RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT: a qualitative field study - ARACY
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
ARACY 1
PE Project Purpose
• To provide evidence and practical tools that equip parents to
support their children to engage with learning and enable
teachers, school leaders and principals to further encourage and
embrace parent engagement, thereby embedding it in the
normal day-to-day activities of Australian families, teachers and
schools, maximising student education and social outcomes.
ARACY 2
Inputs Measurement
Building the
Profile through and
communication What Evaluation
collaboration Framework
and networks works
Outcomes
Child Parent Child
Learning Engagement Wellbeing
ARACY 3
Building
profile and
shared
understand
ing
what
works
Measurem
ent and
Evaluation
ARACY 4Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander, CALD, low SES
and Disability families
Building the
profile
Measurement
What
and evaluation
works
ARACY 5RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
ARACY 6The Centre for Educational Research
Research Aims
• Aim 1: To explore the perspectives on learning of parents and
educators
• Aim 2: To investigate the views on the roles of parents and educators
in relation to children’s learning
• Aim 3: To identify the barriers and enablers of parent engagement in
children’s learning
• Aim 4: To make recommendations for future actions in relation to the
findings
ARACY 7Key Questions
The Centre for Educational Research
Perspectives on Learning
– Where does most of a child’s learning happen?
– What do you think helps children to learn?
– What does successful learning mean to you?
Roles of Parents
– Do parents have a role in children’s learning?
– What are parents’ roles in helping children to learn?
– Can parents and family affect how well a child does at school?
ARACY 8The Centre for Educational Research
Research Design
Ethnographic Study
• 4 Strands of focus
Aboriginal Communities
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD)
Low SES Communities and Children with Special Needs
• Parent and Educator ‘voices’
• 50 Focus Groups (WA, SA, NSW, TAS, NT, QLD, (Vic) 160
parents, 150 educators, Education support and NGO
• Thematic Analysis – Case Studies
ARACY 9RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
ARACY 10The Centre for Educational Research
Aboriginal parents & schools
• Professor Margaret Somerville
• Centre for Educational Research
ARACY 11The Centre for Educational Research
Recruitment
• ‘Aboriginal parents will not turn up’
• Strategies from ground up
• Locations: Urban rural remote
• Characteristics of focus groups
• 400 pages of transcripts and analysis
ARACY 12The Centre for Educational Research
Where does most of a child’s learning happen?
• Aboriginal culture as conceptual framework
• Early learning, the first teachers
• Land, language, history, story
• Learning Respect, an overarching concept
ARACY 13The Centre for Educational Research
What helps children to learn?
• Understanding different ways of learning andapplying them in
school
• Teaching Aboriginal culture and language in schools
• Attending to basic physical and emotional needs at home and
in school
• Providing support for Aboriginal children’s learning at home and
in school
ARACY 14The Centre for Educational Research
What does success in learning mean?
• Fills my soul, my heart up with such happiness
• Being able to apply in real life situations
• Growing in self esteem and confidence, becoming a
better person in life
• Knowing about who they are and their identity
ARACY 15The Centre for Educational Research
Enablers of Aboriginal parent engagement
• Establishing relationships
• Educational engagement
• Programs with outside agencies
• Cultural/out of school learning
ARACY 16The Centre for Educational Research
Common barriers
• Family pressures, poverty, drug and alcohol addiction,
domestic violence
• Negative experiences of school, low levels of education,
illiteracy
• Lack of knowledge of new methods of teaching and learning
• Time poor – parents who work or those with young children
ARACY 17The Centre for Educational Research
Parallel barriers identified by parents & teachers
• Lack of cultural knowledge of non-Aboriginal custodial parents
• Instability of Aboriginal children’s care arrangements, particularly adolescents
• Different language of parenting, different cultural practices
• Teachers’ sense of inadequacy in relation to Aboriginal protocols, sensitivities
• Intergenerational change and loss of cultural authority
• Impact of technology on family life and communication
• Emotional difficulties, becoming angry at the school, children who are angry
• Parents fear of being judged, concerns about DoCS involvement
ARACY 18Findings & way forward
The Centre for Educational Research
• Two parallel worlds of teachers and Aboriginal parents, each
with much to offer the other
• Need to access remote communities in Aboriginal lands for
complete picture
• Expressed need from both parties to build on conversations
• Take up option of drawing on energy and motivation of both
parties to develop locally relevant resources
ARACY 19RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
ARACY 20The Centre for Educational Research
Low SES School Community
Contexts
• Associate Professor Christine Woodrow
• Centre for Educational Research
ARACY 21Perspectives on Learning
The Centre for Educational Research
• Home as the place where values are inculcated
• Importance of safe and supportive home learning environments
• Value of contribution home experiences not recognised by parents
• Challenges of daily survival leave little opportunity to focus on their
children’s learning for some parents
ARACY 22The Centre for Educational Research
Perspectives on Learning
• Some educators lack understanding of challenges of living in vulnerable
circumstances and undervalue learning at home
• Community-based organisations and schools understand importance of
strong foundations for learning being provided in the home
• Parents mostly value education as pathway out of disadvantage
ARACY 23The Centre for Educational Research
Parent and educator perspectives
on parent roles
• Parent views are sometimes ambiguous and contradictory about how they see their role in
children’s learning
• Educators have clear expectations that parents send their children to school clean, fed and
‘ready to learn’
• Parents feel inadequate to contribute to their children’s learning
• Most educators want greater ‘involvement’ of families in school.
• Community based organisations have knowledge and skills to support vulnerable families
ARACY 24RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
ARACY 25The Centre for Educational Research
Cuturally & linguistically diverse
parents
• Associate Professor Loshini Naidoo
• Centre for Educational Research
ARACY 26Parent’s views about where a child learns
• Different understandings and experiences of schools.
• Learning happens both in the school and the home
• Parents saw their role as support for their children
ARACY 27Parents defined academic:
Supporting
student
learning
Homework Discipline
Curriculum
content
ARACY 284. Limited use
5. High dependence
of textbooks on worksheets
3. Curriculum not
challenging for students
6. Cultural mismatch
2. Difficult to
understand course between teachers and
content students
1. Homework Key 7. Importance
completion concerns of respect and
of parents discipline
293. Parents lack of
2. Parents’support limited
to classroom management engagement interpreted as
lack of interest in school
1. Parents
too reliant on
educators 4. Those parents
who
Key most needed to engage,
did not.
concerns
of
educators
30Language
• Due to their lack of sanctioned cultural capital and knowledge of the
Australian educational school system, many parents with limited
English language skills delegated responsibility for education to their
children
• Parents were unsure how to influence school discipline policy and
educator’s pedagogy as they felt ill-equipped educationally to
intervene in the school processes.
ARACY 31Barriers and enablers
Barriers
Lack of
cultural No Time-work Social Failure to
capital common constraints Isolation acculturate
language
Move from
Understand Intercultural Connection
Good Involvement
language Understand- with
planning to
barriers ing families
engagement
Enablers
ARACY 32Schools with successful CALD parent
engagement have: Community
Liaison
Translation officers
Services
Bilingual
Teachers
Teacher Strong
Professional Effective
Community
Development Communication
links
ARACY 33
33The Centre for Educational Research
Parents of Children with Special
Needs
• Dr Kerith Power
• Presented by Associate Professor Christine
Woodrow
• Centre for Educational Research
ARACY 34Perspectives on Learning
Parents’ perspectives
• Attention to the specific learning needs of each child
• Underpinned by accurate ongoing diagnosis
• Teaching that addresses those specific problems
• Learning happens formally at school and informally at home and community
• The child with special needs plays a teaching role, enabling compassion and
acceptance
ARACY 35Perspectives on Learning
Educators’ perspectives
• Needs to be individually appropriate rather than age appropriate
• Learning life skills and behaviours that will help children survive
in the world
• Dependent on a realistic expectation of a child’s capacity
• Takes more time: children who have special needs may take
longer to learn things
• Importance of unconditional love, attention, encouragement and
repetition
ARACY 36The Centre for Educational Research Parent Role
Parent perspectives
• Sharing school work across the family
• Grandparents helping out with behavioural learning
• Seeking specialist assistance, repetition, sensitivity
• Parent role in teaching basic feeding and drinking
• Supporting social learning
• Supporting engagement in sports as spectator
• Building a relationship with the school
• Managing multiple family needs
ARACY 37Parent Role
The Centre for Educational Research
Educator Perspectives
• Parents have major role in children’s learning that extends beyond when mainstream
children become independent
• Specific learning techniques often require more than one person
• Parents not always able to apply specialist techniques - in survival mode to get the
child to school.
ARACY 38RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
ARACY 39Questions? aracy.org.au 40
You can also read
