The hoover dempsey and sandler model education essay

This assignment will discuss the involvement of parents in children’s educational achievement. It will open with an examination of what parental involvement means and what is involved. It will then move to what educational success is and how it is defined. The third section will critically look into the literature to discuss how both of those aspects, i. e. parental involvement and children’s educational success, are linked, so finding areas of agreement and inconsistency in research. Generally speaking, parental involvement should be understood as all ” behaviours and attitudes of parents that enhance and support the formal education of their children when it takes place outside of the home”, while educational achievement relates to levels of progress made in school subjects. The assignment will attempt to find reasons why parental involvement would be influential in children’s educational outcomes. As a matter of fact, some scholars put a difference between parental involvement and parental engagement. Harris and Goodall (2007), for example, think that parental engagement means learning and parental involvement refers to schooling. One can therefore see why the UK Department of Education (2008) classifies parental involvement into two categories, mainly the support of parents at home and the intervention of parents in the school life. So, any child has two types of education, one coming from their parents, the other coming from schools. Be that as it may, there seems to be no agreement as to the definition of the terms ” parental involvement,” due to the different forms this can take. Harris and Goodall (2006), for example believe that there is a difference in the way parents and school understand parental engagement. Conteh and Kawashima (2008) go a step further to suggest that there is a difference in the way activities are seen by parents and the schools. Green et al. (2007) believe that traditional definitions referred only to school related activities, and suggest that this should be extended to include home-based activities (Walker et al., 2005). Others think that parental involvement should be defined in terms of economic perspective, in which case it would be seen as an effort that parents directly make in order to help their children succeed in their education. In the UK, parental involvement has been considered so important that from the 1988 Education Act, this term has come into the vocabulary of education. In the 1997 White Paper, ‘ Excellence in Schools’, parental involvement was secured, and three aspects mentioned were that parents should be given information, have a say in their children education and be encouraged to work in partnership with schools. (Crozier, 2012). The Schools White Paper (Department for Education (2010) set out ways for schools to provide encouragement to parents so that they become involved in the education of their children and so transform their home into an effective learning environment. At this point, one would wonder how parental involvement works and what it includes. Englund et al. (2004) suggested that such involvement should include several things among which are parent-teacher communication, parent-children communication, parents volunteering in schools, parents taking part in school activities, parents’ help with school work at home and assistance in school meetings and activities. All those different aspects of involvement were previously regrouped into six categories by Epstein and Zauber (1991), summarised by Seda (2007) and these include taking part in basic obligations at home, communication between school and home, volunteering, intervention in school work at home, involvement in school management and liaising with community. In the UK, Vincent (1996) believes that parental involvement includes ” the parent as supporter, the parent as consumer, the parent as participant and the independent parent” (Crozier, 2012). 1 So parental involvement mainly refers to parent-school relationships; hence parents have the right to choose their children’s school and follow with care what happens in schools and what teachers do for a better standard for their children. To encourage the working class parents involvement, the Labour Government (1997 -2010) put in place classes for such parents and some legal procedures to tackle the problems related to children punctuality to school and truancy. (Gillies, 2005). Some scholars have found it so important that they talk in terms of programmes to promote parental involvement. Desforges and Abouchaar (2003) proposed three areas where parents can be involved, and these are programmes on school-parents partnership, family-community education and programmes which promote parenting skills. The two levels mentioned above apply: home-based activities such as helping with homework, with option choices, discussion of school experience, and school-related activities such as attending meetings, communication with school, participating in decision making in the governing body, helping around the school. (Green, et al., 2007). Would such interventions have any impact in children’s educational success? Such a question cannot be answered unless one knows what educational success means. According to Ridgell and Lounsbury (2004), academic success can be observed by cognitive and non-cognitive measures. 2 Cognitive measures refer to intelligence and are shown by scores and grades in academic subjects as a result of assessment such as exams, test and the like, whereas non cognitive measures refer to traits of personality. Sheldon (2009) also believes that academic achievement is often measured from the results that someone gets in the tests they sit. Following the question of this essay, it can be reformulated as the intervention of parents in their children’s education to work harder so as to obtain better results in their school tests. Is that true? A review of literature undertaken by Lindsay (2008) and Phillipson (2009) confirms the impact of parental engagement on children’s education and achievemen. 3 It is believed that a school becomes successful if the relationship among different people concerned, mainly students, parents, teachers and the community, is strong and positive (Sanders and Sheldon, 2009). The school can, for example, inform parents about what their children are learning, any problems to do with attendance, punctuality or truancy, any activities going on in school. Teachers can also talk to parents about any rewards or concerns. Likewise, parents can contact the school for any concern or suggestions. O’Mara et al (2010) found that school-based programmes can improve child’s performance in schools in terms of behaviour, attainment, regularity in school and the misuse of some illegal substance, and this, in turn, contributes to secure the relationships in the family and make them stable. However, other studies add another dimension to the discussion demonstrating that this success varies according to other factors: age, parents’ level of education, social class, household income and parenting styles. Sirvani (2007) and Richardson (2009), for example, argued that with the growth of children, parental involvement shows a decline. Senler and Sungur (2009) also found that the involvement of parents is more pronounced when their children are in elementary schools than when they move to secondary schools. Actually this involvement influences children at early age, because this is the age where cognitive development takes place, and influences literacy and number skills. Macleod (2005) found that educated parents are likely to develop scholastic aptitudes in their children with their help and direction. 4As for parenting skills5, three qualitative styles have been distinguished in the literature, authoritarian, indulgent/permissive, authoritative styles. (Baumrind, 1968). A forth style, uninvolved style, has been added based on demandingness and responsiveness. (Maccoby and Martin, 1983) Authoritarian parenting style involves parents who are strict, harsh, punitive and verbally discourage children at home. Permissive parenting style refers to a style with very few rules on life decisions children make, without any communication. Authoritative parenting style is about parents who are firm but fair in discipline and ” display warmth, love, and affection toward children”. This is a democratic style with a bidirectional communication exchange between parents and children. Lamborn et al. (1991) found that authoritarian and permissive parenting styles are associated with poor academic achievement, college adjustment and self-esteem of adolescents, whereas authoritative style gives better achievement. Uninvolved style is where parents neglect their children, little discipline, and very little supervision. The consequence is that this style ranks at the bottom of all with poor performance in all life domains. In any case, one can move a step further and ask why parental involvement would have an impact in a child’s educational outcomes. One answer comes from psychological studies. The Vygotskyan (1978) perspective on child development makes it obvious that parents have a significant influence in the development of their children’s intelligence and what they can achieve with it. The Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model (1997) specified that children educational outcomes can be influenced by parents through modelling, reinforcing, and direct instruction. Modelling explains that children will imitate their parent’s behaviour through observation, and extrapolates this into their education. A child who sees his parents reading a lot is likely to copy that habit, and this helps with his education. Reinforcement refers to praise; attention and rewards parents give to their children. So when children notice the positive and rewarding consequences associated with what their parents do, they are likely to copy it. Direct instruction is about what parents order their children to do. 6To summarise briefly, it can be said that even though scholars’ positions vary, the majority of literature confirms that parental involvement is very influential in children educational success, and literature has proved the point. In this assignment, parental involvement was understood as a two sided intervention of parents in home (parenting and help) and school-based activities of their children. Success refers to cognitive skills such as academic success in terms of good grades and non-cognitive measures such as personality traits. It was found that parental involvement declines with ages and level of education. This explains why in the United Kingdom, the White Education paper encourages schools to develop strategies for parents to be involved in their children education. Exploring why and how parental involvement influences children educational outcomes, the assignment found that the Vygotskyan perspective on child development can explain the reason, while the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model showed that modelling, reinforcement and direct instruction place parents in a position to influence their children.

APPENDIXES

The notion of parents as consumers suggests that education is viewed as a commodity, and parents are given the right to ‘ shop’ for their children’s education in the school of their choice. As supporters, parents provide shelter, food, clothing, protection, love, and support the work that goes on in the classroom.” Cognitive skills refer to the abilities to gain meaning and knowledge from experience and information, and the ability to think about new information, process and speak about it and apply it to other, previously acquired information. This ability develops as someone matures. Non-cognitive skills refer to interpersonal skills, persistence, communication skills. Todd and Wolpin (2007), used test scores to find that parental involvement produces more effects on the non-cognitive skills rather than on the cognitive skills. However several other aspects have been mentioned. Based on Science results, McNeal (2001) found the significance of parental involvement impact on the performance of white people belonging to middle-class where both parents are present. Sénéchal (2008) finds evidence for the ‘ global effectiveness of parent teaching’. Anfara (2008) mentioned a number of obstacles faced by parents in their attempts to become involved in schools: “(a) differing ideas among parents and teachers about what constitutes involvement, (b) a less than welcoming atmosphere toward parents in schools and classrooms, (c) minimal opportunities for involvement, (d) poor communication from schools, (e) lack of parent education and parenting skills, (f) time and job pressures, and (g) language barriers, (h) cultural differences, (i) fear of authority-based institutions, (j) parent illiteracy, (k) family problems, (l) negative education experiences, (m) health, (n) living arrangements, and (o) lack of resources needed for participation to those factors that hinder parent involvement in schools.” (Seda, 2007)It should be mentioned that parenting is not only about the styles; it also includes all aspects related to bringing up a child. This refers to providing housing, health, nutrition, safety; parenting skills in parent-child interactions; home conditions to support study; information to help schools know child (Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003)Quoting Berla (1994), Anfara (2008) clearly shows that parental involvement consists in the ability of the family to “(a) create a positive home learning environment, (b) communicate high but realistic expectations for their children’s school performance and future careers, and (c) become involved in their children’s schooling.”