had not, with teachers who were part of the intervention indicating stronger support from their directors and center and being more likely to talk to families about concerns. All of the teachers surveyed reported using a wide variety of strategies to engage families, with teachers in the intervention group using parent workshops and newsletters more often that the non-intervention group. Slight but significant differences were found on some of the survey questions related to teacher characteristics, such as hours worked at the center per week and age of children taught. With increased emphasis being placed on quality improvement in early care and education, it is important to know how those being asked to implement possibly new and demanding changes in practice feel about and respond to what is being asked of them. Efforts to support them should be effective and responsive to their current views and practices. / School Psychology

Ernest Boyer's The Basic School: A Community for Learning (1995) aligns with other important research and programs that encourage parent involvement to maximize each child's educational potential. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand and to document the first steps undertaken by one school as it began to address Boyer's school as community priority by reaching out to an uninvolved parent population. Meaning was constructed from the perspective of the researcher who was an active participant in the process. Research questions included: 1) What happened when one school began to address the needs of its at-risk population by intentionally reaching out to involve the parents of these students in the life of the school? 2) How was this accomplished within the context of a school beginning to address the priorities of a "Basic School?" 3) What structures were created to facilitate the process and guide its progress? Teachers in the School as Community Family at Kizer Elementary School were the initial focus of this study. Additional groups with related purposes became part of the inquiry as the process unfolded. Transcripts, field notes, and related documents were collected from all relevant group meetings and outreach activities from June of 1997 through January of 1998. The process of data analysis yielded descriptive conceptual models and an interpretive narrative case study that follows a modified chronology of the communicative action steps undertaken by a group of educators readying themselves for outreach to an alienated parent population. This study produced practical implications for schools wishing to begin the steps toward increasing the level of family and community engagement with student learning. A case was made for self-reflective action to create opportunities for authentic conversation that can empower families to take greater initiative in the public education of their children. If schools can learn to build, support and sustain relationships with parents, particularly their at-risk populations, they might expect a greater level of success in educating their children. / Ed. D.

Three decades of research have shown that family involvement improves children's learning. Schools that help families feel welcome and show them how to improve learning both at school and at home are likely to have more support from parents and the community. It was the intent of this study to examine how exemplary family involvement programs and initiatives were put into place in an elementary school in Virginia. The sources of evidence collected in the course of the 20 visits in this study were interviews, direct observations, and documentation. The research was conducted within components describing: (1) ways to get families from all social and ethnic backgrounds in the local community to participate in the school and at home, (2) the impact of policies on family involvement practices, (3) the effects of family involvement, (4) resources needed to promote and enhance family involvement initiatives, and (5) leadership in promoting family involvement in the school. People representing different segments of the population were identified and interviewed. Administrators, teachers, parents, and community members who were knowledgeable about family involvement were interviewed. Separate sets of framing questions were formulated for central office administrative staff and the principal, teachers, parents and community members. All interviews were audio taped and transcribed. The investigator also attended and observed family involvement events in the school and reviewed documents related to family involvement during the data collection period. Interview transcripts and observational notes were corroborated with evidence from document reviews. The investigator used a text management program, ASKSAM, to facilitate the identification and generation of themes in this study. The investigator integrated the computer-based and manual data analyses so that the advantages of each method were used. The results of this study indicated that when the principal, with the cooperation of teachers, provided the type of school culture that made parents feel welcome in the school, the parents could provide the essential leadership that would lead to improvements in educational opportunities for their children. Resources, in terms of funding and staffing, were a prerequisite to getting "hard-to-reach" parents to participate in their children's education. The findings of this study also indicated that family involvement at the governance and decision-making level is relatively low. / Ph. D.

Against the background of evidence that parent involvement benefits learners, parents, schools and communities, a need has arisen for effective parent involvment strategies to be developed particularly in rural and disadvantaged communities. A literature study investigated models of parent involvementand the provision of education in North West Province. Barriers to parent involvement in schools were also investigated. A qualitative methodology was used to investigate parent involvement in three rural schools in North West Province. Data were gathered by means of observation, semi-structures focus group interviews with parents and educators and semi-structures in-depth interviewswith principals of participating schools. Thus parents and educators blame each other for lack of participation. Other findings relate to the lack of resources and facilities in schools. Guidelines for proper parent involvement were proposed. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Comparative Education)

The purpose of this study was to examine involvement of African refugee parents in the education of their elementary school children. The setting of the study was Northern and Southern Texas. African refugee parents and their children's teachers completed written surveys and also participated in interviews. In the study's mixed-method design, quantitative measures provided data about parent involvement at home, parent involvement at school, frequency of parent-teacher contact, quality of parent-teacher relationship, parent endorsement of children's schools, and barriers to parent involvement. Qualitative data from the open-ended questions provided data on barriers and strategies to improve involvement. Sixty-one African refugee parents responded to the survey and also participated in an in-depth face-to-face or telephone interview. Twenty teacher participants responded to an online survey. Quantitative data gathered from the parent and teacher surveys were analyzed using frequency distributions and analyses of variance. Qualitative data were analyzed by summarizing and sorting information into different categories using Weft QDA, an open-source qualitative analysis software. From these data, I identified barriers to African refugee parent involvement in their children's schools, as well as challenges that teachers face as they try to involve African refugee parents. Results of analyses of variance revealed statistically significant differences in parent involvement between African refugee parents with limited English proficiency and those with high English proficiency. A key finding of the research was that, whereas the overall level of parent involvement for African refugee parents was low, a major barrier to involvement was language. Teachers and parents cited enrolment in English as a second language programs as the best strategy to enhance parent involvement of African refugees. Additionally, parents who reported higher education levels were more involved in their children's education both at home and at school. All groups of African refugee parents reported high endorsement of their children's school. Strategies suggested to improve involvement include the use of interpreters and parent education on importance of involvement.

Against the background of evidence that parent involvement benefits learners, parents, schools and communities, a need has arisen for effective parent involvment strategies to be developed particularly in rural and disadvantaged communities. A literature study investigated models of parent involvementand the provision of education in North West Province. Barriers to parent involvement in schools were also investigated. A qualitative methodology was used to investigate parent involvement in three rural schools in North West Province. Data were gathered by means of observation, semi-structures focus group interviews with parents and educators and semi-structures in-depth interviewswith principals of participating schools. Thus parents and educators blame each other for lack of participation. Other findings relate to the lack of resources and facilities in schools. Guidelines for proper parent involvement were proposed. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Comparative Education)