The current thesis investigated the relationship between Vietnamese parents of children with a disability and special educators who worked with these parents in both mainstream and special schools in Melbourne Metropolitan Regions of the state of Victoria, Australia. The key objective of the study was to research the role of the parent-educator (interpersonal) relationship and its interrelatedness with the task: two major components of a home-school partnership. The research question that guided this study was 'How does the parent-educator relationship influence the operation of a family-centered home-school partnership?' With partnerships involving parents of diverse cultural backgrounds, investigating cultural influences on the partnership were an integral part of the research process. A qualitative interpretive approach was employed in searching for perceptions of involved parties about their home-school partnerships. The design selected was multiple embedded case studies with purposeful sampling. Influences on home-school partnership were investigated from a multidimensional perspective and were described and interpreted from the views of both parents and educators. The findings indicated that the relationship played a much more significant role than the task in the successfulness of an intercultural home-school partnership. Without a mutual understanding of home-school communication, the collaboration was far from productive or even did not work out. There was also evidence that a harmonious parent-educator interpersonal relationship did not seem to have any influence on the effectiveness of a home-school partnership without parent-educator mutual understanding and agreement in terms of goals and roles expectations. The need for the educators to be more appropriately equipped with cultural training and family-centered principles also arose from the study findings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/247923 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Le, Huong Thu, s3059921@student.rmit.edu.au |
| Publisher | RMIT University. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.rmit.edu.au/help/disclaimer, Copyright Huong Thu Le |
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