Session Information
32 SES 14, Quality Education & UN Sustainable Development Goal 4: Inter-Country Dialogues about Enactment
Symposium
Contribution
The aim of the sustainable development goal number 4 (SDG4) is to ensure quality education for all. For quality education, effective parental involvement has been an increasing demand (Rodrigo, Almeida, Spiel & Koops, 2012). Research shows that parental engagement in schools improves student achievement, reduces absenteeism, and restores parents' confidence in their children's education (OECD, 2013). Students with involved parents or other caregivers earn higher grades and test scores, have better social skills, and show improved behavior. Although SDG4 highlights quality education as a common global goal, parental engagement is very context specific and depends on school practices (Steinberg & Darling, 2017). Hence a fundamental question is to what extent a school and a specific country context make opportunities available to parents for participating in schools. This paper is designed to develop a dialogue between two specific contexts, namely developed and developing: New Zealand and Bangladesh. Research in New Zealand reports that parents of high-achieving students are esteemed in valuing education, visiting schools, and advocating for their children, developing pride and self-reliance in their children, establishing routines for homework and bedtime, supervising children’s television viewing, encouraging reading, talking with their children, playing games with children, taking children on visits and outings, and fostering hobbies, as well as sporting and other activities (Robinson, Hohepa & Lloyd, 2009; Hornby, 2011). Accordingly, a few studies in Bangladesh report the overall importance of parental engagement (Ali, 2011 & Islam, 2016). However, the actions needed for parental engagement are neither featured in Bangladesh education policies, nor do many schools there practice them. However there are some Bangladeshi principals who do give leadership in the area. This presentation reports findings from a study of the initiatives of one such principal (Salahuddin, 2015). It also reports the findings from case studies of a number of Bangadeshi and other South Asian parents in Christchurch and their relationship with the schooling of their children (Tisi, in preparation). The methodological approach of this study is guided by the overarching research question: How do the context specific opportunities for parental engagement contribute to quality learning at school? Embedded in the question is an examination of the engagement opportunities in two different contexts, policy and practices differences and contribution of parents to quality education. Hence our approach is predominantly qualitative in design and narrative in presentation.
References
Ali, S. M. (2011). Head teachers’ perceptions and practices of school leadership in private secondary schools in Sirajganj district Bangladesh (Master’s Thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand). Hornby, G. (2011). Parental involvement in childhood education: Building effective school-family partnerships. Springer Science & Business Media. Islam, A. (2016, November 22). Primary and Secondary education: What’s happening on the ground. The Financial Express, Dhaka, Bangladesh. OECD (2013). PISA 2012 Results: What Makes Schools Successful (Volume IV): Resources, Policies and Practices. Paris: PISA, OECD Publishing. Robinson, V., Hohepa, M., & Llyod, C. (2009). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why. Ministry of Education: New Zealand. Rodrigo, M. J., Almeida, A., Spiel, C., & Koops, W. (2012). Introduction: Evidence-based parent education programmes to promote positive parenting. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9(1), 2-10. Salahuddin, A. (2016). Making a Door: A Case Study of the Leadership and Change Practices of a Principal in Bangladesh Doctoral Thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch. Steinberg, L., & Darling, N. (2017). Parenting style as context: An integrative model. In Interpersonal Development (pp. 161-170). Routledge. Tisi, S. (in preparation). Narratives of South Asia parents in Christchurch Doctoral Thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.