Session Information
14 SES 10, Parent and Teacher Cooperation
Paper Session
Contribution
General Background Information
Parent involvement has become a widespread movement across many countries in the world (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 1997; Hiatt-Michael, 2005; Sanders & Epstein, 2005). From the economic perspective, schools could obtain potential cost-benefit resources from parent involvement; from the sociological perspective, parent involvement is regarded as one of the mechanisms connecting student academic achievement with the social economic background of their families (Ho, 2006). After reviewing research on parent involvement among 20 nations, Sanders and Epstein concluded that most of the nations began their policies with mechanical systems such as school choice and school decision making. However, these policies could not replace the more responsive mechanisms which enable all parents to acquire information about their children’s learning and development through communications with teachers regularly. Everyday interactions between teachers and parents are one of the key elements of parent involvement.
In recent years many education reform groups have emphasized parents’ rights to influence their children’s schooling in Taiwan. The Educational Fundamental Act promulgated in 1999 is a response to that claim. The Article 8 of the Act states that parents have the responsibility to provide guidance to their children during the period of national compulsory education for their children, and have the rights to select the form and content of education and participate in educational affairs of the school for the best wellbeing of their children. In 2006 the Regulations of Parental Participation in Educational Affairs of Schools During the Period of National Compulsory Education were enacted by the Ministry of Education. The Regulations require every school to communicate with parents actively and enable parents to make important decisions for their children’s education. These requirements are different from the traditional Chinese culture in which teachers are highly respected and parents usually do not question what and how their children are taught in schools. As a consequence, the nature of teacher-parent interactions has changed greatly. There is a need to understand how Taiwanese teachers interact with parents nowadays.
Purpose of Research
The purpose of this study was to describe teacher-parent interactions from teachers’ perspective at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels in Taiwan. The teachers’ experience of and reflection on their interactions with parents is useful information for designing teacher professional development programs and improving preservice teacher education.
Theoretical Framework
The theory of overlapping spheres of influence (Epstein, 2001) underlies the exploration of teachers’ experience of and reflection on their interactions with parents. Epstein’s theoretical model includes external and internal structures. The external structure consists of three spheres representing family, school, and community which can be pulled together or pushed apart by forces such as experience, philosophy, and practices of family, school, and community respectively and time. The internal structure describes institutional and interpersonal communication occurring within and across the boundaries of school, home, and community. The external and internal structures are related to each other. The focus of this study is on interactions between teachers and parents at the interpersonal level.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. (1997). Parents as partners in schooling. Paris: OECD. Epstein, J. L. (2001). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools. Boulder, CO: Westview. Hiatt-Michael, D. B. (Ed.). (2005). Promising practices for family involvement in schooling across the continents. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Ho, E. S. (2006). Social disparity of family involvement in Hong Kong: Effect of family resources and family network. The School Community Journal, 16(2), 7-26. Sanders, M. G., & Epstein, J. L. (2005). School-family-community partnerships and educational change: International perspectives. In A. Hargreaves (Ed.), Extending educational change (pp. 202-222). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.
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