RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT: a qualitative field study€¦ · RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT: a...
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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
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• 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.
PE Project Purpose
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Parent Engagement
Building the Profile through communication collaboration and networks
Measurement and
Evaluation Framework
What works
Child Learning Wellbeing
Inputs
Outcomes
Child
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Measurement and
Evaluation
what works
Building profile and
shared understand
ing
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, CALD, low SES and Disability families
Building the profile
Measurement and evaluation
What works
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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
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The 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
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Key Questions 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?
The Centre for Educational Research
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The 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
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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
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Aboriginal parents & schools
• Professor Margaret Somerville
• Centre for Educational Research
The Centre for Educational Research
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The 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
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The 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
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The 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
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The 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
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The Centre for Educational Research
Enablers of Aboriginal parent engagement
• Establishing relationships
• Educational engagement
• Programs with outside agencies
• Cultural/out of school learning 16
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The 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
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The 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
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The Centre for Educational Research
Findings & way forward
• 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
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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
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Low SES School Community Contexts
• Associate Professor Christine Woodrow
• Centre for Educational Research
The Centre for Educational Research
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The Centre for Educational Research
Perspectives on Learning
• 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
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The 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
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The 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
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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
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Cuturally & linguistically diverse parents
• Associate Professor Loshini Naidoo
• Centre for Educational Research
The Centre for Educational Research
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Parent’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
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Parents defined academic:
Curriculum content
Homework
Supporting student learning
Discipline
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Key concerns
of parents
1. Homework completion
2. Difficult to understand course
content
3. Curriculum not challenging for students
4. Limited use of textbooks
5. High dependence on worksheets
6. Cultural mismatch between teachers and
students
7. Importance of respect and
discipline
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Key concerns
of educators
1. Parents too reliant on educators
2. Parents’ support limited to classroom management
3. Parents lack of engagement interpreted as
lack of interest in school
4. Those parents who most needed to engage,
did not.
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Language
• 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.
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Barriers and enablers
Lack of cultural capital
No
common language
Time-work constraints
Social Isolation
Failure to acculturate
Good planning
Move from Involvement
to engagement
Understand language barriers
Intercultural Understand-
ing
Connection with
families
Enablers
Barriers
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Schools with successful CALD parent engagement have:
Effective Communication
Teacher Professional
Development
Strong Community
links
Community Liaison officers
Bilingual Teachers
Translation Services
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Parents of Children with Special Needs
• Dr Kerith Power • Presented by Associate Professor Christine
Woodrow • Centre for Educational Research
The Centre for Educational Research
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Perspectives 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
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Perspectives 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
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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
The Centre for Educational Research
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Parent Role
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.
The Centre for Educational Research
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RESEARCHING PARENT ENGAGEMENT:
a qualitative field study
Christine Woodrow, Margaret Somerville, Loshini Naidoo and Kerith Power
aracy.org.au aracy.org.au
Questions?
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