smit, f., moerel, h., wolf, k. van der & sleegers, p. (1999) (eds.). building bridges between...

Edited by:Frederik SmitHans Moerel

Kees van der WolfPeter Sleegers

Building bridgesbetween home

and school

BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN HOME AND SCHOOL

ii Building bridges between home and school

Building bridges between home and school

Edited by:dr. Frederik Smitdrs. Hans Moerelprof. dr. Kees van der Wolfprof. dr. Peter Sleegers

INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCESUNIVERSITY NIJMEGENSCO/KOHNSTAMM INSTITUTE

iv Building bridges between home and school

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Building bridges between home and school. / dr. F. Smit, drs. H. Moerel, prof. dr. K. van der Wolf &prof. dr. P. Sleegers - Nijmegen: ITSISBN 90 - 5554 - 12 8 - 1NUGI 722

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Preface

In an increasing number o f countries schoolsbecome convinced that good partnershipsbetween parents and com munities are necessaryin behalf of the optimization of pupils’development opportunities, the enhancement ofpupils’ educational careers and the improvementof teachers’ task performance.

ERNAPE (European Research Network AboutParents in Education) is an association of researchnetworks in the area of education, in particularabout parents in education. In 1993 theassociation was established w ith the aim to shareresearch results, stimulate research at all levels. A first conference ‘Education is Partnership’ washeld in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1996.On 18 and 19 November 1999, the secondroundtable conference ‘Building bridges betweenhome and school’ was organised at the Universityof Amsterdam, Netherlands . During thisconference the current state of affairs, models,strategies, legislation, experiences andexperiments concerning home-schoolpartnerships were discussed.

The participants came from many countries inEurope including representatives from Poland,Croatia, Albania, Bulgaria and also Cyprus. Fromoutside Europe the United States of America andCanada were represented. Th e participants werenot only researchers but also representedministries of education, parent organisations andschools.

Two researchers from the ITS, in collaborationwith specialists on parent participation from theUniversity Nijmegen and the SCO-KohnstammInstitute have brought together in this volume therecent scientific and social developme nts inrelation to the collaboration between families,school and comm unity.

I hope that this volume will contribute to astronger reciprocal relationship between schoolsand their surroundings to meet the challenges forthe new millennium.

ITSNijmegen/Amsterdam, November 1999

prof. dr. H.P.J.M. Dekkersact. Director

vi Building bridges between home and school

Contents

Preface v

Introduction; building bridges between home and school 1Frederik Smit, Hans Moerel, Kees van der Wolf, Peter Sleegers

Part 1 - Parents’ orientation on collaboration between home and school 3

Looking back, loo king ahead: reflection on lesson s over twenty-five years, don davies 5

Parents involvement in edu cation: models, strategies and contex ts, Shawn Moore, Sue Lasky 13

‘I’m not clever. I listen to her read that’s all I can do’: parents supporting their children’s learning,Emma Beresford, Sue Botcherby and Olwen McNamara 19

Who gets involv ed and who does n’t, Stelios Georgiou 27

Overcoming barriers to family inv olvement in low-income area sc hools, Oliver Moles 31

Experiments with the role of paren ts in primary education in the Nethe rlands, Frederik Smit, Hans Moerel, Peter Sleegers 37

Research on the relationship b etween migrant parents and p rimary schools, Annemiek Veen 43

Parental/community involvement and behaviour problems in Dutch secondary schools,Kees van der Wolf, Ronald Lippens, Pauline Huizenga 47

Information project developm ent work - cooperation betw een home and scho ol, Ingebjörg Johanessen 53

‘Parents at School’ programme as a perspective of partnership’s orientation increase inPoland, Maria Mendel 59

viii Building bridges between home and school

Part 2 - Schools’ perspective on collaboration between fam ilies, school and comm unity 67

Home-school agreem ents: the business of partnership, Gary Heywood-Everett 69

A system for planning and implementing family/school/community partnerships, Donald Lueder 77

Connecting studen t achievement to teaching stand ards and family, school, communitypartnerships, Jennifer Hartman, Ann Kinkor, Babara Wilson & Rhonda Payne 81

A prospective overview on school/family/comm unity partnerships in 25 prima ry schoolsin Portugal, Adelina Villas-Boas 85

Pedagogical attunemen t: parents, teachers and the pedagog ical assignment of the school,Cees Klaassen & Han Leeferink 89

Being power partners, Pirjo Nuutinen 95

Partnership in action: an evaluation of a school policy on parents working with their ownchildren in school, Leonidas Kyriakides 103

Teacher, tutor, parent: the eternal triangle?, Helen Phtiaka 111

Part 3 - Specific aspects of collaboration between home and school 121

Assessing entry characteristics in Kindergarten, Ton Mooij & Ed Sm eets 123

Home-school partnersh ip in primary mathematics: a sociolog ical analysis, Andrew Brown 131

Parents and mathematics education reform: a U.S. case-study, Martha Allexsaht-Snider 141

The school as an active partner in en vironmental work?, Elzbieta Bielecka 145

Parents school partnership programs to assist refugees and other vulnerable populations,Daniel Safran 153

Patterns of academic support: som e findings from a home scho ol numeracy project withSomali families living in Londo n, Lesley Jones 159

Drug consumptio n prevention: parents perspec tive, Raquel-Amaya M artínez González, Marisa Pereira, Norberto Corr al, Begoña Dona ire, Ana Isabel Alvarez, Victoria Casielles 165

Introduction; building bridges between home andschool

This volume is a collection of 25 essays, groupedinto three parts, on the theme of building bridgesbetween home and school.The first part contains a parents’ orientation andreflection on partnerships between home andschool (Don Davies), models, strategies andcontexts (Shawn Mo ore, Sue Lasky), parentssupporting their children’s learning (EmmaBeresford, Sue Botcherby, Olwen McNamara)and possible predictors of parental involvement(Stelios Georgiou). Oliver Moles describesovercoming barriers to family invo lvement inlow-income area schools. Frederik Smit, HansMoerel, Peter Sleegers give an overview of typesof experiments with the role of parents in primaryeducation in the Netherlands.The research of Annemiek Veen consists on therelationship between migran t parents and primaryschools. Kees van der Wolf, Ronald Lippens andPauline Huizenga explored questions aboutparental/community involvement and behaviourproblems in Dutch secondary schools. The studyof Ingebjörg Johanessen concerns successfulinteraction between home an d school. MariaMendel describes a ‘parents at scho ol’programme.

The second part is devoted to the schoolperspective on collaboration between families,school and comm unity. Home-school agreemen tsis studied by Gary Hey wood-Everett. DonaldLueder presents a strategic planning system. Thegroup Jennifer Hartman, Ann Kinkor, BarbaraWilson and Rhonda Payne describes aninnovative partnership pro gram in California.

Adelina Villas-Boas gives a prospective overviewon school/family/community partnerships in 25primary schools in Portugal. Cees Klaassen enHan Leeferink present the results of research in topedagogical attunement between schools andfamilies. Pirjo Nuutinen reports what Finnishteachers think about their power position.Leonidas Kyriakides presents findings of anevaluation of a primary schoo l in Cyprus todevelop a policy for parents w orking with theirown children in school. Helen Phtiaka gives anexample of the triangle: teacher, tutor, parent inCyprus.

The third part reports on a number ofinvestigations related to specific aspects ofcollaboration between ho me and school. TonMooij and Ed Sme ets studied assessing entrycharacteristics in Kindergarten Andrew Brownpresents a sociological analysis of home-schoolpartnership in primary mathematics. MarthaAllexsaht-Snider presents an analysis of schooland parents involved in mathematics educationreform in the U.S. Elzbieta Bielecka describessome environmental projects in Poland aimed atimproving children’s perform ance at school.Daniel Safran gives a description of parent schoolpartnership programs to assist refugees and othervulnerable populations. Lesley Jones discussessome findings from a home school nummeracyproject with Somali families living in London.Raquel-Amaya Martínez González, MarisaPereira, Norberto Corral, Begoña Donaire, AnaIsabel Alvarez, Victoria Casielles describe thefamily role in drug consumption prevention.

Building bridges between home and school2

The contributions to this volume were presentedat the European Research Network About Parents

and Education (ERNAPE) held in Amsterdam(the Netherlands) on November 18-19, 1999.

Frederik SmitHans MoerelKees van der WolfPeter Sleegers

Part 1

Parents’ orientation on collaboration between home and school

4 Building bridges between home and school4

Looking back, looking ahead: reflections on lessonsover twenty-five years

Don Davies

For the last 25 years my professional life has beendominated by my work for the Institute forResponsive Education, which I founded in 1973to study and promo te family, community, schoolpartnerships. I embarked on th is work after 5years as an official in the US educationdepartment, and several years as official of thelargest American teachers’ union, the NationalEducation Association. Before that I was engagedin teacher education in universities and inteaching in high school. These years in educationconvinced me that really goo d education for allchildren, rich and poor, was only going to bepossible if families and commu nities became fullpartners with schools in the enterp rise. I have come to see that all parts of the child’sworld must share respons ibility for the child’slearning and development. This concept of sharedresponsibility is seen by some as a radical idea,and by others as unrealistic. The majority opinionby academics and educators is that the jobs ofschools and families and co mmunities arebasically separate and should be kept that way.And, yet for me, this concept of sharedresponsibility, is at the heart of all the efforts Ihave made over the years.I also became convinced that good partnershipsbetween schools, parents an d communities arepossible in all kinds of schools and communities‘pre-school, elementary, urban, rural, rich andpoor. I know this because we have goodexamples all across the US and overseas.(Unhappily, partnerships are still the exceptionand not the rule, as can be seen in the recent 1997OECD report on the status of parent involvementin nine countries.) My wo rk over these 25 yearshas involved dozens of studies and projects in the

US and several other countries and theopportunity to work with and learn from dozensof other researchers and advocates doing similarwork. The International Roundtables, whichJoyce Epstein and I initiated mo re than ten yearsago have been a particularly rich source oflearning from scholars and practitioners in manyother countries.This Roundtable in Amsterdam offers me theopportunity to reflect back on those 25 years ofstudies and projects in several countries and onwhat I have been able to learn from o thersworking in this field. Wha t I want to do in thisbrief paper is to identify and discuss a few of thelessons that seem especially important to me.These are reflections and interpretations, basedonly partly on research and colored by ownperspectives, values, and opinions. I will alsodraw to a limited extent on papers presented atearlier Roundtables. So, how do schools andfamilies and communities make partnershipshappen. I’ll offer a few brief thoughts andrecommendations.

Look first to the teachersPartnerships work best if teachers are given help,support, and training. If increased involvement offamilies and community organizations andagencies with the schools is the aim, why worryfirst about the teachers? The answer: Teacherscan make or break any effort to change thetraditional separation of schools from the familiesand communities they serve. I have seen this inmany American schools and in IRE’s recentcross-national study in five countries.Without teacher interest, support, and skill muchof that that is commonly known as parent


involvement won’t work. For most parents in theworld, the teacher is the primary and sometimesthe only connection to the school and holds thekey to good com munication. Yet, often plans forpartnerships are developed with little or noteacher input and teachers are told ‘Here is ournew parent involvement project, funded by this orthat foundation or government. So, teacher, justdo it.’ Sometimes they do it, but o ften they don’t.The apparently natural and almost universalteacher concern about professional status andexpertise and traditional resistance to outsiderinfluence is difficult to overcome. We sawteacher resistance and fear of losing professionalstatus as a factor in many of the schools in arecent cross-national study, across five verydifferent cultures and national traditions. We sawin all of the countries that teachers were proud oftheir expertise and wanted to protect their ownturf (Davies and Johnson 1996).What is needed? Teacher education institutionsneed to prepare future teachers to wo rk positivelywith parents and community agencies andinstitutions and to learn how families and thecommunity can benefit the teacher and thestudents. New teachers learn through instructionand experience that partnerships with parents andcommunity agencies d oes not diminish theirprofessional expertise or status but in fact canenhance these.Once he or she starts to teach the new teacherneeds to be given positive encouragement byother teachers and school adm inistrators toengage in the desired partnersh ip activities, and tobe protected if and when things go wrong.Teachers on the job also need specific training,information, and recognition when they are askedto undertake new kinds of partnership activitiessuch as student homes, using parents asvolunteers in the classroom, or participating on adecision-making committee with parentrepresentatives. And, when a new policy orproject is to be launched, teachers must beinvolved in planning for it. The issue of preparing

teachers for partnership has been addressed byseveral participants in the InternationalRoundtables in Europe and the US, includingDeanna Evans-Schilling, Joyce Epstein, MarthaAllexsaht-Snider, and Dan Safran from the US,Helen Phtiaka, Cyprus, and Birte Ravn, Denmark.

Make it officialPartnerships work best when they have theofficial sanction of written policies.Like it or not, schools are bureaucratic andconservative institutions. They mostly live byrules and policies. So, if you want to haveteachers and administrators reach ou t to parentsand to community institutions, there should bewritten policies which recomm end or mandatesuch activities and provide guidelines for howsuch partnerships might be established andmaintained.

I have seen that it is helpful to have com patiblewritten policies in support of partnersh ips at alllevels, national, state or province, local district,and individual school. It is also useful whensupportive policies are negotiated into teacherunion contracts.

Another way of achieving official sanction forpartnership practices is to win the support andpositive endorsement of the head of the school.There are many case studies, including the actionresearch studies of the Institute for ResponsiveEducation for the Center on F amilies, that supportthis belief (Palanki and Burch, 1995). My ownexperience is dotted with many both positive andnegative examples of the powerful influence ofthe school principal on efforts to initiate orsustain school, family, community partnershipefforts.

Having laws and written policies is not enough,of course. These must be implemented andenforced. For example, Smit and van Eschreported that not many of the goals of

Building bridges between home and school 7

participation in their country were being realized(Smit and van Esch, 199 2). Izabel Solomon inAustralia discovered that the official structurescreated by national government have produced alot of rhetoric but little action.

Focus on children’s learningPartnerships work best wh en improved children’slearning is seen as the main goal by teachers,parents, and community agencies. Thepartnership idea is most acceptable topolicymakers if they believe that suchpartnerships contribute to children ’s academicsuccess in school. This is usually true forteachers, community agen cies, and parentsthemselves. There is a good evidence thatconnects various kind s of partnerships withstudent learning, if those partnerships are welldesigned and carefully implemented.

Joyce Epstein has reported th at when schoolsinform parents about children’s acad emicprogress in schools, their expec tations for theirchild’s success goes up. Epstein’s work onhomework has sh own that families are morelikely to be able to help their children withacademic work at home if teachers givehomework assignments that are interactive,provide clear and specific information about thecontent and methods being used in the classroom,and offer encouragement along with writtenmaterials and guidelines.

Dozens of International Roundtable presentationsover the years have focused on how parents andcommunity agencies ca n promote children’slearning. One example has been the work of RaulPizzaro in Chile who has conducted and reportedon several studies of the effects of homeinterventions on studen t achievement inmathematics and Spanish and has concluded thatfamilies and schools can wo rk together toenhance students’ cogn itive achievement

(Pizzaro 1992). But, my o wn experience inschools suggests that many administrators andteachers still see parent involvement as amarginal activity ‘nice,’ but not central to theschool’s instructional goals and many schoolreform programs give only a little attention toparents and the commu nity.

Provide for a diverse opportunitiesPartnerships work best wh en they arecomprehensive. Joyce Epstein developed andtested a five part typology for parent involvementand then expanded it to include a sixth type ofpartnership involving exchanges with thecommunity. This typology was used in many ofthe studies of the Center on Families,Communities, Schools, and Children’s Learning(Epstein 1992). My own experience and studiessuggest that a wide range of o pportunities, both inthe school and the hom e and the community isneeded to meet the diverse interests, needs, andconditions of the variety of families in mostcommunities. For many families, supporting theirchildren’s learning at home and in the communityis more attractive and feasible than attendingevents or committee meetings in the school.Nancy Chavkin reported that non-traditionalactivities outside the school attracted moreparents than activities organized in the school(Chavkin 1992). Few schools actually undertakea comprehensive approach. The efforts I see areoften piecemeal, a series of programs, events, orsmall projects. I have seen good results fromusing Epstein’s typology planning tool, whichencourages those invo lved to consider all sixtypes of involvement, inclu ding: 1) The basicobligations for child-rearing, building positivehome conditions that su pport children’sdevelopment; 2) Basic obligations of schools forcommunicating about school programs andchildren’s progress; 3) Family involvement atschool as volunteers, aides, audiences for studentperformances, participants in meetings and socialevents; 4) Involvement in learning activities at


home, monitoring and assisting children; 5)Involvement in governance, decision-making andadvocacy in school-based organizations and inthe community; 6) Collaboration and exchangesbetween the school and the community (Epstein1992). Ultimately, a comprehensive approach canand should lead to a change in the culture of theschool and its connections with families and thecommunities. There are some examples of suchculture change in several countries. One of thebest examples is the Patrick O’Hearn School inBoston. The altered culture in this sch ool isnoticed by even the most casual visitors to theschool and described in IRE’s report on its actionresearch projects (Palanki and Bu rch 1995).

All families need help sometimePartnerships work best when the schools andhealth and social service agencies join together toplan how best the need s of the children and theirfamilies can be served.

There is no one best way that schools can linkwith community age ncies. But the point is that allfamilies need support and help at one time oranother ‘some need more help than others andneed it more often’ if schools want to h elp allchildren succeed they need to be concerned aboutmeeting the non-academic health and socialservice needs of the children and the families.There is much research evidence, bolstered bymuch common sense, that academic achievementis linked to health, emotional stability, nutrition,sleep of children and to the social and healthconditions of the home . It is obvious that schoolscannot meet all the complex so cial and healthneeds of the children and families they serve andmust enlist to other community agencies andinstitutions. There are many prom ising models inthe US and other coun tries that point the way tocoordinated or shared services. Some of thesemodels and their results have b een reported invarious of our International Roundtables.

My own experience suggests strongly thatpartnerships work best wh en the relationshipbetween schools and community organizationsand agencies is really an exchange, not justcommunity groups or business doing things forthe schools. The schools and their staffs havemuch to offer to other agencies and othercommunity residents, inclu ding access to theirphysical facilities (such as computer labs, g yms);access to their expertise, teachers andadministrators who offer their talents and skills tothe community; and students who serve thecommunity in service projec ts. The relationshipbetween schools and their communities should bereciprocal. This reciprocal relationship meansmore than the community contributing to thechild and to the school. It must also mean that theschool contributes to the economic and socialdevelopment of the com munity. A truepartnership involves an exchange of resources.

I see family literacy programs as another form offamily support. Many participants in InternationalRoundtables have described various approachesto intergenerational literacy including TrevorCarney, Jacqueline McGilp, and Derek Toomeyfrom Australia; Lorrie Connors-Tadros, and RuthHandle and Ellen Goldsmith from the US; andAdelina Villas Boas from Portugal. Many of theprojects reported aim to raise parents’ awarenessof the important role that they play in their ch ild’slanguage developm ent and help them learn trypractical ways to help their children read better.

A room of their ownPartnerships work best wh en there are visiblesigns and symbo ls of welcome in the school itselfand when there are practical organizational meansof planning and carrying out partnershipactivities. Family or parent centers fill this needfor a symbol of welcome and for a location andcapacity for organizing partnership activities.Such centers are a low-cost, easy-to-manage wayto make schools more h ospitable to parents, to


plan and carry out activities, and to serve as ahandy locale for parent-to-parent andparent-to-teacher communication . In the US and a few other cou ntries they arefunctioning for many dif ferent purposes:operating food banks; providing libraries forparents with books, toys, computer hardware andsoftware; clothing exchanges; language classes;and workshops and support groups for parents.Vivian Johnson, wh o was one of the researchersfor the Center on Families, Communities,Schools, and Children’s learning and a frequentparticipant in International Roundtables, hasstudied parent/family centers and reported ontheir effectiveness (Johnson 19 93).

Reaching the hard to reachPartnerships work best wh en they are designed tobenefit all children and families, across lines ofrace, ethnicity, social class, and family income. Isee the gap between the hav es and the have-notsis the most important political, social, andeducational problem that the w orld faces as itstarts the new millennium. Edu cators in everyplace must make sure that progress toward higherstandards of academic content and performancefor students is shared across lines of race andsocial class. We must make sure that thewonderful new ben efits of technology don’tfurther widen the already large gaps between thepoor and the affluent.This means finding way s to help all studentsachieve, despite economic d isadvantage. It isimportant to ask parents to work hard not only forthe interests of better education for their ownchildren but also for better schools for allchildren. I must point out with co nsiderableembarrassment that the US has the widest gapbetween rich and poor families (and the gap hasincreased in recent years). The country offersfewer and less generous social programs forfamilies and children than other countries.There is an important new study whichdocuments the achievement gap between

middle-class and affluent children and childrenwho are poor, black, Hispanic, and low-incomewhite families. This report by the Education Trustargues that raising standards of academic contentand performance for all children is both possibleand essential (Education Trust 1996).Well executed partnerships can help schoolsreach those parents they cons ider hardest toreach. These are very often families that are poor,from minority groups, or considered outside ofthe mainstream. I have seen many successfulefforts to ‘reach the hardest to reach,’ but I havealso seen what Derek Toomey has been warningus about for several years: that parentinvolvement program s, if they reach and helpmore affluent, middle-class families and theirchildren can actually widen and not narrow thegap between the have’s and the have nots.Toomey writes: I believe that many parentinvolvement programs in schools fail to includethe hardest-to-reach families and that often thesefamilies are not able to give the suppo rt to theirchildren’s education they w ould like to be able togive’ (Toomey, 1992).This warning leads me as I look ahead torecommend that educators and organizationsconcerned about narrowing the economic andsocial class gaps pay special attention todesigning diverse and imaginative strategiesaimed at those families who are often left beh ind.

Partnership also means power-sharingPartnerships work best wh en democraticprinciples are applied.These principles which include involving familiesand other community residents in planning andmaking decisions about their schools and abouthow partnerships should be set up and managedso that family members are seen as partners not‘outsiders’ clients (for whom you do something).When educators b egin to see families as partnersand not just ‘clients,’ I find that they will discoverways to involve them in governance anddecision-making proces ses. This means they will


include them in decision-making about budgets,personnel, and curriculum. T hey will tap theiropinions through surveys, focus groups,conferences, and telephon e hot lines. They willkeep them informed about problems and issues.We know that active or passive resistance will befound to such participation w hich leads topower-sharing, but those school leaders who takethe risks involved usually find that the benefitsoutweigh the costs. The benefits include betterdecisions, decisions that are more w idelysupported, a stronger sense of parent andcommunity ownership of school programs, andincreased political support from parents and thecommunity. To make power sharing workableand realistic requires a careful re-design of thedecision-making structures u sually found inschools and larger districts in which schools areembedded. Many studies have shown that manyadvisory or decision-mak ing committees that areset up become only tokens or are dominated bythe educators. We know also that many structuresset up are dominated by the most sophisticatedand well-educated members of a school's parentcommunity.One way to increase meaningful family andcommunity participation in d ecision-making is todecentralize important decisions from the centerto the individual school. Another is to broadenthe kinds of opportun ities and structures. On thispoint, I have been influenced by the work ofPhilip Woods of the Open University in Englandwho provided a framework for thinking aboutparent roles and aspirations which includes:transforming the way services are provided,making choices abou t which school to send th eirchildren to; making sure the school is meeting theneeds the parents want it to; letting serviceproviders know their views; seeking to influenceor take part in the school decision-makingprocess (Woods 1993). Strong parent associationsor parent-teacher organizations can help providesome parents with a stronger voice in schoolaffairs, if these groups address important school

issues and represent parent interests as well asschool interests.Another very important form of power-sharing orparent/community influen ce on schools isthrough independent organizations such ascommunity develo pment associations and ch ildadvocacy groups . These groups can give p arentsand others in the community a stronger voice onschool matters. The importance of parent andcommunity organizations working on schoolissues goes beyond helping the school. There is abroader social benefit. I have been struck by thework of Robert Putnam of Harvard Universitywho has demonstrated that one important elementof a civil society and stronger comm unities isnetworks of civic associations. In h is research inItaly over a decade Putnam has demonstratedempirically the direct link between the existenceof a network of civic associations an d economicproductivity and the flourishing of democracy.By civic associations he means organizationssuch as parent groups, local choruses andorchestras, sports clubs, neighborhood councils,and community organizations working on schoolissues (Putnam 1994 , 1997).Putnam points out that the quality of public lifeand the performance of social institutions (e.g.schools and families) in America an d elsewhereare powerfully influenced by norms and networksof civic engagement, which he and others callsocial capital.Putnam’s work corrobo rates the political theoryof ‘civic humanism,’ which means that a strongand free government depends on a virtuous andpublic spirited citizenry and a civic com munitythat supports the governm ent. To reach such agoal and sustain it a society must create educationfor its citizens that emphasizes good citizenship.While America has often been credited as being amodel for democracy and citizen activism,Putnam notes that civic participation in ourcountry has declined markedly in the past fourdecades. Reversing this decline is both aneducational and political challenge.


So, my point here is that collaboration betweenschools, families, and communities is onestrategy that can be helpful in demo craticsocieties seeking to sustain and advancedemocratic principles. Schools can make animportant contribution by striving to give thefamilies they serve a variety of opportun ities toparticipate in setting policies about bud get,personnel, and programs, and in importantdecisions about the scho ol.

Cross national exchanges do workI think our International Roundtables havedemonstrated over and over that studies andexamples in one coun try are useful to those inseeking to change po licies and practices infamilies, communities, and schools in thedirection of partnership. This is what I call the‘more distant mirror’ phenomenon. Looking atone’s problems and alternative s olutions at adistance seems to give policy-makers, planners,administrators, and researchers different ways ofthinking about closer-to-home problems.Research and successful practice in one countryoffer support for those who w ant to act toimprove education in another. Someanthropologists who have studied the process ofcultural change point out that ‘dif fusion does nottypically involve the replication in o ne society of

some practice developed elsew here; rather what istransposed is the basic idea, a model ‘one mighteven say a metaphor’ which is then applied to theparticular circumstances of the receiving society’(Renfrew 1976).

Final wordsEducators must be optimists, and I am one, eventhough cynicism is alwa ys fashionable inacademia and world even ts sometimes make itdifficult for anyone to maintain his or heroptimism. My hop e is that my work and yo ursabout partnerships and schools, families, andcommunities is of more than trivial imp ortance. Astronger, more positive reciprocal relationshipbetween schools and their communities can beforged, and those relationship s will helpeducators and communities use the positivepotential of education for good and humanepurposes. As I look ahe ad my optimist’s hope isthat we can harness the poten tial of education todevelop new generations that can escape thelegacies of violence, war, hatred of people whohave different color, ethnicity, race, or religionthat the twentieth century has left for the cominghundred years. I think that educational systemsthat put the partnership idea in practice can h elpto meet this challenge and the other challengesthat the new century will bring.

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Families. Communities, Schools, and Children’s Learning, paper presented at the Fourth AnnualInternational Roundtable, San Francisco.

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Education Trust (1996), Education Watch: The 1996 Education Trust State and National Data Book.Washington, DC: The Education Trust.

Epstein, J.L.(1992), ‘School and Family Partnerships’, Encyclopedia of Educational Research, NewYork: Macmillan.

Johnson, Vivian (1993), Parent/Family Centers: Dimensions of Functioning in 28 Schools in 14 States.Baltimore: Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children’s Learning, 1993.


Palanki, A. and Burch, P. (1995), In Our Hands: A Multi-Site Parent-Teacher Action Research Project,Boston: Center on Fa milies, Communities, Scho ols, and Children’s Learning, B oston University.

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Putnam, R. (1994), Making Democracy Work, Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, New Jersey:Princeton University Press.

Putnam, R. (1997), Bowling Alone: Amer ica’s Declining Social Cap ital. An Interview with Rob ertPutnam, Journal of Dem ocracy (on line).

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Izabel Solomon, Policy Analysis and Community Relations, paper presented at the Fourth AnnualInternational Round table, San Francisco.

Toomey, Derek (1992), ‘Can We Involve Parents in their Children’s Literacy Developmen t withReach-out Activities?’ paper presented at the Fourth Annual International Roundtable, SanFrancisco.

Woods, Phillip (1993), Parents as Consumer Citizens. Paper presented at the Fifth Annual InternationalRoundtable. Atlanta.

Parent involvement in education: models, strategiesand contexts

Shawn Moore, Sue Lasky

In this paper, we explore the conceptual,empirical and strategic literature related to parentinvolvement in educatio n. Parent involvement inschooling has traditionally taken many formsincluding parents helping their children withhomework, parent-teacher interviews, parentnights, special consultation on student problems,parent councils, and parent volunteer help in theschool and the classroom. Some evidencesuggests that activities of this nature can havebeneficial effects on student learning. From asocio-cultural perspective, however, we willreview other evidence indicating that traditionalrelationships between teachers and parents canalso perpetuate a power imbalance in favour ofteachers. In recent years, teachers’ relationshipswith parents have become more uncertain andcontentious. Parents are becom ing morequestioning and critical about issues ofcurriculum, the quality of instruction andpractices used to assess and evalu ate theirchildren. Home-school relationships are changingfor a multitude of reasons including greaterdiversity of the parent population , changes infamily structures, increasing school ch oice, moreparental involvement in the governance ofschools, new methods of assessment andreporting, and special education legislation. These developments have implications for parentinvolvement and stud ent achievement.Formulating new strategies for inv olving parentsin their children’s learning is particularlyimportant during this time of profound socialchange and educational reform in Ontario,nationally and internationally. Since parents arenot a homogeneous group, conflicts concerningexpectations between parents and teachers,

culture between home and school, andinstitutional barriers are bound to arise. Involvingparents as partners requires an understanding ofparents’ perceptions of schoo ling, theiraspirations for their children, their approach toparenting, their expectations of teachers, an d theirconcept of their role and respons ibilities. We first examine child-parent interactions bothinside and outside the home through thetheoretical lens of stages in a child’s cognitive,emotional and social development, explore thebarriers that divide teachers and parents, paren tsand schools, and parents and their children,identify the socio-cultural factors that influenceschool-parent understanding, and proposestrategic approaches that can enhancecommunication, community and partnershipsbetween parents, teachers and schools. In ourconsideration of the empirical literature, we paidspecial attention to exemplary stud ies and modelswhich have received auth oritative recognition inthe field and cutting edge research that providesnew insights into parent-teacher interaction . Weargue that the structures of schooling must sh iftfrom closed and protectionist to open andinclusionary if parent-teacher partnerships are toflourish over time and benefit children. Second, we consider the implications of theconceptual and empirical literature for theorganization and substance of the EQAO(Education Quality and Accountability Office)grade 3 and grade 6 Home Questionnaires.Surveys are important, commonly used tools forgathering information abou t how parents areinvolved in their children’s learning and the kindof modelling they provide in the learning process.The validity and reliability of such instru ments is


important if the data are to be trusted for makingclaims, predictions, and policy decisions. TheHome Questionnaire operates concurrently in awider context of demographic and educationalchange. Socio-cultural meanings embedded in thequestions may resonate with some parents, butconfound others. We analyzed the HomeQuestionnaires in relation to literature on parentinvolvement and what is known to date aboutbest practice. We argue that the HomeQuestionnaire needs to reflect the socio-culturalexperiences of parents as a diverse group andthat the ability to disaggregate these parent dataaccording to key demographic variables candeepen our understanding of the dynamics ofparents’ involvement (or lack thereof) in thehome and in the sch ool. Finally, our review takes place in a climate oftumultuous change on the educational landscapein Ontario as well as concurrent sweepingeducational changes in other Canadian provincesand countries. These changes reflect paradoxicalforces of centralization and decentralization. InOntario, for example, the ministry has centralizededucational taxing and sch ool funding whiledecentralizing power to school councils. It hascentralized and standardized curriculum andreporting while decentralizing responsibilities forimplementing these new policies. The reformscenario has provoked spirited debate in theprovince on the future of public educationincluding the role of parents in schooling. Someclaim that current educational chang es in Ontarioare ‘progressive’ in response to changingcommunity demographics, the need for greateraccountability to parents, and the requirements ofa competitive global economy. Other observers,however, are critical of current reforms as narrowin scope, regressive in terms of teaching andlearning, and insensitive to the day-to-dayrealities of teachers’ professional lives. In anyevent, educators, parents and students are caughtup in a time of political crisis and uncertainty ineducation, which is affecting their relationships in

significant ways. Our review ex plores whereparent involvement is conceptually andstructurally positioned within the educationalchange process. In this regard, the experiences ofeducators and parents in other jurisdictions can behighly relevant in the Ontario context. Thechanges occurring in pu blic schooling in Ontariotoday are, in part, the result of pressures fromparents themselves. We need to keep this in mindas we explore the concepts, m odels and contextsof parent involvement in ed ucation.

Objectives- conduct a critical review of the conceptual and

methodological literature in order to assessparent involvement and its relation to schoolachievement, including the role of family andschool demography.

- evaluate empirical findings concerning therelationship between different forms of parentinvolvement and student motivation, learningand success.

- elucidate how patterns of parent inv olvement ineducation vary according to differences insocial class, language, traditions, ethnoculturalbackground, and family type (e.g., singleparent, blended family).

- engage critically with the EQAO grade 3 andgrade 6 parent surveys bas ed on the literature.

- conceptualize alternative models of parentinvolvement in education from a synthesis oftheoretical frameworks, empirical findings, andpractical considerations.

- identify strategic implications of empiricalfindings for enhancing communicationsbetween parents and teachers and promotingparent involvement in their children ’s learning.

Design and methodology We began with a global search of the literature on‘parent involvement’ - including databases andwebsites. We also searched the most currenteditions of about 20 of the m ost relevant journalsof education for relevant articles that would not


yet be on the ERIC database. Then, we organizedstudies according to major questions underinvestigation: parents’ views, models of parentinvolvement, school demographics, reporting,and best practice. In so doing, we focussed onwhat the concept of ‘parent involvement’ meansfrom the perspectives of parents, teachers andresearchers as well as different levels in thesystem - home, school, board and province. Aswe probed deeper into the literature, we identifiedbarriers of culture, language, race, power, andbureaucracy that tend to keep parents safely onthe margins of schooling. In our analysis offindings concerning parent involvement across amultitude of school and home contexts, weidentified key themes. Theory helps to explainvariability in findings across contexts. Forexample, Waller’s assertion that parents andteachers are natural antagonists (parents beingoriented to their child and teachers oriented to achild as part of a group) gets to the heart of thedynamics of many parent-teacher struggles.However, Waller’s notion does not fully accountfor differences in how parents and teach ersperceive one another throug h different socio-cultural lenses. Motivational, cultural andorganizational theories also come into play. Weintentionally selected exemplary studies, a few ofwhich provide rare, revealing glimpses into thesocial organization of parent-teacher interaction.Ideally, parents and teachers can learn tounderstand and appreciate the world from theother’s perspective. However, our examination ofparent-teacher relationships sugges ts that simplybringing parents into the teachers’ world mayactually increase tensions without effectivestrategies professional development and parenteducation. We examined the process as well as the substanceof parent involvement. Process refers to theconstantly changing dynamics of parent-teacherrelationships and parent-child relationships overtime. We have not attempted to create a definitivedictionary of ‘parent involvement’ or ‘best

practice’. Rather, we identify and discussalternative strategies in relation to empiricalfindings, concepts and authoritative models.There are some excellent handbooks that sufficeas strategic guides. However, research findingssuggest repeatedly that understanding particularfamily cultures, particular school environmentsand particular teachers’ perceptions is essentialto designing effective approaches to parentinvolvement. In this regard, we found some casestudies where claims of successful partnershipsare made. We also discovered some unsettlingaccounts of parent-teacher conflict and alienation,where partnerships have failed to materializebecause of distrust and political tensions -sometimes bitter and prolong ed. As well,conflicting beliefs about rights, expertise, abilitiesand cultural stereotypes cast teachers and parentsinto ‘adversarial’ rather than collaborativerelationships. Although, prescriptive guidelinescannot be expected take into account all thesecomplexities and variabilities, clearly written,informative documentation for parents is animportant component in communicating with andsupporting parents invo lvement in their children’slearning. In summary, the specific steps in ourmethodological appro ach were as follows: A. Assessment of empirical research findings on

parent involvement accord ing to: - demographic and cultural variation in types

of parents by class, race, culture, gender, andfamily type;

- ecological variation in school size, structure,location (rural, urban, suburban), studentpopulation, and setting (elementary/secondary).

B. Search databases (e.g., ERIC, includingCanadian Educational Index, AustralianEducation Index, British Education Index;ONTARIS) with focus on research on primarycare giver / parent / parent involvement.

C. Review books and refereed journal articles,including publications and reports connectedwith International Centre for Educational


Change extensive research studies and findingsconcerning parent comm unication, relationshipand involvement. D. Analysis of grade 3 and grade 6 parent

questionnaire instruments in terms of theconceptual and empirical literature on parentinvolvement.

E. Professional contacts with key researchersand centres in the field for collaboration andresearch advice (e.g., Joyce Epstein, Centre onSchool, Family and Community Partnerships,John Hopkins University).

Key questionsOur review of the literature was organized arounda number of key questions outlined in ouroriginal proposal to EQA O: 1. What are the most effective forms of parental

involvement in relation to parents’ point ofview as well as demographic and ecologicalfactors?

2. What are the authoritative models of parentrelationship and how do they inform strategiesfor parents’ involvement in their children ’slearning?

3. How do parent and school demographicsmodify the relations among other variablessuch as parent interest and motiva tion tobecome involved in education?

4. What is the role in reporting to paren ts infostering assessment literacy and motivationfor parents’ involvement?

5. What are best practices in terms ofcommunication and involvement of parents intheir children’s learning?

6. How well do the dimensions of the parentquestionnaires for grade 3 and grade 6 reflectconcepts in the literature, tap into parents’ lifeexperience, enhance parents’ understandingsand motivate parents’ involvement?

Discussion and conclusionParent involvement is an amorphous concept thatcan mean very different things to parents and

educators depending on their ethno-cultural pointof view. In this regard, a very prominent them e inthe literature is the need to ground concepts ofparent involvement in relation to particularindividual and school demographics. Theliterature we reviewed also reflects both thepsychology and sociology of parent invo lvement.On a psychological level, the focus of study is onthe individual’s experiences, perceptions,feelings, expectations, memories and aspirationsfor the child’s education and their role in it.Almost all parents regardless of background, forexample, want the best edu cation for theirchildren and try to be conscientious about helpingthem succeed. At the same time, parents oftenreport feeling powerless, frustrated, andmarginalized from teachers and the schoolingprocess. Parents’ expectations of their children,the teacher, the school and themselves are areflection of their own ethnocultural backgroundand their own experiences of schooling.Likewise, teachers’ expectations of pa rents areshaped by their own ethnocultural experience, bytheir concern and responsibilities for ‘otherpeople’s children, and also by their professionalacculturation. A socio-cultural perspective has b een the mainfocus in our analysis of the literature on parentinvolvement. In this regard, the literatureindicates that the cultural understandings andrealities of parents can conflict sharply with thoseof teachers. Absence of or breakd own incommunication betw een parents and teachers isdocumented in many case studies and surveys.Particularly, linguistic and bureaucratic barrierscan silence minority parents voices. The evidencealso suggests that training is lacking for bothparents and teachers on how to work together.Preservice and inservice have no t kept pace withrapidly changing dem ands and new partnersh iproles in working with parents. On top of all ofthis, administrators and teachers in On tario areunder intense reform pressure from governmentand parents to open their do ors, change their


practices, structures, curriculum, and, in general,be more ‘accountable’ to the wider public. EQAOis playing an important role in this process ofeducational change. The evidence we reviewedsuggests that schools are hav ing difficultytransforming themselves into ‘learningorganizations’, which are flexible and responsiveto the forces of demographic and political change.Reform demands on teachers in Ontario over thelast three years have been crushing andrelentless. This has resulted in many of teachersretreating from parents to protect themselves,rather than joining forces with them. In contrast,research on communication and best practicepoints time and time again to the need for thestructures of schooling to change to more open,inclusive systems where partnerships betweenteachers and parents are the norm, rather thanthe exception.We have compared parents’ views with those ofteachers and identified some of the mostsignificant factors in their relationships in termsof children’s achievement. In this regard, theconceptual literature suggests that parents seetheir child and teachers see a child as part of agroup. The empirical literature tends to sup portWaller’s thesis to a point, with parents oftenasking for individualized, personalcommunication. In add ition, there is ampleevidence of the cultural, linguistic andinstitutional barriers that keep teachers andparents in their own separate worlds. At the sametime, the empirical literature offers somepersuasive evidence that partnership models cancreate ‘bridges of understanding’ between thehome and the schoo l. Specifically, some criticalstudies draw our attention to protective andschool-centred structures of schooling thatpathologize parents and keep them at a distancefrom the core functions of teaching and learning.The ‘deficit’ model and the ‘partnership modelare conflicting orientations each with qu itedifferent implications for parent involvem ent.While the demograp hics of family can create

significant barriers to parent involvement, thepower for change rests mostly with schools andteachers where institutional power lies. Theexception to this assertion is parent politicalactivism. Deficit models view parents and students from aclinical position of greater knowledge andprofessionalism. Schools that reach out, opentheir doors and implement practices of parentalinclusion in part by adapting the school culture tomore closely fit the surrounding communityculture, on the other hand, are laying theorganizational groundw ork for meaningful,parent-teacher partnerships. Our review s uggeststhat the deficit model is alive and well whe n itcomes to inclusion of mino rity, single-parent andlow socioeconomic status families. Proactiveapproaches to parent invo lvement are difficultand demanding for administrators and teachers.The evidence suggests that partnerships will notautomatically produce harmonious relationships.First, parents are a very diverse populationreflecting many assumptions, attitudes, beliefs,and images of schooling. Second, it would benaïve to expect educators and school boards tosimply hand over institution al-based power toparents. Third, conflicts grow more intense asparents get more closely involved in theclassroom and in making decisions concerningcore functions, curriculum, staffing and schoolgovernance. Fourth, some parents want no part ofsuch core decision-making roles and considerthem the prerogative of administrators andteachers. In a multiracial, multicultural andmultiethnic society, such as Canada, these issuesare interlinked in complex way s that play out ineach individual situation. Nevertheless, theliterature suggests that partnerships offer a path towork collaboratively which can foster parents andteachers understanding of the world through oneanother’s eyes. Teacher development programsneed to be designed and implemented thatdevelop in teachers the critical reflective skills tosee their own biases, to develop communication


skills that will help teachers talk with anincreasingly more diverse parent population,which cultivate the value of involving parents andprovide teachers with a wide array of strategiesfor how to do this.The literature on parent involvement suggests aworld of ‘multiple realities’. The challenge foreducators and parents is to find w ays to workcollaboratively on the basis of each other’s realityin the best interest of the child’s developm ent,achievement and success. Partnership models -particularly as formulated by Epstein, Ogbu,Comer, Cummins and Hargreaves - provideconceptual scaffolding upon which collaborativerelationships between parents and teachers candevelop. While each p artnership model has itsstrengths and weaknes ses, their common featureis practices of two-way communication betweenhome and schoo l. Partnerships need to beadapted to fit particular co nditions of familydemographics, student developmental needs,school structures, and community resources.Innovations - such as paren t centres, homework‘hotlines’, home visits, parent coordinators,teachers as ‘ethnographers’, parent-teacherteaming, parent education and training, three-wayconferences, and ‘schools in th e community’ - areparticularly promising ways to foster two-waycommunication, emotional understanding,cohesion between school practices and parentsupport roles, and involv ement of communityresources. The potential of technology forimproving reporting, networking, and parentinvolvement has yet to b e fully explored, and thismeans giving access and resources to all parents.

However, unless real rather than illusory poweris shared with parents, who are willing and ableto accept the responsibilities that go with it, thenotion of parent-teacher partnership will be‘hollow words’ (Benson, 1999). Finally, there are significant gaps in the researchon parent involvement. First, the role,responsibility and expectation s of studentsthemselves are mentioned in only a few studies.However, the place of students withinpartnerships needs more conceptual definitionand empirical emphasis. Practices such as three-way conferences point to the value of students’voices in their own learning ex perience, for theirparents’ participation and parents’ ‘assessmentliteracy’. Second, best practices of teachers’professional development, parent training andinquiry in the context of the partnership processneeds to be documented more thoroughly in theCanadian schools, including models where theparents and teachers learn together (e.g., Paide iaseminars). Third, we have only scratched thesurface in understanding the micro-dynamics ofpower and authority in interactions betweenparents and teachers. Particularly, studies areneeded that focus on the social organization ofpartnerships in institutional settings - especiallyparent involvement in the school, the classroomand in decision-making roles. The research wereviewed clearly indicates tensions betweenprofessional and persona l realities when parentsbecome closely involved in the day-to-dayactivities of teachers’ work. These tensions haveto be confronted open ly and honestly, notignored.

‘I’m not clever. I listen to her read that’s all I can do’:parents supporting their children’s learning

Emma Beresford, Sue Botcherby and Olwen McNamara

IntroductionThe role of the parent as co-supporter in theeducative process is vital if children are toachieve their potential. Structures are in placenationally to make schoo ls more accountable tothe community and to ensure they inform parentsof curriculum matters and, to a lesser degree,enlist their support in helping their children tolearn; but the gap between practice an d rhetoric iswide, particularly in the secondary phase. TheLink Project was a collaborative enterprisebetween the Manche ster Metropolitan University,Manchester Inspection and Advisory Service‘partnership with parents’ and 5 Manchesterschools (3 secondary and 2 primary). It was anaction research and development project which:identified and evaluated communicationstrategies between home and school; discoveredwhat parents currently knew and believed abouttheir children’s schooling and how theysupported their learning; developed, implementedand disseminated curriculum/ training resourcesto improve knowledge of the curriculum, accessto resources and understanding of strategieswhich help parents sup port their children’seducation. This paper briefly reviews the researchprocess and reports on the findings anddevelopment work .

ProcessThe five schools involve d in the project werechosen, from a cohort of vo lunteers, to cover arange of socio-economic and ethnic populations.Two of the schools were RC Voluntary Aidedschools (1 primary, 1 secondary) in a solidlywhite, working class, socio-eco nomicallydeprived area of the city. The other 3 schools

were in a slightly more mixed so cio-economiccommunity with betw een 30% and 60 % of pupilsfrom ethnic minority families. The project as awhole focused upo n families of children in years1, 6, 7 and 10; chosen to be at the beginning orend of the ‘key stages’ of education where schoolactivity with regard to involving parents insupporting their children, and parental interest indoing so, could reasonably be expected to beimportant. Interviews were cond ucted withparents/carers of 65 children, sampled with regardto variables such as social class, ethnicity, abilityetc. every attempt being made to ensure thesample was representative of the schoolpopulation as a whole. In addition, interviewswere conducted with pupils and school staff,including Senior Man agement Teams and YearHeads. The research process included thedistribution of a questionnaire to 500 familiesacross the five schools. The questionnaire wasdesigned with a substan tive section common toall schools and an addition al section specific toeach individual schoo l focusing on theirparticular concerns. Over 250 resp onses werereceived and although efforts were made to offersupport to parents who might experiencedifficulty with written English, we neverthelessfelt, that responses were skewed to higher socio-economic classes and ethnic minority familieswere under represented. A significant feature of the project was theestablishment of Parental Action Teams (PATs)of key stakeholders in the educative process:teachers, parents and governors. The PATs wereinvolved in the research design, data collection,mediation of findings, development work andfinally the evaluation of those developments.


PATs met both locally, managing the project atschool level, and centrally in a consultative groupwhich, in addition to its adviso ry remit withregard to the research and development processes,provided an arena for the sharing of goodpractice. There was a continuing cycle wherebythe research not only identified existing goodpractice but also informed the development work,which was in turn evaluated .

Findings

(i) Contact Primary parents contacted schools on a regularbasis: 25% contacted schools once a month and60% once a term. The ease with which parentswere able to speak to teachers varied g reatly: inone primary school parents found 23% ofteachers always and 71% usually available; in theother school 68% of parents found staff alwaysavailable. Both primary scho ols had apparentlysuccessfully established relationships with theparents: overall 40% of parents felt they knew theclassteacher best, 30% the headteacher and 30%felt they knew both well. On ly 2% of parents inone school and 7% in the other felt they knew noone well. The transition from primary tosecondary school was felt to be quite ‘scary’ forparents and children alike. First impression s wereimportant: one secondary school reorganised itsintroductory meeting into a format based uponsmall informal groups and parents felt them to be‘informative’ and ‘friendly’: ‘we all went it, waslike a family thing’. Secondary parents reported surprisingly fewcontacts with the school 60% only contacted oncea term and 30% never made contact. When theydid contact schools 15% of secondaryrespondents found the teachers always availableand 70% found them usually available. Evidencefrom the interview data with regard to this matterwas mixed. Whilst some parents felt ‘the schoolis responsive they always seem to return yourcalls’ over one third of those interviewed said

they had experienced d ifficulty, sometimesconsiderable, in contacting schools or individualteachers: ‘I left many messages and they nevergot back’. A couple of parents remarked upondifficulties encountered when problems aroseafter school or in the holidays: ‘I find itfrustrating that by the time the children get homeyou can’t contact anybody at the school so youare left frustrated ‘till the next day’. One parentsuggested a ‘voice mail’ facility would be useful.How schools dealt with incidents left a lastingimpression on parents: ‘My estimation went rightup. You know there is going to be problems atschool but if you kno w they are going to be dea ltwith professionally and promptly it makes youfeel confident. I was very impressed’.Questionnaire data regarding the building andsustaining of relationships in the secondary phasewas mixed. There were sign ificant differencesbetween schools, perhaps as a result of structuralfactors, as to who parents felt they knew best. Inone secondary scho ol 16% of parents claimed toknow the headteacher best whereas in anothernone did. Numbers claiming to know theclassteacher well varied from 16% in one schoolto 50% in another. Between 20% and 35% ofparents, however, still felt they knew no one well. The reasons for this lack of conn ection wereundoubtedly co mplex. On one level ma ny parentshad to rid themselves of much ‘emotionalbaggage’ and overco me the various ways inwhich the school system, and in particular thesecondary school system, inadvertently alienatedthem. Ghosts from the historical past featuredlarge in parent memories: one mother recalled herown experiences as a child at sch ool in the 60's, ‘I left school unable to read and write, cou ldn’twait to get out so I bring these experiences’. Foranother it was those of her husband: ‘My husbandis very anti religion - the religion was very pushyat his school.. being humiliated.. didn’t want thechildren to go through th at’. Many parents feltintimidated by the academic etho s of the school:‘the whole system and language around the


system is very difficult, they all alienate us’;‘there were computers everywhere and it wasdead hi-tech and I was thinking AHHH!’ Forsome there were cultural barriers: one father felthis son’s school was a ‘forcing house for themiddle classes … hidden curriculum … preparingkids for company life’; one mother ‘speaking as ablack working class woman’ felt ‘the PTA canappear very elitist... particularly at secondaryschool’. Some parents felt psych ologicallythreatened: ‘you need a lot of con fidence tocontact the school’; ‘enormity... annexes andclassrooms… new ... scary… too big… don’tknow anybody... get lost…those feelings staywith you throughout the whole school’. Anothermother wanted to assert social boundariesbetween home and school: ‘it’s all like theboundary/demarcation .. bringing your social lifeinto school’.

(ii) Information - Curriculum Overall 70 % of parents were satisfied with thequantity of the general information they receivedabout the school and their child, 25% felt theyhad too little although nobody felt they had toomuch. Questionnaire data indicated that, on thewhole, they found the information ‘easy tounderstand’, ‘well presented’ and ‘useful’; butthey were a little more unsure that it was ‘sent atthe right times’. Evidence from the interviewswas a little more mixed with regard to the q ualityand clarity of the written materials. Evidenceindicated that overall nearly half the parentsbelieved they got all of the information sent homevia their child. In the secondary phase thereliability of the child as ‘postman’ clearlydecreased with age: twice as many year 7 parentsfelt they got all the information as year 10parents, 10% of the latter felt they got ‘verylittle’. As one year 10 father complained:‘sometimes it’s like getting blood out of a stone,unless you push and push him for the informationyou don’t get it’. Overall girls were felt to besignificantly more reliable than boys when it

came to delivering information from school. Inthe primary phase the picture was varied, 68% ofparents in one school and 35% in another felttheir children brought home all the informationthey were given. A num ber of the parentsinterviewed felt strongly that important thingslike SATs results and reports should either beposted home or more effective structures shouldbe in place to ensure the collection of reply slips. Parents’ knowledge about the curriculum andassessment processes was generally fairly vagueacross both primary and secondary phases.Questionnaire evidence indicated that between37% and 62% of primary and secondary p arentsfelt they had about the right amount ofinformation on both what their child was taughtand the exams they took and between 33% and60% felt they had too little. It thus appeared thatinformation dissemination practices and strategiesacross schools varied tremend ously in theirquality and effectiveness. As a consequenceoverall about 20% o f secondary responden ts feltthey knew ‘a lot’ about what their child waslearning, in the primary phase the variation wasfrom 10% in one school to 50% in another. 23%of secondary respondents felt they knew ‘little’ or‘nothing’. In the primary schools thecorresponding figures w ere 8% and 32% . Most parents appeared to k now what subjectstheir children were studying but were unclearabout the NC levels and grading of the SATstests: ‘I think the NC is jargonistic’; ‘I startreading it and I get bored I don’t un derstand halfof it really’; ‘I heard about the key stages but Idon’t know what they are I don’t know how theyare assessing them, I don’t know anything aboutthe levels and I would like to know’. A number ofparents expressed a desire to know more: ‘I’d likeit better to understand the NC be cause I think R isunder some pressure from th e work at school.From that point of view I’d like to understand alittle bit more. I think I’d also like to know howparents could help children appropriately’. Onemother also acknowled ged the problems: ‘if


somebody said to me would you come on a daycourse about the national curriculum I would sayno. So it depends what is being offered really’.

(iii) ProgressParents on the whole felt slightly better informedabout their child’s progress than about thecurriculum. Questionnaire data indicated thatbetween 42% and 56% of secondary p arents feltthey knew a lot about how well their child wasdoing; between 14 % and 32% felt they k new onlya little or nothing. The picture was similar in theprimary phase where 30% of parents in bothschools felt they knew little about h ow well theirchild was doing.

Parental knowledge of their child’s progress wasinformed in a number of w ays. In the secondaryphase all schools operated some form of journalor log book and m ost parents seemed verypositive about its potential as a 3-way mode ofcommunication; some were very positive: ‘thanksto the journal I feel I have a personal relationshipwith all of D’s teachers’. Evidence from theinterviews suggested that w hilst some parents‘got the journal every night’ and felt it ‘operatedquite successfully… gives the children a focus’there was a drift in its use from year 7 to year 10.A number of parents felt the potential of thejournal was not always realised. O ne parent feltthere was a tendency for teachers to w rite‘negative comments, they d on’t seem to writepositive things’. Parents were very encouraged byunsolicited positive comments: one mother,whose son was in a remedial centre, rememberedthat she had given her son ‘a big hug’ when shegot a letter congratulating him on his Englishwork. Credit systems, wh ere in operation, wereapproved of by bo th parents and children, if itwas applied consistently by teachers and acrossall subjects.Parents’ evenings were described as ‘useful’ byover 75% of secondary respondents, nearly 60%described them as ‘welcomin g’ and ‘informative’,

but only 30% thought they were ‘well organised’.One third of parents felt the evenings ‘toorushed’. The picture was mu ch the same inprimary schools. A small nu mber of parentsremarked upon the variable quality of theinformation received from staff at parents’evenings. One parent recalled a very usefulinterview with a teacher who pinpointed that herson had problems with his concentration andsuggested ‘in a nice professional way’ strategiesto improve his memory. Another parent stressedthe value of receiving detailed and focusedfeedback from teachers.The picture in both primary an d secondary datawith regard to written reports was equally mixed.Nearly 90% of respondents felt the language usedwas easy to understand; although again evidencefrom the interviews was a little more mixed inthis respect. Only 70% of secondary (and 80% ofprimary) parents felt that the marks and gradeswere equally transparent; leaving 30% unsure, ordecidedly unclear: ‘a bit mind-boggling’ as onemother put it. Lack of understanding ran deep:there was still confusion about how to interpretmarks, ‘40% is that good?’; about the assessmentsystem, ‘it went from 3.6 to 6.2 he w as verypleased but to be honest I hadn’t a clue’; and evenabout percentages, ‘38% out of what? It might beout of 40%’. Some appeared quite alienated bythe whole business ‘wh en you open these rep ortsit’s like getting the gas or electric bill with allthese symbols and thin gs’. 20% of respond entsfelt reports did not give enough detail and 30%were unsure that they gave a clear pictu re of theirchild. Nearly half of the responden ts were unsurethat reports were sent often enough. This lattermessage was reinforced in the interviews: as oneyear 7 parent observed ‘November they are notestablished. November to June is practically awhole academic year if there is a problem timehas been wasted’. Despite feeling reasonably well informed abouttheir child’s progress there were still howeversignificant differences in parents’ expectations for


their children that did not correspond to actualexamination results: in the second ary schools58%, 62% an d 26% of parents exp ected theirchildren to get degrees; in the primary sch ools30% and 70%. The most likely explanation forthese marked differences lay in the socio-economic distribution of the schools’ intakes.When collated across the sa mple as a whole therewas significant positive correlation betweensocial class and expectations; 85% of professionalparents, 80% of managerial, 38% of skilled, and29% of semi-skilled expected their children to getdegrees.The vast majority of secondary parents, in allschools did however feel that they could make adifference: 54% a lot, 36% some, and only 10%felt they could make little or no difference. Theimpact primary parents felt they could have wassignificantly greater: 80% in one school and 65%in another felt they could make a lot ofdifference, only 5% felt they could make little orno difference. Parents also felt they could makesignificantly more difference to how well theirdaughters did at school than their sons.

(iv) HomeworkThe amount of homework children did each nightat secondary school varied considerably : 3-17 %spent 2 hours or more, about 50% overall spentone hour, 30% half an hour, and, 5%, theirparents claimed, did none. M ost year 7 parentsfelt the amount of homewo rk given to theirchildren was about right but over 40% of year 10parents felt their children did not get enou gh. Inthe primary phase overall 30% spent one hour,60% spent half an hour, and 20% of children inone school and 2% in the other did no homework.When asked to describe the strategies that theyused to help their children most primary andsecondary respondents replied that they ‘showinterest’ and ‘give praise’. In the secondary phaseover 50% of parents ‘check work is done’,‘explain work’ and ‘sugg est improvements’.There was strong evidence here again to suggest

that parents in year 10 helped childrenconsiderably less than those in year 7. In theprimary phase virtually all parents claimed to‘listen to reading’, and 70% ‘test spelling s’,‘check work is done’ and ‘explain work’. Theamount of help which children received fromfamily members was significantly age related. Inone primary school 30% of pupils had help eachnight and in the other 55% ; by comparison only6% of secondary ch ildren had help each night. Inyear 7 nearly half the children got help once ortwice a week; 40% rarely got help. By year 10one third of children got help once or twice aweek and over 60% rarely got help. There were a number of reasons for this apparent‘fall off’ in parental support and, in particular, itwas not necessarily for lack of willingness on thepart of parents: in year 7 only 4% of parentsclaimed their children did not allow th em to helpwith homework, by year 10 25% of parents feltdiscouraged. In the primary phase, bycomparison, virtually all parents claimed to beallowed to help their children with h omework. Italso appeared that girls were significantly m orereceptive to help than boys. Parental expertise, orrather lack of it, was a second theme whichemerged: ‘we’ve been studying at college butsometimes even we do n’t know how to d o it’.Parents felt inadequate particularly in the senioryears at secondary school: ‘in year 7 he broughthomework and we understood what he wasdoing’. Maths seemed to be a recurrent problem:‘I probably struggle a bit with maths becausemine was taught in inches and pounds and theseare in millimeters and grams’. Homework clubswere posited as one solution: ‘I would love to seea homework club because then there would besomeone for helping’. In ad dition to the supportprovided by parents, grandparents and siblingswere often mobilized to help: ‘if she has anyproblems she asks her older sister; my brotherhelps if she has any difficult homework’. Ademarcation in terms of subject expertise wasalso often apparent: ‘I can’t do maths my husband


can’; ‘if its maths or equations it’s his Dad…spelling or English I help. Germ an is a no’. Athird theme which emerged from the data toexplain the apparent fall off in parental supportwas that of independence: there was a growingrecognition that ‘when children get older you’vegot to give them a bit of trust let them stand ontheir own feet’. Although there did seem to be acertain amount of covert surveillance going on,‘she is uncomfortable about us looking in herbooks so we tend to do it when she is at school orin bed’.Finally lack of information regarding homeworkemerged as a significant issue. Between 6% and36% of secondary parents responding to thequestionnaire claimed never to get enoughinformation about hom ework and overall only10% were always satisfied with the informationreceived. Overall 45% of seco ndary parentsclaimed never to get enoug h advice about how tohelp their child and over 50% never got enoughinformation about the resources that may beavailable to do so. In the primary phase thepicture was equally dismal: 13% of parents in oneschool and 28% in the other claimed never to getenough information about homework, about howto help (20% and 38%) or about resources (30%and 56%). Interview data confirmed this picture:‘I wish the school would send leaflets it wouldhelp me to help them... kids perceive thingsdifferent... there is a communication problem ’.Also: ‘If they cannot be provided with booksbecause it’s too expensive... fair enough but youcan say exactly what books we can buy’. Thejournal was viewed very positively as a methodof communicating on the issue of homework;although the need for mo re systematic checks tobe made by all parties involved in its use,particularly in year 10, was identified.

DevelopmentsKey to the project and of central imp ortance tothe participating schools was that as an actionresearch project it embraced research and

development. There were some undeniably clearmessages for schools in the research findings.Interviews and questionn aire data combined toilluminate the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ and ‘why’ ofschool/parent/child dyna mic as they related toparents supporting their children’s education.Additionally, data (not reported here) from theindividual school section in the questionnaireinformed schools abou t issues of specificimportance to them. Parents identified both areasin which they were very su pportive of theirschool’s existing policy and practice and alsoones in which they felt there was room forimprovement. Such data was able to, and did,inform focused and practical dev elopment workwhich, where possible, was evaluated for impactand effectiveness. The PAT’s, utilizing expertisein disseminating finding and fosteringdevelopments, were the main engine for change,in liaison with University and L EA advisers. The experience of being inv olved in the wholeprocess with its attendant discussions,information sharing and clo ser links with parentsacted as a catalyst in the school communitiesstimulating awareness, interest and radical sh iftsin thinking that informed practice and policy.Two key interventions, which inspiredsubstantive developments, were the interim andfinal research reports presented to individualschools. The findings repo rted were such that inall cases there were clear opportunities forimprovement based on sound qualitative andquantitative information from interviews andquestionnaires. School managers reported howhelpful these were in both stimulating anddirecting change.One of the major findings ind icated that parentshad too little information about the curriculumand how to help their child. In response, oneschool changed the format of its Year 10 Parents’Evening by engaging the staff practically inproducing curriculum information handouts oneach subject. These were simply designed,written in parent friendly language and contained


practical advice about helping. The Parents’Evening became a veh icle for sharing thisinformation in dialogue with parents. Both staffand parents enjoyed and valued this newresource. Later evaluations indicated that themajority of parents had used it sub sequently.Another school employed a similar model foryear 7 students to establish early and vitalcurriculum links with parents. This initiative wasextremely successful with an ensuing schoolcommitment to provide something similar forevery year group.The need for early contact with parents and howthis is managed emerged in the findings of theproject. One school radically changed its Year 7induction procedure. Paren ts were invited insmall, manageable groups to meet with keypersonnel, to sign hom e school agreements and toshare information and ideas. These meetings tookplace over several evenings, utilizing outreachstaff for parents with English as a SecondLanguage, hard to reach parents, etc. Thefeedback was extremely positive from everyoneinvolved with the quality of interaction/dialoguecommented upon as really valuable within thecontext of a large school.Another major finding indicated that a substantialnumber of parents felt they had little informationabout how to help with homework. An innovative6 week interactive homework project entitledPATCH (Parents And Th eir Children’sHomework) emerged within the Advisory Serviceinvolving one of the project schools and six otherHigh Schools. The project is a six week projectrelated to the English curriculum and is designedto inform and engage pa rents in the homeworkprocess. Parents, children and teach ers wereuniformly enthusiastic and positive about thepotential of the project. Other outcomes emergedwhich were not planned for, for example, greatercloseness and understan ding between the childand parent. One parent remarked, ‘I didn’t knowmy child was so interesting.’ Teachers widelyreported delight at the outcomes of the project

and a shift in their thinking toward s parents, ‘Ididn’t realize they could make su ch a difference.’ The primary schools also trialled ho meworkprojects involving parents. At one school a 6week project - HELP (Helpers EncourageLiteracy Progress)- which began with a parentsmeeting and involved parents in working on funspelling activities with their year 1 childrenresulted in some remarkable improvements in thechildrens’ spellings. The other primary schooltrialled another new authority led project - HIP (Homework Invo lving Parents) - with year 5children and parents on the topic - the AncientEgyptians - and were again very impressed by theinvolvement of parents.Schools engaged in several other developments,either fine tuning and improving existing systemsor introducing new on es where gaps wereperceived. One school majorly improved thestudent log book/planner and is introducinginterim reports of progress to parents. Anotherproduced special year booklets at the beginningof each year giving basic information requestedby parents. One school organised a monthly drop-in for parents to share ideas and gain the parentalperspective. Primary schools also improved theirhalf-termly curriculum information to parents.The project and research findings have informeddevelopments at a number of levels. At the schoollevel the project schools are all responding to theclear finding that parents at secondary andprimary level are concerned abou t their child’sprogress and want to help and that schoolsneeded to employ a variety of strategies in orderto facilitate this happening. This work is ongoingand growing with sch ools continuing withdevelopments after the project has finished. Theresearch findings also have implications for widereducational practice and policy. At the local level the project and evaluations haveinformed and in some cases inspired thedevelopment of resources such as HIP, HELP andPATCH which are being published. The findingshave impacted on In-Service Training with school


staff. Other Advisers and Inspectors have alsobeen given key information to help improvepractice which could lead to further developmentwork such as on reporting to parents.At the national level, the research findings weredisseminated nationally via a very successful andwell attended National Con ference hosted inManchester. The general key findings across theschools have been p roduced in series of visuallyattractive, easy to read and use papers forpractitioners. The National Home/SchoolDevelopment Grou p has been kept in touch withthe project findings and further papers based onthe research will be published in journals.

This research project has made an immediate andlasting impact on the schools involved and hasprovided rich data to supp ort the needs of parentsand schools. Through dissemination, the findings,case studies and resources from the project areimpacting more widely. This process willcontinue in order to support good workingpractice between parents, children and schools.As one parent said - ‘I didn’t know what to dobefore - I was worried I’d get it wrong andconfuse him(her son) so I didn’t get involved.............now ( after this homework project) Iknow what to do and I really feel I can help. I’veseen the difference it’s made to him.’

Who gets involved and who doesn’t?

Stelios Georgiou

In an article with the revealing title ‘Why someparents don’t come to scho ol’ Finders and Lewis(1994) point out that practical, cultural andpsychological reasons may keep certain types ofparents away from the schools. These includeobligations to other children at ho me, difficulty ingetting time off from work, and feelings ofdiscomfort in the school’s premises because oftheir own negative experience with schooling.Generally, the connection of low or noinvolvement to the family’s so cio-economicstatus (ses) is very common in the literature.Several authors (Davies, 1987; Lareau, 1987;Ogbu, 1974) ma intain that schools are morewelcoming, more accessib le and therefore morebeneficial for middle and high ses parents ratherthan for low ses ones. Thu s, the existing reality isthat demographics are of crucial importance whenone tries to answer the question that appears onthe title of this paper. More recent research(Grolnick et al., 1997) goes beyond thesedemographics and includes functionalcharacteristics of family as factors contributing tolow involvement. Su ch characteristics areparental efficacy, existence of stress at home andavailability of social support resources.

Parental involvement has b ecome a central topicamong educational research ers in recent years. Therefore, more information about parameters ofinvolvement is needed so that interventions forthe creation of parent-teacher partnerships can bebetter designed and implemented. The purpose ofthe study described here was to examine theeffect of one such parameter. More specifically, itaimed at examining the relationship that mayexist between parental attributions and the

involvement of parents in the ir children’seducational process.

Attributions and behaviorThe attribution theory is often traced back toHeider (1944) who claimed that people are notcontent simply to observe events around them,but strive to understand their causes. He alsoproposed that actions are usu ally attributed tostable and enduring factors, such as the actor’spersonality characteristics, rather than transitoryor variable factors such as moods . Ever since itsintroduction, the attribution theory has beenwidely used as an explanatory tool in severalareas including psychology, education andpolitical science (Graham & Folkes, 1990). In the1980 s the attribution theory framework wascalled ‘the most prominent and active area ofsocial psychology’ (Pep itone, 1981, p. 979).Graham (1991) verifies that its influencecontinues unabated, pointing out that ‘no othermotivational conception has achieved this degreeof visibility’ (p. 5).

In educational settings, this theory is usually usedin reference to attributions of child achievementeither by parents, teachers or students themselves.There is adequate evidence suggesting that theseattributions influence directly or indirectly theattitudes, feelings and future behavio r of allactors involved. Particular variables that wereshown to be influenced by attributions are thefollowing: expectancy o f success, child self-confidence, parent involvement and actual schoolperformance. Weiner (1985) has proposed athree-dimensional taxonomy of attributions,according to which attributions can be classified


on the basis of three criteria: (a) locus (internal orexternal), (b) stability (stable or unstable causes)and (c) controllability (controllable oruncon trollable causes) . The chi ldren'sachievement tends to be attributed either tointernal factors (talents and biologicallydetermined dispositions) or external (i.e.influence of parents, teachers, siblings, luck etc).Effort and ability are two major internal sourcesof attribution; the first is controllable butunstable, while the second is stable butuncontrollable.

The attributions that parents make ab out theirchild s achievement can influence their behaviourtowards the child. As Stevenson and Lee (1990)comment, ‘when paren ts believe that success inschool depends on ability in contrast to effort,they are less likely to foster participation inactivities related to academic achievement thatwould elicit strong effort toward learning on thepart of their children’ (p. 66). Furthermore,attributional processes may play a major role inobserved SES differences in children’sachievement. Relative to children from higher-income families, children from lower-incomehomes tend to believe that they have little controlover their environment and therefore are morelikely to attribute their success to external factorssuch as luck and ease of the task rather than totheir own effort or ability (O’ Sullivan & Howe,1996).

Attributions and parental involvementThe study that is presented here (Georgiou, 1999)was conducted in Cyprus among 473 parents,most of which (73% ) were mothers. Its basic aimwas to examine the existing relationship betweenparental attributions, parental involvement andchild school achievement. It was hypothesisedthat parental attributions influence childachievement indirectly by altering the degree ofparental involvement. That is, parentalinvolvement activities are behavioural

manifestations of the pre-existing parentalattributions of child achievement and that theyhave effects on child achievement. In otherwords, certain types of attributions that p arentsmake about their children’s achievement canexplain why these parents exhibit specific typesof involvement in children’s educational process.This behaviour, in turn, may influences actualchild achievement.

It was found that some types of parentalinvolvement are indeed sig nificantly related toparental attributions. Attributing the child’sachievement to ‘significant others’ was related tothe parents controlling behaviour and the interestdeveloping behav ior. The helping with hom eworktype of involvement was not related to anyattribution factor, but it was related, althoughnegatively, to the child’s actual achievement.Furthermore, attributing the child’s achievementto its own effort was related positively to theinterest developing parental behaviour andnegatively to the anxious pressure for betterresults.

The more parents attributed their child’sachievement to its own effort, the better thisachievement was. No such relation was foundbetween achievement and other parentalattributions. As for the relation between parentalinvolvement and child achievement, it was foundthat certain parental behaviors are positivelyrelated to achievement, some are neg ativelyrelated to it and some are not related at all.Developing the child’s interests was the only onebelonging to the first category. Pressing the childand helping with homework belong to the secondcategory, whilst controlling non-academ ic lifebelongs to the third. These findings are in linewith earlier research (Georgiou, 1997). It is,perhaps, noteworthy that significant correlationswere found between helping with homework andcontrolling on the one hand and between helpingand pressing on the other.


One of the main hypotheses of this study wasbased on earlier reports suggesting that ‘parentswho believe they can ‘ma ke a difference’ aremore likely to be involved ’ (Grolnick, et al.,1997, p. 539). However, the findings show thatthis seems to be only partially true. That is,parents who believed that ‘significant others’such as themselves, teachers and peers play animportant role in affecting children’s actualachievement, tended to act out this belief bybecoming more controlling and keener to developtheir child’s interests. Interestingly, the first ofthese parental behaviours was also found to benegatively related to the child’s actualachievement, whilst the secon d was positivelyrelated to the same variable. No significantrelation was found between the above attributionand the ‘teaching at home’ type of parentalinvolvement. Therefore, it would be better to saythat this attribution is related to certain types ofinvolvement and no t to involvement in general. Itshould be noted that n o significant differenceswere found between SES groups regarding eitherattributions or involvement styles.

In summary, this study’s main findings about theexisting relationship between parental attributionsand parental involvemen t are the following: - Parents who believe that their ow n role is

important in affecting their child’s achievementtend to be more controlling an d morefacilitative to the development of the child’sinterests.

- Parents who believe that their child’sachievement is caused by the child’s own efforttend to be less pressing and – again - morefacilitative to the development of the child’sinterests.

As mentioned earlier, Grolnick et al., (1997) haveidentified a number of parameters of parentalinvolvement, such as parental efficacy,characteristics of the family context (stress, socialsupport, resources), teacher attitudes andbehaviour. The present study contributes to therelevant literature by suggesting the inclusion ofparental attributions as possible predictors ofparental involvement.

ReferencesDavies, D. (1987), Parent involvement in the public schools: Opportunities for administrators.

Educators and Urban Society, February.Finders, M. & Lewis, C. (19 94), Why some parents don't come to schoo l. Educational Leadership,

51(8), 50-54.Georgiou, St. (1999), Parental attributions as predictors of involvement and influences of achievement.

British Journal of Educational Psychology, 69(3), 409-429.Georgiou, St. (1997). Parental involvement: definition and outcomes. Social Psychology of Education,

1(3), 189-209.Graham, S. (1991), A review of attribution theory in achievement contexts. Educational Psychology

Review, 3(1), 5-39.Graham, S. (1990), Communicating low ability in the classroom: Bad things good teachers sometimes

do. In S. Graham & V. Folkes (Eds), Attribution Theory: Applications to achievement, mentalhealth and interpersonal conflict (pp. 17-36). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Grolnick, W., Benjet, C., Kurowski, C. & Apostoleris, N. (1997), Predictors of parent involvement inchildren’s schooling. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(3), 538-548.

Heider, F. (1944), Social perception and phen omenal causality. Psychological Review, 51, 358-374.Lareau, A. (1987), Social class differences in family-school relationships: the importance of cultural

capital. Sociology of Education, 60, 73-85.


Ogbu, J. (1974), The Next Generation. New York: Academic Press.O’Sullivan, J. & Howe, M . (1996), Causal attributions and reading achievement: individual

differences in low income families. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 21(4), 363-387.Pepitone, A. (1981), Lessons from the history of social psychology. American Psychologist, 36, 972-

985.Stevenson H. & Lee, S. (19 90), Contexts of achievement. Monographs o f the Society for Research in

Child Developmen t, 55 (1-2, serial number 221).Weiner, B. (1985), An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological

Review, 92, 548-573.

Overcoming barriers to family involvement in low-income area schools

Oliver Moles

Thirty years of research supports the conclusionthat family involvement in children ’s education iscritical to student achievement (U.S. Departmentof Education, 1994). Increasing families’involvement in the education of their children sothat all children can achieve at high levels is animportant goal of Title I of the Elementary andSecondary Education Act, as amended by theImproving America’s Schools Act (IASA) of1994. Title I provides over 7 billion dollars eachyear to schools to assist children from low-income families. The goal of Title I is to improvethe teaching and learning of children in high-poverty schools so they can meet challengingacademic content and perform ance standards.

All schools and districts receiving Title I fundsmust engage in an exten sive array of activities tobuild the capacity of both parents and school staffto work together in support of students’ learning.Title I also requires schools to develop, w ithparents, a written parent involvement policy thatdescribes how schoo ls will keep parentsadequately informed and how they will involveparents in the planning, review, and improvementof Title I programs.

The IASA law required that the U.S. Departmentof Education (ED) conduct a study of parentinvolvement that identifies and d escribes: - ‘common barriers to effective parental

involvement in the education of participatingchildren;’ and

- ‘successful local policies and programs thatimprove parental involvement and theperformance of participating children.’

A summary of the Report to Congress on thestudy follows below.

Data sources for ED’s study inc luded: (1) areview of the research literature on parentinvolvement; (2) the Fast Response Survey ofSchool and Family P artnerships in PublicSchools, K-8 (SFSP), a nationally representativesurvey of 810 elementary and middle schoolprincipals; (3) the Parent/Family Involvementcomponent of the National Household EducationSurvey (NHES), a nationally representativesurvey of 20,792 children and their parents; (4)profiles of 20 local Title I programs that havebeen successful in overcoming barriers to parentinvolvement; and (5) parent focus groupinterviews conducted at five of those programs.Most data were collected in 1996. The measure ofpoverty is the count of students receiving free orreduced-price lunches at schoo l.

Barriers to family involv ement in theirchildren’s educationA large body of research has documented thatwhen schools make a concerted effort to enlistparents’ help in fostering children’s learning,student achievement rises (Armor, 1976; Epstein,1991; Leler, 1983; Toomey, 1986). When sch oolsinvest in developing partnerships with familiesthat enable parents to suppo rt their children’slearning at home and in school, the potentialbenefits for students are great. When school-related, family-related, or community-relatedbarriers deter parents from becoming involved,students lose an important source of support fortheir academic learning. The report identifies fivemajor kinds of barriers.


1. Lack of Time and Other Resources Both schools and families frequently lack thetime and other resources they need to establisheffective partnerships. - Principals of K-8 Title I schools report that time

is a barrier to parent involvement more oftenthan any other factor. 87% of Title I principalsreport that lack of time on the part of parents isa significant barrier to parent involvement, and56% report that lack of time on the part ofschool staff is a barrier.

- Teachers and parents lack the logistical su pportthat would facilitate their work together.

- Time and resource constraints are especiallyproblematic for poor parents. For these parents,basic survival, child care, and health needs ofteninterfere with their participation in school events(Fruchter, Galletta, & White, 1992; Liontos,1991).

2. Lack of Information and Training- Most parents and school staff receive little

training on how to work with one another. - Almost half of principals (48%) in K-8 Title I

schools report that lack of staff training inworking with parents is a great or m oderatebarrier to parent involvement.

- Some parents report that they do not know howto assist their children’s academic learning.

Without the proper information an d the skills towork together, school staff and families are morelikely to view each other with suspicion anddistrust: - 20% of principals in K-8 Title I schools report

that staff attitudes about parents are a barrier toparent involvement in school. Uninformedteachers are more likely to view parents’absence in school as an ind ication that parentsdon’t care about the education of their children.

- Parents who experience schools as uninviting oralienating may decide that teachers d o not reallycare for them or their children.

3. School Organization and Practices Traditional school organization and practices,especially in secondary schools, often discouragefamily members from becom ing involved. - Survey data show that parents of older children

are less likely to attend a school event orvolunteer at their child’s school than parents ofyounger children.

- Because secondary schools are generally muchlarger than elementary schools, with eachteacher responsible for many more students,they can seem impersona l to parents.

Some schools continue to rely exclusively ontraditional outreach methods that have proveneffective for only a limited number of families. - Many school activities that involve parents,

such as open houses and student performances,tend to be school-dom inated and peripheral tothe day-to-day operations o f the school.

- If schools do invest in developing a repertoire ofparent involvement activities that emphasizepersonalized attention and interaction withparents, they will be more successfu l inengaging parents whom they had given up as‘hard to reach.’

4. Family-School DifferencesDifferences in education level, language, andcultural styles between parents and school staffsometimes make it more difficult for them toform effective partnerships. - Parents who have little education themselves

participate less often in school-related parentinvolvement activities, such as v olunteering intheir child’s classroom or attending p arent-teacher conferences. Parents who have hadnegative experiences themse lves as studentsmay avoid contact with th eir children’s schoolsas a result. In fact, survey data show thatparents’ educational level is even mo re stronglyassociated with their involveme nt in schoolsthan is household inco me level.


- Survey data show that parents who do not speakEnglish at home are less likely to participate inschool-based activities, and mo re likely toparticipate in fewer activities over the course ofthe school year.

- Culturally based differences in communicationstyles, expectations for teachers, parents, andchildren, and views on the best ways to raiseand educate children can create discontinuitiesbetween families and schools (McCollum &Russo, 1993; K ellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez, &Bloom, 1993).

5. Lack of External Support for Family-SchoolPartnerships Family-school partnerships are d ifficult to nurturewithout the support of state and districtpolicymakers, community organizations, andemployers. - The absence of clearly defined and articulated

policy on family involvement from the state ordistrict level and a lack of resources to supp ortprofessional developm ent related to familyinvolvement sends a p owerful message toschools.

- Many neighbo rhoods lack easy access toresources that can support parents’ efforts tohelp their children learn. Such resources includelibraries, museums, recreation facilities, andhealth and social services.

- Many employers compound the pressures onparents with inflexible work sch edules.

Survey data suggest that m any of the barriersdescribed in this report have sign ificant,measurable effects on parent involvemen t inschools, especially among low-income parents,parents with little education, and parents of olderchildren. Schools, under the leadership ofprincipals, possess the primary responsibility forinitiating family-school partnerships; theexperience of hundreds of schools across thecountry demonstrates that it can be done.

Successful local approaches to promotingfamily involvement in their children’seducationMany successful strategies used by Title I schoolsand districts across the country demonstrate thecapacity of families, schools, and communities,working together, to influence children’s learningin positive ways. The exp eriences of 20 schoolsand districts that have been succes sful inengaging parents in their children’s educationillustrate many effective strategies for movingschools, families, and communities beyond thecommon barriers to family invo lvement.Examples from these schools and districts will beprovided.

Overcoming Time and Resource Constraints- Schools can set aside time during the school

day for teachers to meet with parents at schoolor at home or free teachers from routine chores,such as lunchroom supervision, so that they canwork with parents.

- Some schools can also use technology tosupport school-home communication. This kindof logistical support includes easier access totelephones for teachers, voice mail, and‘homework hotlines.’

- To help parents overcome time and resourceconstraints, schools can provide transportationand child care services, schedule events atconvenient times, and co nduct home visits.

- In addition to finding ways to help parentsbecome involved at scho ol, schools can helpparents support their children’s learning athome. In their daily interactions with theirchildren at home, parents can be powerfulresources for promoting their children ’sacademic success.

Providing Information and Training to Parentsand School Staff- Training in basic parenting skills teaches

parents about child develop ment and how to


establish a home environment that suppo rtsstudent learning.

- Courses that help parents build their own ba sicliteracy skills, earn a high school equivalencydiploma, accumulate college credit, or developjob-related skills also support parents’involvement in their children’s education. Byhelping parents to reach their own academic andvocational goals, schools equip them to bettersupport their children’s learning.

- Workshops help parents support their children’slearning at home by offering practical ideas onways that parents can work with their childrendirectly on school work. Common topicsinclude helping students with curriculum-relatedactivities, homework, other academic decisionsand planning, and p reparing for required tests.

- Some training prepares parents to contributeeffectively to school decision-making or to workas volunteers.

- Training for school staff is essential forsupporting the develo pment of effective school-family partnerships. Such training addressestelephone calls, home visits, and other contactstrategies; communication skills for paren t-teacher conferences; and involving parents asleaders and decision-makers in th e schools.

- Engaging parent coordinators or volunteers totrain school staff not only builds parents’leadership skills but also offers teachers theopportunity to learn first-hand about parents’perspectives.

Restructuring Schoo ls to Support FamilyInvolvementSome schools highlighted in this report havereorganized to promote closer interaction betweenteachers and students and, by extension, betweenteachers and families. They have also redefinedtraditional parent events to create moremeaningful ways to w elcome and involve p arentsin school life.- An on-going need s assessment helps scho ols

respond more effectively to parents’ needs and

interests. By asking parents about their interests,needs, and ideas for family involvement on anongoing basis, scho ols help ensure that theirefforts to reach out to parents complementparents’ real needs and strengths.

- Schools can make changes to their physicalenvironment. For example, they can create aspace just for parents within the school, such asa parent resource center, and they can post aparent volunteer in the entrance hall to welcomeparents.

- Schools can also create formal organizationalstructures for parent participation. Groups suchas parent committees, volunteer committees, andsite-based management co uncils allow parentsto take an active role in decisions affecting theschool and their children.

Whatever steps schools take to develop closepartnerships with families on behalf of students’learning, schools that are most succ essful areprepared to reconsider all of their establishedways of doing business and to restructure in waysthat will make them less hierarchical, morepersonal, and more accessible to p arents.

Bridging school-family differences- Schools can help parents strengthen their own

basic literacy skills. Some schools highlightedin this report offer GED, ESL, and other adu ltbasic education classes to parents on site; otherschools send hom e projects and activity kitsintended to build parents’ literacy skills as theywork on them with the ir children.

- ‘Family math’ nights or sim ilar events helpallay parents’ fears about their own mastery ofsubject matter. These events give parents achance to learn together with their children in anenvironment that is pleasant and non-threatening.

- To address language bar riers, schoolshighlighted in this report provide extensivetranslation services. These schools providetranslation for school-home communications,


parenting training, and participation in decision-making and schoo l governance.

- A home-school liaison, often a parent who livesin the community, can play a crucial role inbuilding trust between h ome and schoo l.Because a home-scho ol liaison is usuallyclosely identified with the community andshares the same cultural backgrou nd withparents, he or she is well-equipped to reach outto parents whose cultural back grounds differfrom teachers’.

- Other schools provide training and otheractivities to promote understanding of differentcultures among schoo l staff.

Tapping external support for family-schoolpartnershipsAmong the schools highlighted here, successfulparent involvement strategies often grow out offamily resource centers and partnership s withlocal businesses, agencies, colleges, anduniversities. - School-community partnerships can support an

array of services that help parents get moreinvolved in their children’s education. Suchservices may include homework hotlines, socialservices such as substance abuse or child abuseprevention, conferences and workshops, adulteducation, health services, refurbished schoolfacilities, and refreshments for andtransportation to school-sponsored events.

- School district and state su pports for familyinvolvement include policies, funding, training,and family services that sup port school-familypartnerships. District and state-run parentresource centers are one example of howschools can benefit.

Effects on student achievementAlthough one cannot say that studentachievement gains or other p ositive outcomes inany school or district are due solely to theirparent involvement activities, it does appear thatmany schools that mak e parent involvement a

priority also see student outcom es improve insome way. For example, of the 13 scho olshighlighted in this report, eight repo rt gains instudent achievement data o ver the last one tothree years and four report gains in attendancerates or consistently high attendance over 95%.Parents themselves believe that their involvementinfluences their child’s performance in sch ool. Infocus group interviews, for example, manyparents argued that their involvement hadimproved their children’s attitude toward schooland engagement in learnin g.

Early implementation of the Title I ParentInvolvement ProvisionsSurvey data collected from Title I schools inspring 1996, less than a year after the new Title Iprovisions went into effect. They provide somepreliminary information on the implementation ofmany activities required or endorsed by Title I.Because the data were collected early, thefindings should be considered baseline measuresof schools’ progress in implementing Title I. - 64% of Title I principals reported that their

schools consult parents in the development ofparent involvement activities. This consultationis a key requirement of Title I.

- 78% of Title I principals reported that theirschools have advisory groups or policy coun cilsthat include parents.

- A much smaller num ber of Title I schoolsreported, however, that they consider parentinput when making decisions on selected topicsrelated to school programs and policies. Forexample, only 40% involve parents in makingdecisions about the allocation of funds, and only49% involve parents in making decisions aboutdiscipline policies and procedures.

To build parents’ capacity to sup port theirchildren’s learning, most Title schools take stepsto provide parents with inform ation on how tohelp their children learn at home, although the


quality, as well as the reach, of the informationprovided clearly varies across scho ols. - 96% of Title I principals reported that their

schools provide information to parents on atleast one topic related to parenting or helpingtheir children learn at home. Topics include: (1)child or adolescent development; (2) nutrition,health, or safety; (3) parenting skills; (4)information on community services; (5) helpingwith homework; (6) developing study skills; and(7) ideas for learning activities outside ofschool.

Other services to parents endorsed in the Title Ilegislation are fairly common among Title Ischools, although they are not universal. - Of the Title I schools that serve students whose

parents have limited English skills, 86%reported that they provide interpreters formeetings. 69% report that they providetranslations of printed materials. These findingsindicate a relatively widespread effort on thepart of Title I schools to accommodate p arentswith limited English proficiency.

- 37% of Title I school principals reported thattheir schools have parent resource centers.

- 67% of Title I principals reported that at leastsome of their staff make home visits. Staff reachan average of 17% of families in one year.

ConclusionAlthough eviden ce of the most common barriersto parent involvement can be found in almost anyschool, the experience of many schools anddistricts demonstrates that they can be overcome.Successful schools view children’s success as ashared responsibility, and all stakeholders -including parents, administrators, teachers, andcommunity leaders - play imp ortant roles insupporting children’s learning .

Title I can be an important catalyst for the wideradoption of policies and practices that have

proven effective in fostering partnerships betweenschools and families. Title I requires or endorsesmany strategies that are recognized as effective insupporting parents’ invo lvement in theirchildren’s education, and many of the practiceshighlighted in Title I - for example, parentresource centers, home visits, and the provisionof information and training to pa rents - arealready common among Title I schools.

It remains to be seen how well federal an d stateefforts to foster family-school partnerships willsupport the successful dev elopment of school-family partnerships in Title I schools. Continuingresearch will be needed to assess schools’implementation of the Title I parent involvementprovisions as well as the quality of the assistancethat schools receive from states and districts. Acloser look at the strategies required or endorsedin federal and state policy - for example, scho ol-parent compacts, information and training forparents and school staff, and special strategiessuch as home visits - as they are imp lemented inschools will provide policymakers, practitioners,and parents with a better understan ding of how allschools can sustain effective partnerships withfamilies.

In addition to its legal requirements, the U.S.Department of Education has sponsored aPartnership for Family Involvement in Educationsince 1994. It has grown to over 5000 schoo lsand organizations. Through publications,conferences and information sharing, thePartnership aims to increase opportunities forfamilies to be involved in their children’s learningat school and at home, to strengthen schools, andto improve student achievement. In this way thefederal government also provides information andassistance to help overcome b arriers to familyinvolvement in their children’s ed ucation.

Experiments with the role of parents in primaryeducation in the Netherlands

Frederik Smit, Hans Moerel, Peter Sleegers

BackgroundThe research concerns the participation of parents(or other care-takers of children) in activities atprimary schools in the Netherlands. In mostcases, parent participation refers to the situationin which parents actively participate, or w illparticipate, in their children's education. Somethirty years ago, parent participation was startedon the basis of the idea that goo d contactsbetween the school and the parents would be inthe interest of the child. It would benefit thepupils if also parents would be welcome atschool. Besides ‘participating’, parents alsowanted to have a say in w hat their children learnand how education is given shape (Smit & VanEsch, 1993).

The Educational Participation Act (1992) and the(New) Primary Education Act (1985, 1998) havebeen in effect as the statutory regulation of parentparticipation in the Netherlands. The EducationalParticipation Act provides a structure for bo thparents and teachers to be a member of schoolparticipation councils, as well as to be ab le tomonitor and influence the school governingbody's policy. The Act also allows parents toestablish their own parents' coun cil. This councilhas the authority, whether requested or not, toadvise the school governing boards, the headteacher or participation councils. Article 44 of theDutch New Primary Education Act stipulates thatthe proper authorities must enable the parents ofpupils to conduct sup porting activities on behalfof the school and education. This Article alsostipulates that parents, in conducting saidactivities, are bound to follow the instructions ofthe school principal and other teaching staff, who

remain responsible for the state of affairs. Soteachers and parents themselves are able todetermine how they w ill give form and content toparent participation.

Very little empirical research has been conductedon the concrete functioning of parentparticipation (Smit & Van Esch, 1996). In thispaper, results of research into the implementationof parent participation in primary scho ols arereported. More specified in this paper thedifferent ways schoolteams in primary educationstarted to implement parent participation in b ehalfof the optimization of pupils’s developmentopportunities, the enhancement of pupils’education careers and the improvement ofteachers’ task performance, are described.

Parent participation in primary education: amodelIn scheme 1 we present a model for the field offorce around parent participation. On the outsideof the circle we mention: the (national, local)government, the parents, seco ndary schools, earlychildhood education programs, parentempowerment programmes. The nationalgovernment has stimulated the promotion ofprinciples of ‘dynamic schools’ and of parentparticipation in various ways. D ynamic schoolsare schools that take charge of change. Ratherthen reacting to and being driven by the forcesimpacting schools today, or pretending suchforces do not exist, the dynamic school seizesthem as opportunities to improve itself. Thusnumerous changes occur in dynamic schools.These schools constantly learn and grow with anaim toward improving. They respond; they


choose innovation and activities to address theneeds they see and feel.

In a dynamic school, boundaries between theexternal and internal worlds are breaking down.In primary education parents - and sometimesrepresentatives from community business andagencies - participate in decision makingprocesses and offer variety of other inputs. Parents can play different roles as regards toparent participation. In primary education contactwith secondary schools, early childhoodeducation programs, parent empowermentprogrammes play an (important) role.

School teams in primary edu cation can differ inthe way they implemen t parent participation inbehalf of the optimization of pupils’ developmentopportunities, the enhancement of pupils’education careers and the improvement ofteachers’ task performance. These aspe cts arewithin the circle. As mentioned above the wayprimary school teams implement parentparticipation is the central focus of the researchreported in this paper.

Within the team of teachers a main factor forintroduction and implementation of parentparticipation is the support for this idea within theteam. From theories about the learningorganisation we know that it is very important foran organisation to have a clear mission and thatmost of the members share this m ission. In thiscontext, it is important that principals prom oteteacher leadership in schools. Teacher leadershipis expected to reinforce teacher motivation incontributing to school improvement. Crucial tasksfor principals in facilitating leadership falls in theareas of motivating teachers for involve ment,developing authentic participation in decision -making forums, enhancing teachercommunication and contact, providing rewardsand incentives for teachers, and mobilizingresources (Sleegers, 1999). For parent participation to be effective it seems tobe very important that it is part of the mission ofthe school and the different units. If parentparticipation is part of the mission then themanagement is more or less o bliged to stimulatethat this part of the mission is realised.

Scheme 1 - Field of force around (implementation of) parent participation


In the Netherlands schools must have a schoolguide providing interested parents withinformation on the school’s objectives,educational methods, care, and performance. Theschool guide shou ld help parents in making w ell-informed decisions in favour of a particularschool. Parents should b e able to derive from itexplicit expectations about the school’s offer,while the school is being h eld accountable. It isvery important that the dimension of parentparticipation is part of the school guid e. Thisgives a certain guarantee that managementstimulates the implementation of parentparticipation.

Research question and methodThe leading research question of the studyreported here, is:

To what extent are experiments with parentparticipation in primary education in theNetherlands successful?

To answer this question qu alitative methods areused. First, we analysed literature on parentparticipation in primary schools in theNetherlands the last ten years concerning themission of the schools and parent participation;goals, targets, promotion of expertise, creation of

a base of implementation of new developments.Second, we gathered qualitative data by means ofcase-studies. The selection of seven research partswas based on a number of types which emergedthrough analysing literature on parentparticipation. In this respect, special attention hasbeen paid to the proper div ersification of schools(different pupil/teacher/parent characteristics, anddifferences in the degree to which parents haveacquired skills in parent participation activities).For the case studies, written sources have beenused. We analysed these data using case-comparisons and controlled comparisons (Miles& Huberman, 199 4).

Results

Types of experiments with parent participationOn the basis of the qualitative analyses, wedistinguished seven typ es of experiments withparent participation. To describe this distinctionbetween different experiments we used fourcharacteristics: 1. description of reasons, 2.targets, 3. strategies and 4. obstacles they h ave todeal with.

In scheme 2 the reasons, targets, strategies andobstacles in seven types of ex periments withparent participation in the Netherlands aredescribed.


Scheme 2 - Analysis of types of experiments with parent participation in the Netherlands

reasons targets strategies obstacles

1 school can’t do italone: orderproblemslack of authority

building bridgesbetween home andschool

to be open towards parents:‘learning to know’

fears ofundesirableparentalinterference

2 communication islacking betweenhome and school

a collaborativerelationship willbenefit pupils, parents,school and community

to facilitate thecommunication betweenparents and teachers:‘learning to do’

lack of integrationin school policy

3 no bonds offriendship betweenimmigrants andnative pupils

interculturalcommunication inclassroom and canteen

dialogue at local schoollevel:parties, theatre, school paperand parent involvement (withspecial roles for immigrantkey figures): ‘learning to be’

having theperformance ofteachersquestioned

4 suboptimum schoolclimate: absence,drop out, violence

changing schoolclimate

plans including parentcollaboration and optimizinghome environments:‘learning to live together’

parents take agreater interest inexternal qualitycare(accountability)

5 different approachesand aims of childrearing anddistribution of tasksacross the schooland the family

improving the parents-school relationship

school teams demonstratesupportive behaviourtowards parents: ‘learning tolearn’

a Babel-likeconfusion aboutpedagogicalattunementbetween parentsand teachers

6 home environmentdoesn’t supportlearningparents don’t helpand don’t givesupport in the school

mutual trust andrespect betweenparents and teacherstwo way home-schoolcollaboration

attention to (early) childhoodeducation programs andparent empowermentprograms: ‘learning to useresources’

restricted supportof management

7 parents are notinclude in schooldecisions anddevelopment

active parentparticipation in avariety of settings orcommittees

parental representation onschool governing bodies andparent committeesset up networks to linkfamilies with parentrepresentatives: ‘learning touse networks’

lack of support ofmanagement(missionzstatement)


Successful experimentsAlthough a distinction in different experimentswith parent participation is interesting, it does notanswer the research question. To answer theresearch question, we have to define criteria forsuccessful parent participation practices. Weformulated the following criteria:1. clear description of targets2. usefulness of methods/strategies3. the extent of influence of participants on the

process of the project4. possibilities to reach the target group5. the progress 6. coping with obstacles7. the functions of the experiment for pupils,

teachers and the institutions 8. support of other professiona ls9. the role of management10. elements for raising standards of partnerships

between home and school.

Using these criteria, we analysed the qualitativedata. The results showed that successfulexperiments with parent participation areexperiments which offer good possibilities toenhance mutual understanding and tolerance.More specified, it appeared that success dependson the following (combination of) factors:- the quality of the approach- the mission of primary education (subscribed by

the teachers)- the motivation/role of the participants- communication and information exchange- the targets/strategies - involvement/support by the communities and

business - the role of management, parent councils,

participation councils- the consumer position o f parents- parental involvement edu cation (scheme 3).

Scheme 3 - Successful experiments parent participation


ConclusionsAs mentioned above, results of research into theimplementation of parent participation in primaryschools were reported in this paper. The resultsshowed that experiments with parent participationdiffer with regard to reasons, targets, strategiesand (related) obstacles. Experiments also varyfrom stimulating an open relationship betweenparents and school, to active parent andcommunity participation in school governance,and strong community partnerships.Further, it appeared that different factorspositively affect the implementation of parentparticipation. Some of these factors seem to referto the fact that for parent participation to succeed,it is essential to have an adequate participationstructure (Smit, Van Esch & Sleegers, 1998 ). Thisinvolves that parents’ representatives make cleararrangements with competent authorities andschool management team: well-definedprocedures, clearly organised consultations anddistinct responsibilities put down on paper.Adequate participation structures will result in anincreasing willingness to participate and can alsoaffect the quality of the approach to parentalinvolvement.

Some factors also seem to refer to the balancebetween the internal (in-school community) andthe external environment (parents and thecommunity). In order to handle the link betweenthe internal and external contexts, environmentalleadership, integrating the external and internalcontexts, is needed (Goldring & Sullivan, 1996).In a context of parental and com munityempowerment, principals can no longer serve asgatekeepers who attempt to limit parental andcommunity involvement, but must becomenegotiators who utilize comp lex strategies tobalance institutional autonomy with externalparticipation. To encourage parental andcommunity activism in schools, principals mustoperate in the community o utside their schoolswhile also bringing the com munity into theirschools. According to G oldring and Rallis(1993), principals of ‘dynamic schools’ must bein charge of building the bridges b etween theirschools and the surrounding world and they mustbear their schools’ flag across those bridges aswell as welcome those who can develop andsupport the mission of the sch ool.

LiteratureGoldring, E. & S. Rallis (1993 ), Principals of dynamic sch ools. Taking charge of change, Corwin

Press, Inc., California.Goldring, E.B., & Sullivan , A.V. (1996), Beyond the boundaries: Principals, parents and communities

shaping the schoo l environment. In. K. Leithwood et al. (Eds.) International Handbook ofEducational Lead ership and Adm inistration (pp. 195-22 2). Dordrecht/ New York: KluwerAcademic Publishers.

Miles, M. & A. Huberm an (1994), Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. ThousandOaks, Sage Publications.

Sleegers, P. (1999), Leiding geven aan leren, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, Nijmegen.Smit, F. & W. van Esch (1993), Parents in schools and school governing boards in the Netherlands.

In: Parental involvement in Edu cation, F. Smit, W. van Esch & H. Walberg (eds.), Institute forApplied Social Sciences, Nijmegen, 67-74.

Smit, F. & W. van Esch (1996), Current trends in partnerships between parents and schools in theNetherlands, International journal of Educational Research, 25 (1), 67-73.

Smit, F., Esch, W. van & Sleegers, P. (1998), The position of teachers, students and parents under thenew Participation Act and learning schools in the Netherlands. Paper presented at the AnnualENILOC Seminar. Stafford, United Kingdom .

Research on the relationship between migrant parentsand primary schools

Annemiek Veen

IntroductionThis research on the relationship between migrantparents and primary schools consists of threeparts. Part I involves 176 parents from variousethnic groups (Turkish, Moroccan, Surinameseand Cape Verdian). It analysed what these parentsexpect of schools and what kind of parents-schoolrelationship they wanted1. The second part of theresearch analysed what 30 R otterdam primaryschools (which fall under the Urban EducationPolicy on Disadvantage) are doing to improve therelationship between scho ol and migrant parentsand how they see this relation ship2. Part IIIcomprises of project supervision at two primaryschools. The aim of this experiment is to analysethe feasibility of developing a model on parents-school relationship in which there is a balancebetween the efforts of the parents and those of theschool. This model wo uld include explicit, goal-oriented strategies for improving parents-schoolrelationship.The research as a whole must ide ntifypossibilities for improving parents-schoolrelationship. In our view school, as professionalpartner, is the initiator in this, schools mustdemonstrate supportive behaviour towardsparents so that parents behave in aneducationally-supportive w ay towards the school.

Interview-structureIn parts I and II of the research, information wascollected with the help of interviews. We used aninterview-structure with open and closedquestions as a basis for talks. Open questionsenable the respondent to talk about a particularexperience or give an account of something. Anadvantage of such questions is that they are less

likely to prompt socially-desirable answers as therespondent has to tell his/her ow n story. Openquestions also provide the opportunity to giveexamples. The questions were formulated in sucha way that the sum of the answers provide aninformative picture of the respondent’s opinions.It is not important to answer each individualquestion; the point is that every question mayprompt recipients to talk about their experiences.There are also a number of closed q uestions tocollect more systematic information.

Interview structure for parents In the first part of the interview the parents wereasked open questions whilst the second, closedpart consisted of statements about activities theprimary school could un dertake to meet withparents’ wishes and hence to increase theirinvolvement. Statement by statement parentswere asked to give their opinion on theimportance of these activities.

Lastly, parents were asked basic informationabout themselves: sex, ethn icity, level ofeducation and the number of children at theprimary school.

Interview-structure for schoolsThe aim of the first ten questions in part one, theopen part was to ascertain how the schools seethe parents-school relationship, what they haveundertaken to improve the relationship withparents and why they endeavour to achieve agood relationship with parents (what was theobjective). The first group of questions was asfollows.


The second cluster of questio ns in the open partof the interview-structure was designe d toascertain what schools understand by‘educationally-supportive b ehaviour’ of parentsand how they can try to encourage this behaviour.

The closed part was made up of 29 statements.These were derived from the research on theparents and reflect the starting points on whichthe research was based and the empirical findingsof the research: an image of how th e parentswould like the school an d the relationshipbetween parents and sch ool to be. Schools wereasked to evaluate the importance of eachstatement.

Outcome of the researchPart I: the parentsA basic premise of the research was that allparents were involved with their own childrenand hence, in principle, with their child ren’sschool. ‘Involvement’, however, is not the sameas ‘participation’. Whereas participation is easilydiscernible to the school, involvement is far lesstangible. To improve the relationship between parents andschool it is necessary for schools to recognize andacknowledge the inv olvement of parents. Thiswould be facilitated by schoo ls providing suitableopportunities for parents to dem onstrate theirinvolvement. We feel that schools should:- create an environment that is inviting to parents- instigate appropriate commun ication channels

for parents.When both partn ers, parents and school, areaware of each other’s good intentions and efforts,the basis for co-operation on bringing up andeducating children is created. In other words,schools must demonstrate supportive behaviourtowards parents so that parents behave in aneducationally-supportive w ay towards the school.However, it is not easy for schools with pup ilsfrom a multitude of ethnic backgrounds to gaugethe tone of the school environment and

communication chan nels appropriately. Theresearch endeavoured to clarify these points andto make recommendations, both in general andfor specific ethnic groups.

The most important elements of a schoolenvironment that is inviting to parents are:- the care for children- making this care visible and un derstandable- accepting parents as full discussion partners - making culturally-determined assumptions

explicit- making use of parents’ expertise- encouraging education and training of parents.

The most important com munication channelsnamed by the parents and to a lesser extent thelink between communication channels anddiscussion topics were:- more time for individual, personal talks about

their own child by* extending the so-called 10 -minute chats

and/or* home visits and/or* the introduction of a ‘school surgery’ which is

well publicized and/or* the conscious utilization of ‘fetch and take’

contacts- less general parents’ evenings and more ethnic-

homogenou s group meetings, pos sibly open towomen only, where* parents can talk to each other about their own

ideas and views* the group’s own language can be spoken* information can be given on the organization

of education (including videos, cassettes andprojects)

- possibly expanding, in co-operation with otherorganizations, the group meetings in thedirection of a course or training in the field of* the Dutch education system* education-supportive behaviour at school and

in particular at home* the Dutch language.


1 Veen, A and M. van Erp (1995) Stappen op weg naar onderwijsondersteuning . Deel I allochtone ouders inRotterdam over de relatie tussen ouders en basisschool. (Steps towards educational support. Part I: migrantparents in Rotterdam on the relationship between parents and primary schools.) Amsterdam/Rotterdam: SCO-Kohnstamm Instituut/Fonds Achterstandsbestrijding Rotterdam.

2 Veen, A. and M. van Erp (1 997). Stappen op weg na ar onderwijsondersteuning. De el II: basisscholen inRotterdam over de relatie met de o uders. (Steps towards educational sup port. Part II: primary schools inRotterdam on the relationship with p arents.) Amsterdam/Rotterdam: SCO-K ohnstamm Instituut/Dienst StedelijkOnderwijs R otterdam.

Part II: the schoolsThe schools that participated in the researchclearly put a great deal of effort into improvingthe relationship with parents and employ a wholerange of strategies to improve schoolenvironment and com munication channels.

Schools do not, however, have a clear view ofexactly what they are trying to achiev e withparent-oriented activities. A great deal is done butobjectives are lacking. This applies b oth toindividual strategies and activities and to thegeneral framework of activities as a who le. Our conclusion is that the increase in parentalinvolvement in the scho ols is mainly due toefforts of parents. All kinds of activities (courseson education and bringing up children, home-intervention programmes) are principally directedat stimulating education-supportive behaviour byparents. Far less progress has been made from theother point of view, namely the involvement ofschool with parents and adapting ‘school culture’to parent population. Or, in our terminology,schools expect education-supportive behaviour ofparents but are themselves not yet sufficientlysupportive to parents. The efforts of schools needto focus more on adapting school to parentpopulation and to look for other ways of givingschool life a form and content that parents canrecognize and respect. These find ings have led topart III of the research being set up.

Part III: balance and goa lsPart III consists of project supervision at twoprimary schools. The aim of this ex periment is toanalyse the feasibility of developing a model onparents-school relationship in which there is abalance between efforts of parents and those of schools. This model w ould include explicit, goal-oriented strategies for improving parents-schoolrelationship.This is a figure of the empty mod el:

The experiment should result in a completedmodel for the project-schools and a report ofexperiences cq. process of the ex periment inthose schools, in view of transfer to o ther schools.

Notes

Parental/community involvement and behaviour problems in Dutch secondary schools

Kees van der Wolf, Ronald Lippens, Pauline Huizenga

IntroductionIn newspaper articles, but also in magazines andthrough other media, we are often confrontedwith alarming reports about misconduct byyoungsters. Especially in secondary education,but lately also in primary education, rule-breakingand negative behaviour are a source of greatconcern. According to some reports 25% of thestudents are in serious trouble. Schools of whichthe student population contains a large proportionof migrant students, have particularly beenfocused on in reports about these negativetendencies. As the problem s of urban schools inthis area are greater, much state money go es tothe big cities. Teachers, in particular, havepointed at the increase of behavioural problems asan important source of stress. Problematicalstudent behaviour is sup posed to play a role bothin teacher burn out and in the lack of prestige of acareer in education. The problems are supposedto have reached the most seriou s proportions inthe lower forms of secondary education (pre-vocational and junior gen eral education). Schoolsoften make a great effort to influence thebehaviour of their students in a positive way: theyset behavioural rules, take disciplinary measures,establish and invest in systems of counselling andguidance. Sometimes, as in th e examplementioned above, they institute projects in whichthey collaborate with the police to fightvandalism and you th criminality. Parental perceptions of student be haviour aresometimes reported as even more negative thanthose of teachers (Veugelers & De Kat, 1998 ).

Students in secondary education, too, are reported(Olweus, 1989; Van Hattum, 1997; Veugelers &De Kat, 1998) to have a negative view on thebehaviour of and the contacts with their peers.Schuurman’s study (1984) gives a more positiveimpression of students’ attitude towards schools.This raises the question to what extent theassessment of the seriousness of the behaviouralproblems of young sters should be ascribed todifferent ways in which the stakeh olders areconfronted with the problem. Another questionthat could possibly be relevant is the following.To what extent does the perception of theschool’s communication with parents andcommunity influence or contribute to theperceptions of student misconduct? It is ourhypothesis that schools that are perceived by thestakeholders as being open and welcoming wantto share their resources and their information notonly with their students, but also with the parentsand the surrounding community. This means thatthey are open to outside influences, that theydevelop skills in communicating and interactingwith parents and other adults interested orinvolved in the school. This could mean that sucha school has more varied con tacts, is able toacquire a more extensive network for discussionson how to deal with problems. It could also meanthat such a school makes use of its variedcontacts for student learning, student activities orin other ways1.

1 ‘School learning needs to build on day-to-daylearning to enable students to identify with whatgoes on in school, and to help the school draw onthe resources in society,’ says Per Daily in his article’Can Schools Learn?’


It might be supposed that more involvement fromparents and better information to paren ts couldlead to a greater awareness by parents of the rulesof behaviour at school and promote betterattuning between hom e rules and school rules. Itcould also increase the parents’ insight in whatthe school expects from them and in the ways inwhich they themselves can contribute to orsupport their child functioning well at school.Especially for migrant parents, who may havelittle or no experience with and may be unawareof many aspects of the Dutch educational systemand the values and beh aviour expected there, thiscould be a factor that should not be neglected.Also, parent and comm unity involvement inschools may be a signa l to youngsters that bothparents and community value the educational andthe pedagogical role of the school and therebyemphasise the importance of a good performancein both areas.That parents and teachers may h old very differentperceptions about their mutual communicationabout student misconduct is supported byLangdon’s Fourth Phi Delta Kappan Poll ofTeachers Attitudes, cited in the NASS P Bulletinby Krajewski et al (1998). Teachers reportedlyfelt that, if they told parents their child is notworking hard enough at schoolwork, the parentwould probably take their side (53%), but, if theytold parents their child was misbeh aving, they feltthat parents would be unlikely to take their side(41%), even though parents reported that theywould do so. In bo th cases, not working hardenough and misconduct, the parent’s idea ofsupport to the teacher seemed to be very high(70% and 57%, respectively). The percentagesgiven, indicate a great variance in perceptionsbetween teachers and parents.

In this paper the following questions will beexplored, using data gathered by the SenecaFoundation:

1. Do teachers, parents and stud ents holddifferent perceptions concerning studentbehaviour?

2. Is there a relationship between the exten t towhich teachers, parents and students feel thatthe school succeeds in inv olving the parents(and the surrounding co mmunity) and theirrespective perceptions of studen t behaviour?

3. Is there a relationship between the proportionof migrant students in the school populationand the perceptions of stude nt behaviour? Isthere a connection with the perceivedinvolvement of parents an d community inschool and, if so, in what way?

MethodThe subjects in the present study belong to agroup of 20.677 in dividuals (teachers, studentsand parents) from whom CASE/IMS data hasbeen collected since 1993. The data have beencollected from 267 primary, secondary andspecial schools, all over the Netherlands.The sample in the present study consists of 3.909secondary school su bjects. To explore therelationship between parent involvement andstudent behaviour, data were used of threedifferent samples. The first sample consisted of898 secondary sch ool teachers, the second samp leof 1968 secondary school students and, the th irdsample of 1043 parents of secondary schoolstudents. Overall, 47.3% of the schools reportedto have 5% or less migrant students, 43.0%reported to have more than 5% and less than,20% and 9.7% reported to have more than 20%migrant students in their schoo ls.

Most respondents (79 .7%) were connected toschools located in cities of moderate size (from25.000 to 150.0 00 residents).

Research instrumentThe instrument used to collect data in the schools,CASE/IMS, is of American origin, and was lateradapted for use in Dutch p rimary, secondary and


special schools, by the Seneca Foundation. Theinstrument was developed by a task groupemployed by the National Association ofSecondary School Principals (NASSP) between1982 and 1991. Beside a school principalquestionnaire, satisfaction scales and variousother report forms, it contains identical schoolclimate questionnaires for teachers and p arentsand for students in second ary school. The climatequestionnaires used in this study measure theshared perceptions of the groups involved onstudent behaviour, the relationship betweenstudents and parent and community involvementwith the school. Thus, the respondents are used asinformants. In the survey different groups in aschool are asked what most people think aboutaspects of the school.

ResultsSeparate correlation analysis on the kind ofrespondent and the various migrant schoolpopulation categories show a significantassociation between parent an d communityinvolvement and behaviour problems in all cases.Because of the large sample size, the significancelevel was set more stringently at 0.00 1 to guardagainst Type 1 errors.

To be more specific, a perceived higher parentand community involvement is related to betterstudent behaviour adjustment, and perceivedstudent relationships. These asso ciations werefound to be significant for teachers, students,parents, and for the different migrant populationsin schools. Because it could be expected that the relationbetween parental involvement and both outcomevariables would vary as a function of the type ofrespondent, and the composition of the migrantpopulation in schools a systematic explorationtook place of the interaction effects. To clear up these effects of the relationshipbetween involvement of parents and behaviouraladjustment in school a multivariate analysis of

variance (MANOVA) was carried out.Respondents were divided into a low and a highinvolvement category based on their scores on theParent Involvement scale. The m ean of the scalewas used as cut-off point. Because of dealingwith unequal popu lation sizes, Method 2 (Ove rall& Spiegel, 1969) was used to analyse the relationbetween perceived parent involvement andstudent school adjustment. In Method 2 ahierarchy of testing effects is imposed wheremain effects are adjusted for each other and forcovariates, while interaction terms are adjustedfor main effects, for covariates, and for same- orlower level interactions.A three-way multiple analysis of variance(MANOVA) was conducted on both outcomevariables (student behaviour and studentrelationships), with parent involvement (lowversus high involvement), respondent (teacher,student and parent), and mig rant population (3categories) as the independent variables. Giventhe primary interest in perceived parentinvolvement and the potential effect of migrantschool population, the main effects of respondent,migrant school popu lation and parent/commu nityinvolvement, and the interaction effects ofrespondent by parent involvement, migrantschool population by parent involvement, andrespondent by migrant school population byparent involvement were inc luded. The results of the multivariate and univ ariateanalysis of variance are displayed in table 3.

The means and stand ard deviations for bothdependent variables (perceived student behaviourand perceived student relationships), for each ofthe various subgroup s distinguished here werealso calculated.

Using Wilks’ Lambda criterion, MANOVAshowed significant overall main effects of thefactor respondent, (F = 7.63, df = 4,7780, p <.0001), the number of migrant students in school(F = 9.59, df = 4,7780 , p < .0001), and parent


involvement (F = 65.8 6, df = 2,3890, p < .0 001).Furthermore, a significant overall marginalinteraction effect of respondent and parentinvolvement (F =3.37, df = 4,7780, p < .01) wasfound. Additional univariate ANOVA’s revealed that themain effect of the kind of respondent o nly issignificant on perceived student behaviour (F =15.12, df = 2,3891 ). Tukey HSD pos t hoc testsshow that teachers perceive student behaviourmore positive in comparison to students (meandifference = .21, p < .0001), and parents perceivestudent behaviour mo re positive than students(mean difference = .18, p < 0001). No significanteffect was found between teachers and parents onperceived student behaviour. On the main effect of migrant school populationonly a significant main effect has been found onperceived student relationships (F = 18.43, df =2,3891, p < .0001). Participants who are involvedin schools with more than 20% migrant studen tsperceive significant (though marginal) lesspositive student relationships co mpared toparticipants who are involved in schools withmore than 5% and less than 20% migrant stud ents(mean difference = -.12, p < .01), and participan tswho are involved in school with less than 5%migrant students (mean difference = -.10, p <.05). No difference was found between the 5 %category and the 5-20% migrant studentscategory.The main effect of parent involvement wassignificant on both perceived student behaviour(F = 57.67, df = 1,3891) and perceived studentrelationships (F = 115.02, df= 1,3891). These

results show, as expected, that high parentalinvolvement is associated both with a betterperception of student behaviour and of studentrelationships compared to low parentalinvolvement.A significant respondent by parent involvementinteraction effect only on perceived studentrelationships (F = 5.60, df = 2,3891, p < .005)was found. Figure 1 displays the mean scores onperceived student behaviour sorted out byrespondents and paren t involvement.Additional analyses indicated that the effect ofparent involvement on student relationshipsdiffers between teachers, students, and parents.They showed that the re is a significant difference(F = 5.78, df = 2,1842, p < .003) betweenrespondents who perceive a low parentalinvolvement. This effect is mainly due tostudents. Students in the low parent/communityinvolvement category show a significant lowerperceived student relationship score (mean =3.30) compared to teachers (mean = 3.39; meandifference = -.09, p < .05) and parents (mean =3.42; mean difference = -.12, p < .01). On the other hand, a sign ificant difference wasfound between stud ents, teachers, and parents (F= 5.22, df= 2,2061, p < .005) who perceive a highparental involvement. This effect is also mainlydue to students who show a significant higherperceived student relationship score (mean =3.71) in comparison to parents (mean = 3.62;mean difference = .09, p < .007). No differencewas found between students and teachers, orteachers and parents.


DiscussionSome supplementary comments can be made.Once again support has been found for theproposition that an effective mutually supportive‘mesh’ between home, community and school hasseveral benefits.Regarding the first research question , in general,we notice that teachers and parents are m orepositive about student behaviour than are thestudents themselves. Teachers oftenunderestimate the occurrence of behaviouralproblems in schools, whereas parents don’t haveenough information at their disposal (Olweus,1989; Veugelers & De Kat, 1998 ). This denial of the existence of behaviouralproblems can be damaging to vulnerable children,who need teacher support to overcome problemslike bullying or ignoring by classroom-mates.They are dependent on teachers’ activediplomacy in the classroom . Van Hattum’sresearch (1997) established that teache rs don’tperceive bullying in their classrooms as a seriousproblem, even thoug h, in general, they consider itas damaging for pupils. The research assumesthat the feeling of being unable to influence the

situation makes teachers ‘believe’ that bu llying isnot such a problem. As to student relationships, they are of course ofgreatest importance to students themselves: theyare faced with them all day, in contrast toteachers, who (in secondary schools) meetstudents only for some h ours a week. Parents areeven further removed from school life andchildren don’t tell them everything about theirschool experiences. Arriving at the second research question:students’ perceptions of reciprocal relations aresignificantly related to parent and com munityinvolvement, whereas this d oes not apply toparents and teachers. A similar indirectrelationship of parent involvement as perceivedby students is reported by K eith and Keith(1993), this time on students’ ach ievement.Apparently, perceived parental and comm unityinvolvement has a positive influence both onyoungsters’ behavio ur and their academicachievement. It could be wo rthwhile toinvestigate this relationship in further research.Obviously studen ts profit from family/communityoriented and ‘open scho ols’. Due to the design, itis only possible to speak o f associations and


relationships, so we are not certain about thedirection of the mentioned relationship. All thingsconsidered, an alternative explanation could bethat active and supportive parents andcommunities make teachers feel esteemed, which,in turn, motivates them to propagate a positiveschool ‘ethos’, that is beneficial to studentrelations and behaviour. Possibly this positivereinforcement by parents and co mmunity couldcounteract feelings of powerlessness and stress.With regard to the third research question it isimportant to notice that in schools with more than20% migrants the percep tion of the relationshipbetween students is less positive . Dutch research(Teunissen & Golhof, 19892) has shown that (atclassroom level) the climate deteriorates when theproportion of migrant children is raised up to40%. One explanation could be that ‘Dutchnaturalness’ disappears and teachers have to

accommodate to the chan ged circumstances. Thisbrings about uncertainty, both at teacher andstudent level. When the proportion reaches about70% it was found that problems decrease,because migrant students find themselvesacknowledged an d their parents tend to negotiatemore on school-policy. We can not illustrate thisphenomenon with our data, because oursecondary school sample does not contain enoughschools with a very high percentage of migrantstudents.We had expected that, if schools m anaged toinvolve migrant parents/communities, the effecton behaviour and student relations would bepositive, but this assumption is not supported inthis research. Again, maybe this can be attributedto the rather small number of pup ils in schoolswith a larger proportion of migrant children(378).

ReferencesDalin, P. (1996), Can Schools Learn? Preparing for the 21st Century, NASSP Bulletin, (80), 576,

January 1996, 9-15.Hattum, M.J.C. van (19 97), Pesten (Bullying). Academisch Proefschrift. Universiteit van Amsterdam.Keith, P.B. & Keith, T.Z. (1993), Does Parental Involvement Influence the Academic Achievement of

American Middle S chool Youth? In: F. Smit, W. van Esch & H.J. Walberg (Eds.) ParentalInvolvement in Education, 205-209. Nijmegen: Institute for Applied Social Sciences.

Krajewski, B., Denhem Martinek, P. & Polka, B. (1998), Designing Creative Discipline: Tough, ButWell Worth It. NASSP Bulletin, 82 (596), March 1998, 7.

Olweus, D. (1989), Bully/victim problems among schoolchildren: basic facts and effects of a schoolbased intervention program. In D. Petler & K.H. Rubin (eds.), The development and treatment ofchildhood aggression. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Overall, J.E. & Spiegel, D.K. (196 9), Concerning least squares analysis of experimental data.Psychological Bulletin, 72 (5), 311-322.

Schuurman, M.I.M. (19 84), Scholieren over onderwijs: verslag van een studie naar houdingen,percepties en welbevinden van leerlingen in het voortgezet onderwijs. Leiden: Nederlands Instituutvoor Praeventieve Gezondheidszorg TNO.

Teunissen, F. & Golhof, A (19892), Etnische minderheden en speciaal on derwijs. In K. Doornbos &L.M. Stevens De groei van het speciaal ond erwijs, Deel A, 166-179. ’s-Gravenhage: SDU.

Veugelers, W. & Kat, E. de (1998), Opvoeden in het voortgezet onderwijs. Assen: Van Gorcum.

Information project development work - cooperationbetween home and school

Ingebjörg Johanessen

IntroductionIn cooperation with the Ministry of Education,Research and Church Affairs (KUF), the NationalParents’ Committee for Primary and LowerSecondary Education (FUG) will carry out adevelopment project to try out a comprehensivesystem for disseminating information to theparents of children attending primary and lowersecondary schools, parent representatives atdifferent levels in the primary and lowersecondary school, class teachers and members ofschool boards.

The project is a stage in the follow-up o f ReportNo. 14 (1997-98) to the Storting concerningparental participation in the primary and lowersecondary school (the report on parentalparticipation) and Recomm endation S. No. 117(1997-98) of the Standing Committee.

The purpose of the project is to develop andstrengthen the dialogue between home and schoolby establishing systematic and well plannedinformation and course facilities. A study will bemade of the importance for cooperation betweenhome and school of increasing parents’knowledge of the school’s objectives, curriculum,structure and distribution of respon sibility.

Emphasis will be placed on obtaining andsystematizing examples of successful interactionbetween home and school. During the projectperiod, course plans, newly developed materialand good examples of interaction will be madeavailable to schools, municip alities and countyauthorities throughout the co untry.

The project will be carried out in two counties(four municipalities in each county ) incooperation with the National Education Office inthese counties.

The project will have a duration of three years,starting at the beginning of the new school year inAugust 1999 and ending at the end of the schoolyear in 2002. Work on planning the project beganin October 1998.

BackgroundOn the basis of principles laid down in legislationconcerning parents, it is emphasized both in the Curriculum for Primary and Lo wer SecondaryEducation ( L 97) and in the report on parentalparticipation that parents have the mainresponsibility for their children’s upbringing andeducation. Close and good cooperation musttherefore be developed betw een home and scho ol.This cooperation must be characterized by gooddialogue, interaction and parental participation.Successful home-school cooperation is dependenton the supply of information to parents and on theexistence of favourable conditions forparticipation in the activities of the school.

In the view of the National Parents’ Committee,information provided by schools and otherarrangements made by sch ools in relation toparents fail to comply satisfactorily with nationalguidelines for home-scho ol cooperation. It istherefore necessary to encourage theestablishment of local fora in individu al schoolsand municipalities to strengthen the dialoguebetween home and school and to promote theprovision of well structured inform ation to all


parents with children attending primary and lowersecondary schools.

The report on parental participation urges themunicipalities to develop the sch ool board insuch a way as to promote good dialogue andinteraction between the various parties involvedin the primary and lower secon dary school. Acourse programme for parent representatives andmembers of the school board will be tried out aspart of the project. At the same time an attemptwill be made to establish network cooperationbetween school boa rds in the municipality.

The report on parental participation stresses th at aforum at the municipal level for dialogueconcerning matters of mutual interest w ould be inthe interest of both the municipalities and theparents. Courses for parent representative s willalso be offered to representatives at the municipallevel.

ObjectivesThe objectives of the information project are asfollows:- try out a comprehensive system for

dissemination of information including coursefacilities for parents, parent representatives atmunicipal and local levels and class teachers soas to increase their knowledge and insightconcerning the rights and obligations involvedin cooperation between home and school

- obtain concrete examples of good interactionbetween home and school at different levels

- hold courses for parent representatives andmembers of school bo ards to increase theirknowledge and understanding of the schoolboard’s role as a forum for dialogue andinteraction between the different partiesconcerned in the primary and lower secondaryschool

- increase the competence of the members ofschool boards in relation to the tasks,

obligations and possibilities that accompanytheir official duties

- encourage network cooperation between schoolboards in the municipalities

- support and strengthen the work of the existingMunicipal Parents’ Councils and encourage thesetting up of more such co uncils

Project plans and implementationThe information project is to be implemented as athree-year pilot project in two counties with theparticipation of four municipalities from eachcounty. All counties were invited to apply toparticipate in the project. Twelve countiesapplied, and Nordland and Oppland countieswere selected.

On the basis of the applications received, thecounties were selected according to the followingcriteria: - The National Education Office must include the

project in its plans of operations.- The National Education Office must be willing

to take responsibility for the tasks assign ed to itin the project description, including appointinga project coordinator.

- The National Education Office must be willingto take an active part in project developmentboth through the pro ject coordinator’sparticipation in the project group and throughthe activities of the project coordinator inrelation to the municipalities concerned.

- In the county there must be four municipalitiesthat wish to take part in the project and arewilling to make school-ho me cooperation mainpriority areas.

- The choice of municipalities must representboth urban and rural municipalities and theymust be of varying size and school structure.

- In large urban municipalities, the project w illbe implemented in selected urban districts.


The project will be carried out in cooperationbetween the Ministry of Education, Research andChurch Affairs, the National Parents’ Committeefor Primary and Lower Secondary Education, theNational Education Office and the MunicipalEducation Departments.

The following measures will be developed andtested in the project:

Training The following persons will be invited to attend acourse or a series of evening topic meetings:- All parents with children in the first, fifth and

eighth classes- All parent representatives and class teachers- All members of school boards

Network cooperation for coordination andexchange of ideas and experience- An annual conference will be held in the

municipality for all members of school boards.

Conferences- A kick-off conference will be held for resource

persons, head teachers, municipalrepresentatives, representatives for the NationalEducation Office, the project group and thesteering group.

- An annual conference will be held for Parents’Council Working Committees in themunicipality.

- An annual conference w ill be held at countylevel for all Municipal Parents’ Councils andrepresentatives from the municipal educationdepartments. In the case of municipalitieswhere no Municipal Parents’ Council has beenset up, representatives for the Parents’ Cou ncilWorking Committees will be invited.

Training of local resource persons- Resource persons in municipalities and

counties are invited to attend cou rses heldeither at municipality or county level.

Content of courses and conferencesA fundamental principle of courses andconferences will be a division of top ics relating todialogue and interaction into three main areas:1. National guidelines and principles for the

activities of the schoolAppropriate topics: the Curriculu m for Primaryand Lower Secondary Education (L97), theEducation Act, the report on parentalparticipation, school evaluation , pupilassessment, day-care facilities forschoolchildren, children with special needs

2. School development in individualmunicipalitiesAppropriate topics: The municipalities’ follow-up of L97, plans for competence building,guidelines for school evaluation, developmentprojects and development of day-care facilitiesfor schoolchildren

3. School-home coo peration at individual schoo lsEach school adapts the project to its ownpriorities, e.g. home-school coop eration inrelation to its own activity plans, developmentof the learning environment, school-basedassessment, use of the natural environment forteaching purposes, topic and project work, theschool’s and the pupils’ ch oices, day-carefacilities for schoolchildren, etc.

Municipal education departments and individualschools will be encourag ed to take an active partin developing content for parts 2 and 3 of coursesand conferences. This will give individualmunicipalities and schools the freedom to furtherdevelop the reform and adapt it to local needsregarding the relationship between home andschool.

The National Education Office will have a majorrole in the project and, with the support of theMinistry, will have responsibility for- informing the municipalities about the project- providing advice and guidance to the

municipalities in connection w ithimplementation of the project


- helping to train people responsible for holdingcourses

- holding conferences

Municipal education departments, with thesupport of the Ministry and the NationalEducation Office, will have the responsibility for- informing head teachers about the project- coordinating work on courses, topic evenings,

information meetings- cooperating with parent representatives and/or

the Municipal Parents’ Cou ncil- helping to train people responsible for holding

courses- holding conferences in the municipality

MaterialDevelopment of materials will be a central andprincipal part of the project. Such materials willrelate to topics such as starting school, startingupper secondary school, the rights of the child,school evaluation, different ways of cooperatingand good examples of cooperation between homeand school. In both structure and content, thematerial will be developed and adapted to targetgroups through active participation in the projectby municipalities and scho ols.

Development of materials will also tak e intoconsideration their suitability for use in home-school cooperation in the remainder of thecountry.

EvaluationConsiderable emphasis will be placed onevaluating the effect of the project on thedialogue and interaction between home andschool. An examination will also be made of theplausibility of the hypothesis: ‘Better home-school cooperation leads to a better classroomenvironment and better han dling of conflicts.’ Aquestionnaire survey will be carried out in 1999,and a final evaluative survey will be made oncompletion of the project in the spring of 2002.Continuous evaluation will also be carried out

throughout the project pe riod at the municipality,school and class level. The National EducationOffice will be assigned tasks associated with theevaluation and will assist in developing theevaluation work. The task of evaluating theproject has been assigned to the Institute forNorwegian Social Research (NOVA).

The Issues addressedThe issues addressed by this evaluation have beenformulated on the basis of the objectives of theproject and national guidelines for cooperationbetween the home and the school. The project’sobjectives are primarily associated withinformation and courses for parents, parentrepresentatives and class teachers. This is alsoreflected by the issues themselves. A furthermatter of importance for these issues is thatcooperation between home and school must notbe seen as an end in itself. Ideally, thiscooperation should result in improved schoolfacilities for children and young peo ple. It istherefore essential to base the evaluation onissues associated with the pupils’ learningenvironment. In this type of evaluation, it is alsonecessary to assess what has b een carried out inthe project and to take into consideration thebasic operating conditions of the project. Suchfactors have relevance for the results attained inthe project. On this basis, the following issueshave been formulated:- To what extent do information and courses

increase parents’ competence concerningcooperation between home and school and theobjectives, curriculum and organization of theschool?

- To what extent does increasing the competenceof the parents have significance for cooperationbetween home and school?

- Are there connections between the classenvironments in the school and the cooperationbetween home and school?

- In what ways do framework conditions andpriorities at national and local levels influencecooperation between h ome and school?


In an evaluation of the cooperation between homeand school, it will be important to distinguishbetween participatory democracy andrepresentational democracy. Both are important inconnection with the cooperation between homeand school and, in the evaluation, priority will begiven to distinguish between these two levels ofcooperation. As pointed out in the curriculum forthe 10-year compulsory primary and lowersecondary school, it is first and foremost bycooperating with individ ual parents that schoolscan assist parents in fostering their children’sdevelopment.

Project managementThe day-to-day management of the project will becarried out by a project group consisting of thesecretariat of the National Parents’ Committeeand a project coordinator from each of the twoparticipating counties.

The project’s steering group will consist of theNational Parents’ Committee and representativesfrom the Ministry of Education, Research andChurch Affairs.

Liaison meetings will be held at national andcounty level for exchange of information with theorganizations. Individual project municipalitiesare to decide for themselves the form to be takenby cooperation with the organizations.

FundingThe project has been allocated development fundsfrom the budget of the Ministry of Education,Research and Church Affairs.

The National Education Offices in the countieswill be allocated project funds to cover the cost oftheir involvement in the project, including the payof a project coordinator (maximu m 50% post).

The National Education Office is to have theresponsibility for allocation of necessary projectfunds to the municipalities.

The National Education Office will be expectedto undertake to follow up and develop the projectin accordance with the project description and thedecisions made in the steering group and projectgroup. The National Education Office will begiven follow-up and su pport by the Ministry. Allconferences and courses in the project held by theNational Education Offices will be financed byproject funds.

The municipalities will receive free courses forlocal resource persons, and all material used inthe project will be provided free of charge. Themunicipalities will receive follow-up, support andguidance from both the Ministry and the NationalEducation Office.

The municipalities must undertake to develop theproject in accordance with the project descriptionand incorporate the project in a comprehensivesystem for home-school cooperation in themunicipalities. The municipality will be expectedto use its own resources to cover the salaries ofemployees (head teacher, teaching staff, schooloffice staff) in connection with project work andtravel to meetings.

Meetings of the central project group will befinanced by project funds, as will evaluation ofthe project.

Changes in the projectThe development o f the project will initiallyfollow the project description given above.However, it follows from the project’s nature as adevelopment project that it may be necessary tomake adjustments and changes in the projectframework during both the planning and theimplementation phases.

‘Parents at School’ programme as a perspective ofpartnership’s orientation increase in Poland

Maria Mendel

This paper is based on research work, whichbrought out the implications for practice on afield of school-home co-operation. Theprogramme ‘Parents at School’ reflects many ofthem in its contents, and shapes a tendency ofschools’ and parents’ partnership progress inPoland.

Research report1

The method used was mainly qualitativeinvestigation with three kinds of questionnaires(parents, teachers, principals), and analysis ofschool documents. The empirical study wascarried out in Gdansk - one of the biggest Polishcities (ca. 500 000 habitants), in 1993, andincorporated 167 peo ple. The aim of the study concentrated around a muchdebated phenomenon in educational policiesacross the world: schools’ and parents’partnership. This issue mirrors a context ofpolitical changes in Eastern Europe. Throughoutthe period of Communist domination, the schoolhas been one of the most important agents ofpolitical control over the society. It operatedrather against, than along the will of parents.During almost half a century of state-controllededucation, schools managed to create an almostindifferent population of adults wh o tend tobelieve that schooling is a matter of teachers’ so leconcerns and responsibilities. The 1989upheavals changed the system of political controland resulted in deep re-definitions of educationalresponsibilities. The 1991 E ducation Act inPoland empowers parents to take up control overthe process of schooling, g ranting bigcompetence to school boards and other parentaland community-based bodies. It also opened up

the possibilities of school choice, m aking itpossible for numerous social forces (parents’organisations, and local comm unities included) toset up schools, which - if meeting the didacticcriteria set for public schools - can obtain partialpublic funding (max. 5 0%). However, the legal changes are not followed byimmediate changes in people’s attitudes, beliefs,and actions.The pedagogical orientation s of parents(‘orientation’ is meant here as a generalised, notnecessarily fully recognised by the subject, set ofbeliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviouraltendencies) are one of the major factorsinvestigated in the research. The relationships between the factors of parentalpedagogical orientations, school choice, and theattitudes of school principals and teachers werestudied in analysing the forms of parentalparticipation in the process of schoo ling. The research sample covered o ne city area, inwhich parents of young learners (grades 1-3) hada choice between a huge public school, a smallCatholic school, and a small parent-run non-public school. The choice of school proved to be the majordifferentiating factor of parents’ pedagogicalorientations and forms of involvement in schoollife. The explanation is twofold: on the one hand,parents choosing to send their children to non-public schools are better off (in non-publicschools they have to cover at least 50% ofschooling costs), on the other, they are moreconscious about the goals of education. In theparent-run schools (they are set up , and to a bigextent maintained, by groups of parents opting


out of the public school system) parentalinvolvement is just part of the system . In the Catholic school (which operates along thelines similar to those run by parents o r privateindividuals) parents were not m uch involved indecision-making: they are not represented in theschool board - which is a deliberate policy of theschool. Public school parents, who formally do havepossibilities to influence the process of schooling,were not involved either. Their motif of choosingthe public school was first of all the vicinity ofthe school, and - of course - free tuition. Thepublic school parents proved least informed aboutthe pedagogy employed by the school, and ontheir possible ways of influencing the schoolingof their children. Both public and Catholic school parents showdissatisfaction with their possibilities of control.However, as long as public school p arents werein a way indifferent to (or ill informed about)pedagogical issues, the Ca tholic school ones didgenerally approve of the school’s educationalphilosophy. The deepest, widest and mostsatisfying involvement was shown - notsurprisingly - by parent-run scho ol parents. A large part of parental involvement concernsfinancial issues: the tuition fee in non-pu blicschools, and the poverty in public schools, makethe financial and technical support from theparents an obvious way of getting them engagedin school life. The degree of parental involvement correlateswith the attitudes of teachers and schoolprincipals. While declaring the need of deeper co-operation, public schoo l teachers and principalsseem to be happy with keeping parents at adistance from their pedagogical activities. Of all schools investigated, the parent-run wasmost concerned with democratic participation ofparents in all forms of school life (not merelywith the money, but also with parental care,occasional teaching, and cu rricular decisions).

The teachers and parents called this sch ool: ‘goodfor the students and good for us’, all of them feltcomfortable at this school and described it astheir ‘own’, some part of their identity.

Portrait of school ‘good for the students andthe parents’Ten years ago, in spring three mo thers met: adoctor, a lawyer, and a psychologist. They hadheard about the Civic Educational Association onTV. Being full of hope about new educationalpossibility for their children (TO LEARN ATNOT HUGE, AND NOT CLOSED FORPARENTS, NICE SCHOOL), they made adecision that one of them should go to Warsawand participate in a meeting of the first memb ersof STO.At the end of August they gained over 30 friends2

- parents, who were ready to take a risk and sendtheir children to a unique and u nknown scho ol.They were also ready to pay (a month’s tuitionwas a half of an average salary) and w ork veryhard. During the first three years the schoolchanged its seat four times, because it didn’t haveits own place. In every new place, the parents andteachers together had to adapt everything forchildren, to make a school.It was impossible during the research to learnhow much these kind of experiences influencedthe current state of school life.To have the same goals at the beginning, and awill to co-operate; to have a small but importanttask working together; to realise all schoolproblems and be responsible for solving them.These factors seemed to raise partnership atschool and create the attitudes, which madepeople open to one another, able to rely on therest of school community.Among the main co nclusions of the research arethe following:

What is shown by the elements of the parents’pedagogical orien tation in the portrayed sch ool?


It appears that the parents were looking for aschool, which offers their values and respectstheir needs. It is also shown that:1. All of them appreciate the possibility of

participating in school life, and treat school as agood place for their children (98% of satisfiedpeople opinions).

2. The parents’ responsibility for school life andfuture was connected with their identity - as apart of school commun ity.

3. The parents knew the educational conception(also curriculum) of school. They presented awill to develop it together with the teachers.

4. The parents felt that they coud influen ce everysphere of school life. They also knew thedecision-making system at school and theirown position in it.

5. The parents confirmed teachers’ competenceand admitted their priority in educationaldecision-making process. Parents expected theteachers to give initiatives of co-operation andto ask for parents’ opinions abo ut children.

6. The parents treated school values the same astheir own.

7. They felt obliged to co-operate with theteachers and were ready to collaborate atschool.

On the base of the study, the pedagogicalorientations of parents at this particular schoo l ageneralised set of beliefs, values, attitudes, etc. -on an active platform o f partnership can beobserved. The following table presents theconfirmation of this conclusion.

The pedagogical orientation of parents(set of the following components)

The facts recorded through investigation

Beliefs (about school and education)

1. Looking for a suitable school for a child is connected with

the parents’ own expectations, needs and values.2. Being sure that the school considers parents’ opinions and

expectations.

Estimation (results of comparing school reality to the

ideal state)

1. Positive results of school’s estimation (‘This is the school,

that I was looking fo r’)2. Sharing responsibility for school - now and in the future.

Knowledge(about school)

Being aware of:1. the legal rights of parents to co-operate with school;2. the forms of parents’ influence in every area of school life;3. the main aims of educational concept of a child at school.

Values and attitudes(to a child and its education)

1. Agreement between school (teachers, principals) and

parents about the main values and attitudes to the children.2. Having a community of like-minded people.

Behavioural tendencies(to active or passive b ehaviour

in relation to school)

1. Desire to co-operate with teachers and other parents.2. Accepting home-school co-operation as a natural

consequence of being a parent.3. Readiness for a partnership.4. Waiting for the teachers’ invitation to co-operate.


The last point shows an interesting role ofteachers: key-figures in co-operation with parents.

The teacher’s opinions as an important part ofthe portrait.

The teachers investigated were also satisfiedabout their work at school. Their opinions aboutparents-school co-operation can discover the mostcolourful part of the portrait. During the study it was tried to recognise forms(shape) of parents influence into school life. Theteachers described parents’ participation, as a pa rtof their own work with children, for example:Parents’ assistance, preparing lessons together(the discussions - what we have to do, why, andhow to do it? Preparing ma terials, places, etc.).There are two kinds of this activity: on e isconnected with parents’ meetings (once a month)- the teacher presents monthly educationalschedule and then together they prepare the exacttimetable of individual tasks - for at home, andfor school. The second one appears as daily co-operation between teacher and parents - whenthey create various activities for children in avery flexible way (out of the scho ol, at student’shouse). Parents as educators at school (som e lessons areled by parents welcomed by teachers. In thisversion of co-operation the teachers becomeparents’ assistants).Parents as teachers’ partners in diagnostic w orkabout children (the teachers explained howimportant it is to obtain together an answer for thefollowing questions: w hat kind of difficultiesdoes the student have? W hy do difficulties occurand what can/should we do to support / help thestudent?).The teachers expressed their expectations in thefield of co-operation with parents. Whencompleted with the expectations of parents, theycall out thoughts about the real partnership.The teachers showed also the daily school lifewith parents. They wish to have parents at school

as collaborators and feel delighted w orking withthem together.

From the Principal’s point of view.The principal was glad to work at the parents-runschool. Her opinions confirmed the teachers’approach to parents. The statements aboutparent’s influence on school life show that shedoes not close any of its spheres for them. Theimportant decisions she always makes up togetherwith parents (School Council) . It is common, shesaid, that she takes into consideration everyparent’s opinion abou t each part of school life. Itis significant, that she indicated three groups ofdecisions, which can foster parents’ influence andhelp the school to perfect itself. Some of themseem a little bit controversial, but one shou ldremember that the principal presented them,thinking about her school. Every following groupof decisions that were made with parents’participation has given everyone a high level ofsatisfaction at this school:- Teachers’ employment (who else should be

employed, who to be dismissed; why?)- Changes of school curriculum and time-

schedule;- Making the school offer wider (what are the

current needs and possibilities of new subjects,evening activities, etc.).

The principal of this school appeared a person,who wants the parents still to have manypossibilities to influence school life, and w ish tocontinue this special way of co -operating withthem.

Concluding, on e can say that:- Almost all the parents (98%) presented the

opinion that: It is a good school. However, theyhave indicated many b ad sides of school life(81% statements concerning faults), and theyhave also constructed various ways of solutions(73% proposals ho w to solve school prob lems).It shows that the parents’ responsibility forschool has obtained a high level. They treat


school as their own value an d try to make thisplace optimal - especially for their children,which means also - for the teachers. Theteachers clearly know parents’ expectationsshown by their activity in co-operation, andsituate them on the same platform of values.Possibly parents’ attitude like this influencesthe atmosphere positively and creates healthyrelationships between parents an d teachers.

- The teachers were glad being a part of schoolcommunity. A reason that can be mention ed isthat they could always count on the parents’assistance, and help in their work w ith children.

- The principal’s attitude toward parents allowedthem to feel as real partners in schoolmanagement, and to create this school step bystep in practice. The Principal was also satisfiedto work at this school. She was delightedfeeling her role in the field of social integrationthrough family-school partnership model usedat school. She could notice and she appreciatesmany good results of this partnership, forexample: students’ outcomes in comparisonwith other schools, good relationships betweenstudents, teachers and parents; significant andkind opinions abo ut school in local commu nity(much more candidates than school can admitevery year).

A good school means a school, which is good forsomebody, for real person or group of people.Here a school was described that is good forsmall groups of parents, teachers, and for theprincipal, who were concentrated in some placein Gdansk. Their enthu siasm and strong will TOBUILT A NEW SCHOOL TOGETHER haveappeared fruitful. They were able to create realpartnership, which conducted the school to a highlevel of effectiveness, and gave people mostcomfortable state of being together.

Now, we are ten years since the date of itsestablishment. Will this partnership exist longer,even without people’s great enthusiasm

characterising the first years of this school’sexistence? Do they already have enough ofdemocratic habits for being able to u se parent’srights (guaranteed in Poland with law since1991), to be active participants of their child ren’seducation at school? What about the parents andteachers from public schools (for 98% of totalnumber of the students in Poland) - are they readyto create a real partnership and prepare theconditions for mental health in school? There is some hope, that all the answers for thesequestions will be optimistic. On the 1st ofSeptember 1999 ed ucational system reform inPoland has started. Its main assum ptions concernchange of roles in educational system. Polishschool is going to beco me a center of communitylife, to be open for parents, representatives oflocal community, and to keep an open-doorapproach to neighbours - from the same and othercountries (exchange prog rammes, social links viaInternet, etc.). It seems to be the end of the Polishschool as formal ‘institution for learning’.The study indicated a current need for increasedparents’ and teachers’ orientations to mutual co-operation, and offered the suggestions forteachers on how to dev elop a fruitful partnershipwith parents. They became the base of the‘Parents at School’ programme, w hich ispresented below. In general, the research shows a great potential ofparental involvement in the Polish educationalsystem. In choice schools, especially those run byparental organisations, the involvem ent isnaturally inscribed into the system. In th e publicand Catholic schools the level of parentaldissatisfaction can also be understood as apotential for change. The data seem to support theidea of school choice policies and the models ofschool voucher financing.However, the limited scale of voucher policy inPoland paradoxically seems to be one of theleading factors of reform in the school. Paren tswho pay for the tuition of their children feel


empowered to control the school also inpedagogical terms.The educational reform in Poland bases on thedecentralisation system, which increases thesignification of local communities, and createspeople’s attitudes to the schools as the own,communities’ value.

About the origin of the ‘Parents at School’programmeIn 1998 Polish government (Department ofEducation) had initiated researcher and teacher’swork on a programm e concerning parentsinvolvement in school and local communities life.A group of two people working on it wassupported by Prime Minister Officerepresentatives (Premier’s advisors’, and theofficials’ assistance concerning social diagnosis,current materials, correspondence, etc.). At theend of 1998 government accepted the Parents atSchool programme, and it received some financialbase for its realisation3. The process of turning itinto practice starts in connection with otherprojects on the area of caring system, in 1 999.

Contents of the programmeThe goals of the programme reflect the needs ofschool-family-community partnership, whichwere indicated in the conclusions of thepedagogical orientations’ study. The mainassumption presents a way of partnership creationby increased parents’ involvement in schoolpractice, which will be able to obtain a big extenton the life of local community. It is shown in thetitle of this programme: Parents at School. The orientation is meant here as set of beliefs,attitudes, and behavioural tend encies. Each partof this set is depended on individual experiences,conscious and non-conscious needs, etc. Thenpartnership orientation’s increase has to be basedon educational processes concerning the people,who play their partner roles in co-op eration. Inconnection to this pre-assumption the programmeincludes two parts. One of them combines the

proposals of teachers’, parents’, and localauthorities’ representatives’ in education. There are exact curricula of:- workshop’s periods - as a proposal for schools

(teachers, parents) on how to co-o perateeffectively;

- courses (60, 120-hours) - the certificatesconfirm, that participants have the abilities tofoster school, family, community partnerships ,

- post-graduate study: The Animation ofCommunity Co-operation (220 hours, 2-semester course at the universities or highschools)4

- specialisation at colleges, and univ ersities: TheAnimation of Community Co-operation (3-yearsstudy across social sciences, with vocationaltraining at schools, local governments, andpublic institution in a set of national caringsystem)

- selected subjects, meant as a supplement ofobligatory curricula at teacher-training schoo ls(for example: The Bases of School / Family /Community Par tnership)

The second part of programme concentrates manydifferent ways how to prov ide the parents withinformation about their rights, responsibilities,and possibilities of suppo rt on solving theirproblems with children. There are the followingconceptions:- Family / School Adv isory Center - in local scale

- for the districts, small cities, and the villages.Both parents and teachers (principals) will beable to get piece of advice (how to help thechildren, and to increase the levels of stud entsabilities, etc.), current messages about schooland community life (culture, educational events,etc.), and the indications concerning the ways ofefforts’ integration, etc.

- Parents’ Radio Channel - Parents’ TV Channel - both radio and TV

channels should giv e advice to the parents(make them stronger with all theirresponsibilities for the children), and also


information, which is currently needed (forexample: before school term will start - themessages about all the necessities for theyoungest pupils).

- Parents’ Magazine - edited in twofold ways: onlocal scale, as a magazine, which presen tsschools’ offers (for example: curricula, optionaland evening activities, role of parents in schoollife, environmental conditions). Th e edition inlarger scale means a magazine for Polishparents in comparisons an d co-operation withother parents across the world. There is placefor the presentations of parents-teachersassociations’ achievement, their new ideas, andproblems.

- Parents’ Home Page on the Internet -programme includes an exact description of this‘page’ organisation and contents. The followingelements of its structure have appeared as mostexposed: ‘We all are the same, but...’ - thiswindow includes the list of parents’ rights andresponsibilities in comparisons of their situationwith in particular European countries (on thebasis of ‘Eurydice’ data, and other sources ofinformation); ‘The thoughts for parents’ - thearticles about parents as educators, participan tsof their children schooling, and the life ofschool, etc.; ‘Parents’ chat’ - place for exchangeof parents’ experiences, questions , doubts.

The contents of Parents at School in its structurereflects the overlapping spheres theory by JoyceEpstein, and her Six Types of Involvement:parenting, communicating, volunteering, learningat home, decision making , and collaborating withthe community 5. Local peculiarities, whichcharacterise the Polish reality, made all thesetypes full of unique examples of practice. Onsome fields of the types mentioned above theyexpressed spontaneously and easy(communicating, decision making). On theothers, especially volunteering, the creations ofproposals had appeared as difficult in Polishreality (lack of exact rules and formal status of

the volunteers at schools, described andguaranteed by law, etc.).Preparing the view of partnership, the Polishprogramme used Ep stein’s definition of school,family, and community partnership, which arisesby theory of overlapping spheres of influence.This meaning of partnership (co-operation inagreement of the aims, and types of activities)finds adequate supplement in theory ofeducational partnership by Alastair Macbeth, andby Stanislaw Rogala.6 Macbeth’s definition ofpartnership exposes the fact, that it involves amixture of interdependence and autonomy, whereis mutual benefit for partners to co-operate and toinfluence each other’s actions, but sim ilarly theremust be recognition of some independence andother responsibilities. Rogala’s partnership meansalso mutual obligations, but with respect ofindividual’s values, and w orks together withsimilar expectations about the results of co-operation. In general the term ‘partnership’ is used in aprogramme after those three meanings, whichcompose - as Macbeth said - a mixture ofinterdependence and autonomy of partners.

The ‘Parents at School’ programme grasps manyaspects of partnership and it draws a prospectivelandscape of school / family / community co-operation in Poland. It combines the proposals,mentioned above with a project of turning theminto practice. This project is based on the methodof cascade, which let first educators to educatetheir multiplicators on the average short term(courses, workshops, etc.). Epstein’s action teamidea has appeared very useful in that part of theproject, which described the functioning of‘cascade’ in local communities7, making home -school - community liaisons.

Educational reform in Poland indicates greatchanges in the system of education (3 steps ofcompulsory educatio n: primary school,gymnasium - junior high school, and lyceum -


1 Mendel, M . (1998), Parents and the School. How to Participate in the Education of Children? (Mendel, 1998).2 During rese arch work it w as a primary s chool (6-15 ) with 144 stud ents. 3 Mendel M . (Ed.) (1998), Parents at School, Ministry of Education, Warsaw.4 Post-graduate study The Animation of Community Co-operation starts at the Institute of Education, University

of Gdansk. There 36-people group will be studying since 1st of October, 1 999. 5 Epstein J.L. (19 87), Toward a Theory of Family - School Connections: Teachers Practices and Parent

Involvement in: K. Hurrelmann, F.X. Kaufmann, F. Losel (Eds.) Social Intervention: Potential and Constraints.Berlin - New York, Walter de Gruyter & Co.Epstein J.L.(19 95), School / Fam ily / Commun ity Partnership s. Caring for th e Children W e Share. ‘Phi DeltaKappan’, May.

6 A. Macbeth (1995), Partnership between parents and teachers in education in A. Macbeth, D. McCreath andJ.Aitchison (Eds.): Collaborate or Compete? Educational Partnerships in a Market Economy. The Falmer Press,London - Washington, D.C., p.50-51S. Rogala (19 89), Partnerstwo rodziców i nauczy cieli. Ossolineum, Opole - Wroc aw - Kraków, p.10-12

7 J.L. Epstein, L. Co ates, K.C. Salina s, M.G. Sande rs, B.S. Simon (19 97), School, Family, and Comm unityPartnership s. Your Hand book for Actio n. Corvin Press, Inc. Thousand Oaks, California, p. 13-17

senior high school), deep re-definitions ofschooling, and teachers’, paren ts’ roles in itsprocess (the idea of education as life-longlearning process, not necessarily placed atschools; school as a center of soc ial life, etc.). The reform relies on many prog rammes. Parentsat Schools belongs to the most important issues,which determinate success o f all the reform’sintentions. Between the prospective tasks writtendown in this programm e, now preparing teachers,

parents, and representatives of local authoritiesfor partnerships seems most sign ificant. The autonomous universities, colleges, and highpedagogic schoo ls should take it intoconsideration. Any of them in Poland providesfor students - prospective teachers thepossibilities (courses, worksho ps, etc.) to preparethemselves to work with parents.

Notes

ReferencesEpstein J.L. (1987), Toward a Theory of Family - Sch ool Connections: Teachers Practices and Parent

Involvement in: K. Hurrelmann, F.X. Kaufmann, F. Losel (Eds.) Social Intervention: Potential andConstraints. Berlin - New York, Walter de Gruyter & Co.

Epstein J.L. (1995), School / Family / Community Partnerships. Caring for the Children We Share.‘Phi Delta Kappan’, May.

Epstein, J.L., L. Coates, K.C. Salinas , M.G. Sanders, B.S. Simon (1997), School, Family, andCommunity Par tnerships. Your Handbo ok for Action. Corvin Press, Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.

Macbeth, A. (1995), Partnership between parents and teachers in education in A. Macbeth, D.McCreath and J. Aitchison (Eds.): Collaborate or Compete? Educational Partnerships in a MarketEconomy. The Falmer Press, London - Washington, D.C.

Mendel M. (1998 ), Rodzice i szko a. Jak wspó uczestniczy w edukacji dzieci? (Parents and the Schoo l.How to Participate in the Education of Children?) Adam Marsza ek, Torun.

Mendel, Maria (Ed.) (1998), Rodzice w szkole (Parents at School) , Ministry of Education, Warsaw.Rogala, S. (1989), Partnerstwo rodziców i nauczycieli (Parents - Teachers Partnership), Ossolineum,

Opole - Wroc aw - Kraków.

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