Session Information
09 SES 09 B, System Monitoring and Accountability: International and Intranational Issues
Paper Session
Contribution
Parental involvement has been central to the study of school life, socialization process and education outcomes. Its benefits have been recognized at the highest level of policymaking by incorporation in the Goals 2000 Educate America Act (US Department of Education 1994). The advantages of parental participation range from increasing learning over time (Epstein 1991) to a series of measurable effects, such as: reducing absenteeism and dropping out and fostering academic attainment (Astone and McLanahan 1991; Epstein 1987; Fehrmann, Keith, and Reimers 1987; Lareau 1987; Stevenson and Baker 1987). Among its effects, Ho and Willms (1996) include the development of a more positive attitude towards school.
While most of these studies focused extensively on the Western European and US context, little research has been conducted on this in South-East Europe (SEE), a region that has suffered a series of structural social, political and economic transformations in the past twenty years. The transition from the “command-driven” model employed during communism, to the “demand driven” educational model, characteristic to liberal democratic societies, has not been completed yet and the timing of this research captures this generational change and the current shift in mentalities concerning school-parents partnerships. The present study sets out to offer an in-depth analysis of the underlying conditionings for the prevailing attitude towards the school-parents partnership in 9 countries from South East Europe. The research question explored here is: What are the predictors of satisfaction with school-parents partnership on the side of parents in SEE? This will be addressed employing a multiple regression model with a similar set of independent variables for capturing the differences between the countries of the region on a cross-national empirical study in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia (FYROM), Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia.
The target group for the present analysis is the cohort of mainstream parents (who are not part of Parents’ Councils or School Boards) from SEE with one or more children enrolled in primary or secondary education. This generation is unique as it has been at the forefront of major historical events not only before the breakdown of the ancient regime, but also afterwards, during the transition period. Unlike with the older generations of parents, these factors have shaped distinct attitudes towards the role of school in the upbringing of children and the importance of parental involvement. Compared to the situation of parents in established democracies, the perceptions of Eastern European parents reveal the extent to which active participation in the child’s school is properly valued.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Astone, Nan Maria and McLanahan, Sara. 1991. “Family structure, residential mobility, and school dropout: a research note”, Demography, Vol. 31 (4), 575- 584 Epstein, Joyce L. 1987. “Parent involvement: What research says to administrators”, Education Urban Sociology. Vol. 19 (2), 119–136. Epstein, Joyce L. 1991. “Effects on student achievement of teachers’ practices of parent involvement”, Advances in Reading/Language Research: Literacy Through Family, Community, and School Interaction, Greebwich, CT, JAI Press, Vol. 5, 261–276. Fehrmann, Paul, Keith, Timothy and Reimers, Thomas. 1987. “Home influence on school learning: direct and indirect effects on parental involvement on high school grades”, The Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 80 (6), 330-337. Ho Sui-Chu, Esther and J. Douglas Willms (1996). “Effects of Parental Involvement on Eighth-Grade Achievement”, Sociology of Education, Vol. 69 (2): 126-141 Lareau, Annette. 1987. “Social class differences in family-school relationships: the importance of cultural capital”, Sociology of Education, Vol. 60 (2), 73-85 Stevenson. David and Baker, David. 1987. “The family-school relation and the child’s school performance”, Child Development, Vol. 58 (5), 1148 - 1157 U.S. Department of Education. 1994. The Goals 2000: Educate America Act—Launching a new era in education. Washington, DC: Author.
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