RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT: a qualitative field study€¦ · RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT: a...

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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:

a qualitative field study

Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power

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• To provide evidence and practical tools that equip parents to support their children to engage with learning and enable teachers, school leaders and principals to further encourage and embrace parent engagement, thereby embedding it in the normal day-to-day activities of Australian families, teachers and schools, maximising student education and social outcomes.

PE Project Purpose

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Parent Engagement

Building the Profile through communication collaboration and networks

Measurement and

Evaluation Framework

What works

Child Learning Wellbeing

Inputs

Outcomes

Child

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Measurement and

Evaluation

what works

Building profile and

shared understand

ing

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, CALD, low SES and Disability families

Building the profile

Measurement and evaluation

What works

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The Centre for Educational Research

Research Aims • Aim 1: To explore the perspectives on learning of parents and

educators

• Aim 2: To investigate the views on the roles of parents and educators in relation to children’s learning

• Aim 3: To identify the barriers and enablers of parent engagement in children’s learning

• Aim 4: To make recommendations for future actions in relation to the findings

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Key Questions Perspectives on Learning

– Where does most of a child’s learning happen?

– What do you think helps children to learn?

– What does successful learning mean to you?

Roles of Parents – Do parents have a role in children’s learning?

– What are parents’ roles in helping children to learn?

– Can parents and family affect how well a child does at school?


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Research Design Ethnographic Study • 4 Strands of focus Aboriginal Communities Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Low SES Communities and Children with Special Needs • Parent and Educator ‘voices’ • 50 Focus Groups (WA, SA, NSW, TAS, NT, QLD, (Vic) 160

parents, 150 educators, Education support and NGO • Thematic Analysis – Case Studies

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Aboriginal parents & schools

• Professor Margaret Somerville

• Centre for Educational Research


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Recruitment • ‘Aboriginal parents will not turn up’ • Strategies from ground up • Locations: Urban rural remote • Characteristics of focus groups • 400 pages of transcripts and analysis

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Where does most of a child’s learning happen?

• Aboriginal culture as conceptual framework • Early learning, the first teachers • Land, language, history, story • Learning Respect, an overarching concept

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What helps children to learn?

• Understanding different ways of learning andapplying them in

school

• Teaching Aboriginal culture and language in schools

• Attending to basic physical and emotional needs at home and in school

• Providing support for Aboriginal children’s learning at home and in school

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What does success in learning mean?

• Fills my soul, my heart up with such happiness • Being able to apply in real life situations • Growing in self esteem and confidence, becoming a

better person in life • Knowing about who they are and their identity

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Enablers of Aboriginal parent engagement

• Establishing relationships

• Educational engagement

• Programs with outside agencies

• Cultural/out of school learning 16

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Common barriers

• Family pressures, poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence

• Negative experiences of school, low levels of education, illiteracy

• Lack of knowledge of new methods of teaching and learning • Time poor – parents who work or those with young children

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Parallel barriers identified by parents & teachers

• Lack of cultural knowledge of non-Aboriginal custodial parents • Instability of Aboriginal children’s care arrangements, particularly adolescents

• Different language of parenting, different cultural practices • Teachers’ sense of inadequacy in relation to Aboriginal protocols, sensitivities

• Intergenerational change and loss of cultural authority • Impact of technology on family life and communication

• Emotional difficulties, becoming angry at the school, children who are angry • Parents fear of being judged, concerns about DoCS involvement

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Findings & way forward

• Two parallel worlds of teachers and Aboriginal parents, each with much to offer the other

• Need to access remote communities in Aboriginal lands for complete picture

• Expressed need from both parties to build on conversations • Take up option of drawing on energy and motivation of both

parties to develop locally relevant resources

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Low SES School Community Contexts

• Associate Professor Christine Woodrow



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Perspectives on Learning

• Home as the place where values are inculcated

• Importance of safe and supportive home learning environments

• Value of contribution home experiences not recognised by parents

• Challenges of daily survival leave little opportunity to focus on their children’s learning for some parents

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The Centre for Educational Research Perspectives on Learning

• Some educators lack understanding of challenges of living in vulnerable circumstances and undervalue learning at home

• Community-based organisations and schools understand importance of strong foundations for learning being provided in the home

• Parents mostly value education as pathway out of disadvantage

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Parent and educator perspectives on parent roles

• Parent views are sometimes ambiguous and contradictory about how they see their role in children’s learning

• Educators have clear expectations that parents send their children to school clean, fed and ‘ready to learn’

• Parents feel inadequate to contribute to their children’s learning

• Most educators want greater ‘involvement’ of families in school.

• Community based organisations have knowledge and skills to support vulnerable families

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Cuturally & linguistically diverse parents

• Associate Professor Loshini Naidoo



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Parent’s views about where a child learns

• Different understandings and experiences of schools.

• Learning happens both in the school and the home

• Parents saw their role as support for their children

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Parents defined academic:

Curriculum content

Homework

Supporting student learning

Discipline

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Key concerns

of parents

1. Homework completion

2. Difficult to understand course

content

3. Curriculum not challenging for students

4. Limited use of textbooks

5. High dependence on worksheets

6. Cultural mismatch between teachers and

students

7. Importance of respect and

discipline

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Key concerns

of educators

1. Parents too reliant on educators

2. Parents’ support limited to classroom management

3. Parents lack of engagement interpreted as

lack of interest in school

4. Those parents who most needed to engage,

did not.

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Language

• Due to their lack of sanctioned cultural capital and knowledge of the Australian educational school system, many parents with limited English language skills delegated responsibility for education to their children

• Parents were unsure how to influence school discipline policy and educator’s pedagogy as they felt ill-equipped educationally to intervene in the school processes.

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Barriers and enablers

Lack of cultural capital

No

common language

Time-work constraints

Social Isolation

Failure to acculturate

Good planning

Move from Involvement

to engagement

Understand language barriers

Intercultural Understand-

ing

Connection with

families

Enablers

Barriers

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Schools with successful CALD parent engagement have:

Effective Communication

Teacher Professional

Development

Strong Community

links

Community Liaison officers

Bilingual Teachers

Translation Services

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Parents of Children with Special Needs

• Dr Kerith Power • Presented by Associate Professor Christine

Woodrow • Centre for Educational Research


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Perspectives on Learning

Parents’ perspectives

• Attention to the specific learning needs of each child

• Underpinned by accurate ongoing diagnosis

• Teaching that addresses those specific problems

• Learning happens formally at school and informally at home and community

• The child with special needs plays a teaching role, enabling compassion and acceptance

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Perspectives on Learning Educators’ perspectives

• Needs to be individually appropriate rather than age appropriate • Learning life skills and behaviours that will help children survive

in the world • Dependent on a realistic expectation of a child’s capacity • Takes more time: children who have special needs may take

longer to learn things • Importance of unconditional love, attention, encouragement and

repetition

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Parent Role

Parent perspectives

• Sharing school work across the family

• Grandparents helping out with behavioural learning

• Seeking specialist assistance, repetition, sensitivity

• Parent role in teaching basic feeding and drinking

• Supporting social learning

• Supporting engagement in sports as spectator

• Building a relationship with the school

• Managing multiple family needs


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Parent Role

Educator Perspectives

• Parents have major role in children’s learning that extends beyond when mainstream

children become independent

• Specific learning techniques often require more than one person

• Parents not always able to apply specialist techniques - in survival mode to get the child to school.


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Questions?

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