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ECED40: FAMILY, SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

MODULE 1: SCOPE AND NATURE OF PARENT-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the Module, you will be able to:
1. explain the importance of working effectively with parents;
2. explore different models of working with parents and identify the values that underpin a true
‘partnership’.
3. recognize the history of parent involvement in early education;
2. validate the benefits of parent-teachers;
3. visualize potential barriers that will hinder the effective communication between teacher and
parents; and
4. generalize the foundations of a successful partnership of parent and teacher.

CONTENT
A. Definition of Parental Involvement
B. Goals of Parent Involvement
C. Scope and Nature of Parent Involvement
D. History of Parent Involvement
E. Types of Parent Involvement
F. Barriers to Parent Involvement
G. Benefits of Parent Involvement

Abstraction
One function of early childhood programs is parental involvement, which can take
varied forms.

(Brainstorming on the definitions of parental involvement in school or schooling)

A. Definition of Parental Involvement

 Parent involvement is an observable relationship between classroom
educators and parents to improve learners' academic performance
(Epstein, 996:224).
 It is the participation of parents in regular, two-way, meaningful communication
involving student academic learning and other school activities (Section 1118 of
the ESEA. [Section 9101(32), ESEA.]).
Parents play an integral role in assisting their child’s learning, that parents
are encouraged to be actively involved in their child’s education at school; That
parents are full partners in their child’s education and are included, as
appropriate, in decision-making and on advisory committees to assist in the
education of their child; and the carrying out of other activities.

 It is a program aimed at enhancing parent-child relations and improving

parenting competence.
Parent involvement helps parents become better informed about child-rearing
and about family life as it affects child-rearing. Society expects parents to
perform many roles in relation to their children and parent education focuses on
these parenting roles Although no one can tell parents exactly what they should
do to raise the kind of children they want, parents are eager for information to
make parenting easier and more fulfilling.
 It includes the families’ priorities and all the contributions they can make to their
children’s overall educational growth. Both parents and professionals function as
co-facilitators of each other in their efforts to make life more meaningful for
children and themselves (PNU LET Reviewer).
 Parental involvement refers to parent behaviors related to the child’s school or
schooling that can be observed as manifestations of their commitment to their
child’s educational affairs. This means that a parent who shows these behaviors
to a larger extent can be regarded as higher involved than a parent who shows
these behaviors to a lesser degree. Apart from these school- or schooling-related
behaviors.
 Making it more complex, apart from observable behaviors, parent involvement
has also been conceived as a set of parental beliefs, attitudes and values,
varying from simply knowing where the child is (Grolnick and Slowiaczek, 1994),
and knowing the child’s friends (Georgiou, 1997) to parents’ enthusiasm (Zellman
and Waterman, 1998), parents’ beliefs that they should take an active role in their
children’s education (Grolnick, Benjet, Kurowski, and Apostoleris, 1997), educate
their children to good citizenship (Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003), have high
 aspirations for their children (Astone and McLanahan, 1991; Sui-Chu and Willms,
1996), and have a positive sense of efficacy for helping the child learn, besides
their (adequate) perception of invitations to involvement from the school, teacher
and the children themselves.( Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005).

More definitions of parent involvement are moving toward defining the term parent to
more broadly encompass all of the significant adults in any child’s life – grandparents, aunts,
uncles, neighbors who provide childcare, and even community agencies and institutions that
serve children. Moreover, a new definition of effective parent involvement goes beyond just the
school’s educational priorities or the academic contributions they can make.

Goals of Parent Involvement

 to promote and support learners' learning, school performance and general well-
being (Lemmer, 2000:69).
 To bring about teachers and parents a common understanding of what children
are like- how they grow; how they behave; the problems they face; and how to
help them meet these challenges.
 To bring about teachers and parents a common understanding of good education-
what it looks like; how it operates; what it requires; what it avoids; and what it
strives for.

Nature and Scope of Parent Involvement

 Some programs focus on family-community relations while others teach parents

how to stimulate a child’s cognitive development.
 Some programs prescribe specific skills and styles in relating to young children
while other programs help parents determine what is best for them.
 Some programs are designed primarily to disseminate child development
information to parents while others attempt to foster supportive relationships
among program participants.
 Some programs are highly structured while others let parents select activities they
wish to pursue. In some programs, the staff serves as child development experts
while other programs adhere to a self-help model with staff in non-directive
facilitator roles.
  Galen (1991), a principal, has described the parent involvement in her elementary
school along a continuum. That is, while many parents participated in some way,
some were involved more heavily than others. The occasion for sharing this
information was to report on the school’s success in moving beyond the traditional
open house/ parent conference level of interaction

History of Parental Involvement

 Prior to the 1850’s, before public education existed, parents and families were responsible
for the education of their children. During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s education in
schools became wide spread. As public education grew and teachers became
professionals many began to believe that professionals alone should be responsible for
educating children.
 As years went by, families showed some concern about this new view on who should be in
charge of their children’s education. Parents began to show their concern for this division
in education in the 1987 when the National Congress of Mothers, the foundation for the
Parent Teacher Association, was formed (Stein and Thorkildsen).

 The emergence of the concept of parental involvement and the origins of the
significance of parental involvement stems most certainly from the (language)
compensation programs implemented in the 1960’s and 1970’s in the US and Europe
(Brooks-Gun, Berlin, and Fuligni, 2000). These programs aimed among other things to
encourage the active engagement of mainly low so-called ethnic minority parents to
prepare their children for a more successful school career and to prevent educational
delays on the part of their so-called children at risk (White, Taylor, and Moss, 1992;
Shuk, 1993; Blok and Leseman, 1996).
 In this way federal and governmental policies artificially tried to create parental attitudes
and behaviors which seemed to spontaneously occur in white middle-class families and
which guarantee to a certain extent the school success of their sons and daughters.
Especially lower-class families (parents and their children) seemed to suffer from the
gap between family and school cultures which only could be overcome by activating the
involvement of parents with their children’s schooling. The need for connectedness,
even complementarity, for families and schools gained popularity, considering the
 increase in the number of programs in the US and Europe to improve parent
involvement.

Ways in Which Parents can Involve Themselves in their Children’s Education

 High parents, trained by teacher, assist in writing conferences, learning

centers, and computer use.
 Parent read to children
 Parents make presentations or present hands-on activities
 Parents participate in committees that set school policy
 PTA parents work on implementation of special activities
 Parents make instructional materials as directed by the teacher.
 Parents assist in school library, checking out and shelving books.
 Parents participate as room mothers or room fathers.
 Parents attend classroom plays and presentations
 Parents attend parent/teacher conferences.
 Parents are asked to join PTA.
 LOW parents are encouraged to read school’s handbook for parents.

Parent behaviors related to the child’s school or schooling

Parent behaviors can be observed as manifestations of their commitment to their child’s

educational affairs. This means that a parent who shows these behaviors in a larger extent, can
be regarded as higher involved than a parent who shows these behaviors in a lesser degree.

Some authors suggest that other behaviors that are not directly related to school or
schooling should also be incorporated in the conceptualization of the construct of parental
involvement. Among them are:

1) limit TV watching time (Georgiou, 1997; Baker et al., 1999; Sui-Chu and Willms,
1996),
2) following a specific set of rules to discipline the child (Mcwayne, Hampton, Fantuzzo,
Cohen, and Sekino, 2004),
3) being home when the child returns from school (Sui-Chu and Willms, 1996),
4) limiting the amount of time for going out with friends (Sui-Chu and Willms, 1996),
 5) watching the child in sports (Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, and Darling, 1992),
and
6) taking the child to cultural events (Baker et al., 1999).

Although not identical with parental involvement, Steinberg, et al. (1992) associate more
general parenting behaviors (i.e. authoritative parenting) with the highly involved parent.

Types of Parental Involvement

“One of the best teaching strategies is to get parents

more involved in student learning.”

Students with parents who are involved in their education are more likely to earn higher
grades, enroll in higher-level programs, pass their classes, attend school regularly, have better
social skills, and graduate on to postsecondary education. Those are a lot of benefits. And they
hold true no matter a family’s income or background.

“Types of parent involvement depend on the socioeconomic status of

parents and teachers.”

Clearly, promoting parent involvement is a good teaching strategy. But how can you
encourage and help parents and families to be more involved in their children’s education?
Education expert Joyce Epstein, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, has
developed a framework.

The Epstein Model outlines six concrete types of family involvement behaviors.
She divides types of parent involvement into six categories.

 Parenting

The first way parents can support their children’s education is by providing a healthy
home environment. As an educator, you can help parents by offering parenting
workshops, helping their families find needed support programs and government
assistance programs, and encouraging them to model pro-education behavior, such as
reading to and in front of their children.
 Communicating
 Keeping parents informed and making it easy for them to ask questions or express
concerns is vital to parent involvement. You want to make sure you’re holding parent-
teacher conferences (with language translators, if needed), sending student work home
with explanations of their grades, sending out regular e-mails or memos describing the
work you’re doing in the classroom, and making yourself available to take parent calls and
parent-teacher meetings (with an administrator present, if needed).
 Volunteering
One of the most direct ways for parents to involve themselves in their children’s education
is to volunteer in the classroom and/or school. You should invite parents to help out in the
classroom and make sure they are aware of volunteer opportunities within the school,
such as helping out with office work, aiding safety patrols, running concessions at games,
etc.

 Learning at Home
Parents and other family members can be great educational resources for students. To
help parents provide at-home learning, you should keep them informed about homework
assignments and projects. You can also provide resources designed to help them
understand the subject matter you’re teaching. Additionally, sending home lists of
voluntary reading and other activities can help parents ensure their children have ways to
learn outside of the classroom.

 Decision-making
Good schools and districts run as a partnership between parents and educators. You
should encourage parents to join the PTA/PTO and participate in local advocacy and
support groups focused on education. Likewise, you should make sure parents know
about local school board elections.

 Collaborating with the Community

Parents who are involved in the community are typically going to be involved in the school
system, too. To help them connect, you can provide information on community activities
at local museums and parks; develop community service projects that bring together
parents, teachers, and administrators; and invite community leaders to speak in the
classroom and at parent events.
Epstein’s six concrete types of family involvement (image)
https://images.app.goo.gl/cZsVXEHKuHa9MgJc6
https://images.app.goo.gl/6cujKQ6yoiAjCfBu8

Barriers to Parental Involvement

The primary barriers to parental involvement include time, uncertainty,

cultural barriers and lack of a supportive learning environment.

https://images.app.goo.gl/bGxJA3Xe3GDTy1Vq7 (image)

Benefits of Parental Involvement

Teachers, administrators, students and the parents can all benefit from the
importance of parental involvement.
 improves a child’s success in the classroom
 significantly increases their cognitive development (Becher). People often neglect to
remember that the cognitive development of a child is directly related to their ability to
learn (Merrill). As a child develops, they learn mainly by seeing and then doing.
 increases the probability that a child will reach a high level of cognitive development.
Parents have the ability to stimulate a child’s adult intellect and create a foundation for
proper reading instruction (Anderson). This will in turn make it more likely for the child to
reach higher levels of achievement in school.
 As a direct result of parent participation, teacher’s morale will improve (Iowa State
Department of Education). This increase in teacher morale will create positive changes in
the classroom. Teachers will have higher expectations of their students and encourage
them to set high goals for themselves. Teachers will be inclined to put more effort into their
job.
 Increases positivity in the classroom and at home. Children who know they have a parent
or parents that check their homework, go over study guides, stay in contact with the
teacher, etc. want to strive to do a better job in the classroom.

Academic Effects of Active Parental Involvement

 Findings demonstrate that parent involvement in a child’s learning is positively related to
their achievement. The first teachers of our children are the adults in the home. This is where the
children learn their attitudes and values that are engraved in them for the remainder of their lives.
When families as a whole participate, in children’s education in positive ways, there are noticeable
changes in the child’s test scores, and attendance records.

How to increase parent involvement

1. Online advice videos. Parents and teachers can share ideas via web videos on
your school's website.
2. A dedicated blog and online calendar.
3. Use social media at your school to connect to parents.
4. Home visits and parent/teacher conferences.
5. Family nights.
6. Volunteer Opportunities.

REFERENCES
 PNU LET Reviewer
 www.researchgate.net>publication>288079028
 https://umchs.com/wp-content/uploads/Parent-Involvement.pdf
 https://www.waldenu.edu/online-masters-programs/ms-in-education/resource/six-types-of
family-involvement-every-school-should-consider
 www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERIC-ED467082/pdf/ERIC-ED467082.pdf.