Parents, teachers, children, and other ecological system components can create an environment at home and school to support children’s development (Demircan, 2018). Bronfenbrenner defined and organized these system components based on their impacts on children and named them as microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). These are interrelated with each other, and the system components in the children’s social environment have varying importance for their education and development (Berger, 2014; Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Regarding this, the exosystem is in cooperation with parents who are in the microsystem.  It includes neighborhood, parent’s workplaces, mass media, and so on. One of the tools that affect children and their development can be mass media, which could improve the collaboration between home settings and preschool (Olmstead, 2013; Simpson, 1997). In other words, mass media provide an opportunity to enhance the relationship between the early childhood education environment and the home learning environment (Aycicek, 2020). This collaboration between school and home is defined as parent involvement (Fan & Chen, 2001; Reynolds et al., 1996). In other words, schools and parents are in constant communication (Machen et al., 2005).

As researchers mentioned, mass media can be one of the tools to increase this communication, which is defined as parent involvement (DeGaetano & DeGaetano, n.d.; Simpson, 1997). Regarding this, the current study composed three main components as the theoretical and conceptual framework. The first one is proposed as (Epstein, 2011) framework that is encouraged parent involvement to be more involved. This framework consists of learning at home, collaborating with the community, parenting, communicating, volunteering, and decision making (Epstein, 2011).

Secondly, the dimension of parent involvement is considered an aspect of parent’s separate and district roles. These roles maintain harmony in the parent involvement system (Finley & Schwartz, 2004). Dimensions of parent involvement comprising expressive involvement (EI), instrumental involvement (II), and mentoring/ advising involvement (MAI) as a conceptual framework (Finley et al., 2008; Si Han & Pei Jun, 2013). Researchers conducted studies with parents to compare their dimensions as father and mother involvement. Results showed mother is more involved in expressive involvement than fathers and the researchers suggested investigating the factors that affect parental behavior (Si Han & Pei Jun, 2013). In the context of this study, mass media factors were researched.

The third component, as mentioned above, is based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory. The ecological system includes children, teachers, parents, mass media, and other components that affect young learners' development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Topic

Researchers analyzed a series of child magazine, one of the mass media tools in the current study. In related literature, these tools can foster effective parent involvement (DeGaetano & DeGaetano, n.d.; Simpson, 1997). In this context, parent involvement types and dimensions were investigated in the child magazine series depend on only mother, only father, and parent human and non-human characters. Besides all these, descriptive analysis (setting, number of words, number of figures) of human and non-human parent characters is also discussed.

Research Questions

Parents take part at home to support their children's development and learning. This study focuses on analyzing and exploring dimensions and types of parent involvement in the child magazine series. Consistent with the goals, the following research questions were investigated:

          (1)     What are the descriptive human and non-human parent-related characters (place of characters; indoor or outdoor, quantitative information, etc.) of the magazine series? 

          (2)     What are the types of parent involvement which are mentioned in the magazine series?

          (3)     Is there a statistical difference in the mean scores of dimensions (EI, II, and MAI) for human and non-human parent-related characters? 

A total of 66 child magazine series were analyzed in the study. These magazines were written in Turkish, published in Turkey since 2007, a 32-page, explicitly designed for children 3 to 6-year-old, included a package of stories with human and non-human characters, puzzles, and activities with colorful pages. The researchers selected the magazines as printed editions. In this regard, the magazines should be readily available by teachers, parents, and children. For the sample selection process, researchers used a systematic sampling method. In the systematic sampling method, every nth magazine in the population list can be selected (Fraenkel et al., 2015). In this research, researchers choose odd numbers of magazine series (e.g., 1st, 3rd, 5th, and so on). After selecting the sample, researchers analyzed the magazine series independently by considering the coding instrument. This instrument is designed to form by researchers based on the conceptual and theoretical framework. In the current research, a mixed-method approach is used. The data analysis process is designed to divide into two separate phases. Firstly, quantitative content analysis is used to obtain descriptive statistical data and differences between the dimension of parent involvement in mother and father characters (Krippendorff, 1985). Descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, and paired-samples t-test were chosen to comprehend the data. SPSS package program 24.0 was used to analyze all these data. Analysis related to frequency and percentages were used to answer the first research question. Moreover, chi-square analysis was conducted between human and non-human parent-related figures to investigate the relationship between the figures and their indoor and outdoor location. Lastly, a paired-samples t-test was conducted to examine the differences between mother and father figures in the three dimensions (EI, II, MAI). The coding instrument is used in this phase. In the second part of the process, which is designed as a qualitative part, thematic analysis is conducted. In the thematic analysis, dimensions of parent involvement and parent involvement types are exemplified. Ethical considerations The current study did not involve any human participants; so, it did not require ethical permission.

The proposed research represents the analysis of child magazine series as a mass media tool in the light of ecological theory, Epstein’s types of parent involvement, and Finley and Schwartz’s dimensions of involvement. Overall, the study can be broadening our understanding related to mass media’s roles on parent involvement. In this context, preliminary findings demonstrate that child magazine series involved mother characters more than father ones, and there is a significant difference in the EI mean scores for father and mother characters in child magazine series. Other preliminary and descriptive analyses are continued to be analyzed. Parent involvement types and dimensions are exemplified. In this way, the research contributes to the role of mass media in parental involvement in education. The need to reflect parent involvement in the child magazine series is highlighted in the paper. Data analysis process continues.

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