Studies within education have consistently found that
parental engagement within education positively impacts upon the educational
success of young people: this is referred to as “good parenting” (Desforges and
Abouchaar, 2003; Goodall, 2016; Goodall, 2017; Goodall and Vorhaus, 2011;
Harris and Goodall, 2010). After critically engaging with these studies, it
could be inferred that they assume a bias against parents that do not, for
whatever reason, value the field of education: it positions this parenting as “bad”.
As Bourdieu (1977) attributes parental involvement in education to parents of
the middle class, it could be seen that this positioning of “bad parents”
replicates some sociological studies which found the distancing and “disgust”
of working class individuals (Lawler, 2005).
Despite whether it is believed that labelling some parents as
good or bad should be done, it has been found that the field of education can
transform a child’s life (Teach First, 2017). If parental engagement
contributes towards the educational success of a child, it is important that
this is encouraged for disadvantaged pupils. Therefore, to raise the
educational attainment of disengaged and underachieving pupils, educators must
firstly engage the disengaged parent. To engage the disengaged parent, schools
must strike a balance between encouraging parents to attend training session to
support their child’s educational progress and treating them as a colleague: the
expert on their child. Literature suggests that this balance should be achieved
through engaging parents in a sensitive and personalised manner (Goodall, 2016;
Smith, 2016).
There are two strategies, within the literature, that have
been proven to engage parents in a sensitive and personalised manner: one that
I cannot implement but another which I could adapt. The first one is Save the
Children’s FAST programme in which parents and children were brought together
for a meal within school (Harris and Goodall, 2010). This non-invasive approach
gets the parent into the school to socialise with their child. It could make
the parent feel more comfortable within the school environment and encourage
them to speak about their child’s studies. Of course, as a classroom teacher, I
could not implement this method. However, I found it an interesting social
strategy to break down the barriers of parental disengagement. The second
strategy comes from Goodall’s (2016) blog post on teachertoolkit.co.uk. This
post encourages teachers to shift from reporting to parents at parents’ evening
to fostering a partnership to support learning. Treating parents with respect,
recognising and acknowledging their efforts to come to the parents evening are
encouraged to foster this working relationship (Goodall, 2016). Furthermore,
Goodall (2016) suggests giving parents a list of questions to ask teachers to
supplement their cultural capital, as some parents may not know how to engage
with the teacher. Similarly, Goodall (2016) suggests that teachers should ask
the parents how they can facilitate learning for their children. Through
treating the parent as the expert, the parent will feel more comfortable and at
ease with engaging with teachers (Smith, 2016).
Following this research, I plan to approach parental
engagement in a different way than I did last academic year. By moving from
reporting to engaging parents to support learning and providing parents with
resources they may need to do so. This is especially important within my
subject, Computing; often parents will approach me and state that they “know nothing
about technology” and that it is their children who are the experts. If parents
feel intellectually inferior to their child, how can they possibly help support
learning? Therefore, I plan to give a list of resources that may help to these
parents and move away from subject specifics at parents evening. As Goodall, in
a recent lecture, stated: it does not matter that parents do not know the
answer, what matters is they know how to find the answer. I intend to provide
parents with the means to find that answer.
References:
Bourdieu
(1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.
Desforges and Abouchaar (2003) The impact of parental involvement, parental support and family education on pupil achievements and adjustment: a literature review.
Goodall and
Vorhaus (2011) Review of best practice in parental engagement. Department of
Education.
Goodall, J
(2016) Reporting to Support. Online: https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2016/08/10/parental-support/
Goodall, J (2017) From project to process. a report of the pilot of a toolkit for parental engagement.
Harris and
Goodall (2010) Helping families support children’s success at school. Save the
Children.
Lawler
(2005) Disgusted subjects: the making of middle-class identities. The
Sociological Review, 53(3), 429-446.
Smith (2016)
Swing Time. London: Penguin.
Teach First (2017) Income defines how well children do at school. Online: https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/our-mission/the-issue.
