Early Childhood Teachers' View About Factors Influencing Father Involvement in Early Childhood Education
Author(s):
Berna Sicim (submitting) Senil Ünlü-Çetin (presenting)
Conference:
ECER 2013
Format:
Paper

Session Information

ERG SES C 09, Early Childhood in Education

Paper Session

Time:
2013-09-09
11:00-12:30
Room:
A-204
Chair:
Maria Pacheco Figueiredo

Contribution

Father involvement in education is an important issue which is emphasized in father-related research. Results of father involvement in education are positive in terms of fathers, children and school. Through involvement in their children’s education, fathers positively affect their children’s educational process, improve their fathering skills, lead positive mother-child relations and help schools to fulfill their responsibility in terms of involving parents to their children’s education (Badalament, 2008; Blendis, 1982; Gadsen & Ray, 2003;Ishii-Kuntz,1995; McBride,1988;  McBride & Mill,1993; Minessota Fathers & Families Network, 2011; Nord & West, 2001; US Department of health and Human Services, 2000).

Although these positive research results which indicate consistently positive outcomes of father involvement in education, fathers cannot be recruited by schools as much as mothers. There are many different and possible reasons that increase or decrease fathers’ involvement in their children’s education. For instance, fathers’ higher educational levels, high identification with their fathering role, beliefs that their involvement will make a real differences, highly supportive spouses and low level of depression as well as fathers’ regular engagement in family activities either at home or out of the home are some personal factors that increases their involvement in their children’s education (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2004; Roggman, Boyce, Cook & Cook, 2002).

Personal factors which affect fathers’ involvement to education cannot be manipulated but the effect of these factors may be decreased or eliminated by educational programs that children are belong to. Because of being the first formal educational setting in the children’s and their family’s lives, early childhood education programs have core responsibilities in order to involve fathers and help them to learn how to involve children’s educational processes. Therefore, efforts of early childhood education programs to involve fathers into their children’s education are important (Güngörmüş, Kefi & Girgin, 2007; US Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). Teachers and their ideas related to father involvement also is important for schools to increase father involvement.

Especially early childhood education programs are female dominated and although parent involvement is emphasized by many early childhood programs and teachers as a core part of the education, they equate parent involvement with mother involvement and they miss the other important figure in the family, fathers (Abble-Boone, 1993; McBride & Rane, 1997; Polmanteer & Turbiville, 2000; Sparling, Berger & Biller, 1992). This is the result of teachers’ attitudes to father involvement and their knowledge about the importance of father involvement and factors influence fathers’ involvement. Teacher attitudes towards father involvement and their knowledge about the importance of father involvement is out of the content of this study, rather this study interested in the level of teachers’ awareness related to factors influencing fathers’ involvement. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gather information about teachers’ views related to factors that influence fathers’ involvement.  

Method

In this study, target population will be a group of early childhood teachers in Ankara. A convenient sampling procedure will be used to select early childhood teachers from different parts of city to participate in this study. All participants will be between the ages of 20 and 45. The majority of participants will be female. During 2012- 2013 spring semester, approximately 100 in-service early childhood teachers completed the self-report scale in their school. It took approximately 8-10 minutes. The early childhood teachers’ views about factors related to father involvement in children education scale was developed by Sicim (2011). It includes 26 items and it is divided into four dimensions which are namely father’s characteristics, mother gender attitude and early childhood settings. Factors are explained 62.5 percent of the total variance. Reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) was found to be .93. In the data analysis procedure, the researchers will perform descriptive statistic to determine which factors are seen most significant for involvement of fathers in early childhood settings.

Expected Outcomes

Many factors affect fathers’ involvement in their children education, which are clearly seen in the literature. Father Involvement in Early Childhood Education Scale includes factors of father characteristics, mother, gender attitudes and early childhood settings. It is expected that the majority of teachers emphasize on father characteristics as the factor that highly influence fathers’ involvement to education such as work conditions, educational level or working hours. Then mother related issues are expected to be emphasized by early childhood educators such as the attitude of mothers toward father involvement or their working hours. Factors related to gender attitudes and early childhood settings are expected to be least emphasized factors by early childhood educators. In conclusion, this study provides information about the level of teachers’ awareness of factors that influence fathers’ involvement to children’s education. Because all these factors, mentioned in this study, influence fathers’ involvement in either negative or positive way. However, the most important aspect is teachers’ knowledge about the level of influence of each factor. Therefore, early childhood programs which want to include fathers and spend effort to include fathers in their programs need to be aware of and consider all these factors.

References

Able-Boone, H. (1993). Family participation in the IFSP process. Infant-Toddler Intervention, 3, 63-71. Badalament, J. (2008). Engaging modern dads in schools. Independent School, 67(3), 122-131. Blendis, J. (1982). Men’s experiences of their own fathers. In Beail, N. & McGuire, J. (Ed.) Fathers: Psychological perspectives (pp.197-216).Junction Books: London. Gürşimşek, I., Kefi, S., & Girgin, G. (2007). Okul öncesi eğitime babaların katılım düzeyi ile ilişkili değişkenlerin incelenmesi, Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 33, 181-191. US Department of Health and Human Services (June,2004). Building Blocks for Father Involvement, Building Block 2: First Thoughts on Getting Fathers Involved in Head Start, Arlington, VA. Ishii-Kuntz, M. (1995). Parent involvement and perception toward fathers role: A comparison between Japan and United States. In W. Marsiglio (Ed.), Fatherhood Contemporary Theory, Research and Social Policy, CA: Sage. McBride, B. A. (1990). The effects of a parent education/play group program on father involvement in child rearing. Family Relations, 39(3), 250-256. McBride, B. A. (1990). The effects of a parent education/play group program on father involvement in child rearing. Family Relations, 39(3), 250-256. McBride, B. A., & Mill, W. (1993). A comparison of mother and father involvement with their preschool age children. Early Childhood Research Qyearterly, 8, 457-477. Minnesota Fathers & Families Network (2011). Father involvement in early childhood programs. Plymouth, MN: Tom fitzpatrick. Nord, C. W. (1998). Father involvement in schools. (ERIC Document Reproducation Service No: ED419632). Retrieved from ERIC Database. Roggman, L. A., Boyce, L. K., Cook, G. A., & Cook, J. (2002). Getting dads involved: Predictors of Father Involvement in Early Head Start and with Their Children. Infant Mental Health Journal, 23(1), 62-78. Sparling, J., Berger, R., & Biller, M. (1992). Fathers: Myth, Reality and Public Law 99-457. Infants and Young Children , 4(3), 9-19.

Author Information

Berna Sicim (submitting)
Middle East Technical University
early childhood education
ankara
Senil Ünlü-Çetin (presenting)
METU
Early Childhood Education
Ankara

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