This qualitative study explored how parents and administrators view the role of parents with the goal of finding meaningful and mutually beneficial ways to engage parents in the life of the school through the lenses of parent involvement literature and negotiated order theory. This study explored how parents and administrators view the role of parents with the goal of finding meaningful and mutually beneficial ways to engage parents in the life of the school.
Negotiated Order Theory
A] somewhat strange and awkward organizational unit: it is an attempt to formalize the relationship between the customers and the "product". Learning takes place as individuals participate in the practices of the community; changes in their participation reflect their.
Research Questions
Qualitative Case Study Design and Methods
Participant Recruitment and Sampling
As Yin (2013) noted, “The events and ideas that emerge during qualitative research may represent meanings given to real events by the people who live them” (p. 15). Although faculty members are also critical stakeholders within the organization who regularly interact with parents and participate in the negotiation of order around parental involvement, this study focused on administrators in leadership positions to provide the school's perspective of the research questions.
Participant Sample
It is important to note that all participants in this study are Caucasian and mostly upper-middle class. The literature links upper-middle-class parents, particularly mothers, to higher levels of participation in school communities (Lareau & Muñoz, 2012; McGrath & Kuriloff, 1999a).
Interview Protocols
Document Review and Triangulation
Data Analysis
Limitations
Finally, since this qualitative study is based on data obtained from only one institution, it is not motivated by a desire to generalize, nor is it a wholesale adoption of a specific parent. That said, it is the researcher's intent and hope that the findings will assist other independent school administrators in forming cohesive plans to engage parents and broaden and deepen parent participation in their unique school settings.
Background Data
SPA Mission and Culture
The PTA at SPA
One of the PTA's primary tasks is to host the annual auction, which provides a significant fundraising source for SPA. Numerous other forms of volunteer work associated with the PTA are social and public oriented like the auction, but without a fundraising component.
There are many events that the parent association itself organizes to strengthen the spirit of the family. They're having coffee with the high school principal, and that's, I mean, that's just not that exciting to me. It's more like, sitting and listening to the high school principal talk about the curriculum or.
Findings
Research Question 1
What Does the Term Parent Engagement Mean to Parents
I mean, they are very good at saying that your child needs to take ownership now to speak up for himself. In this context, parents specifically referred to the school principal's message that "we are here to educate adults not educate children" and that. Parents acknowledged that although they enjoyed a more active presence in their child's primary school, they were
Commenting on the SPA's stance on parental involvement, one old-timer and PTA leader said, "I think they want it, [and]. That's my feeling." This parent continued with the topic, "I feel like it's my second home." These beliefs suggest that SPA parents, similar to those interviewed by Barr and Saltmarsh (2014), have “a view of themselves as .
Incorporate the Belief That Parents Should be Informed
What seems equally clear, however, is that relative power remains in the hands of SPA, in terms of the lack of visibility around the negotiations (“behind the scenes”), the clarity of the boundaries of issues (“little room for that kind of issues”). of behavior”), and the existence of. They identified these benefits as including “child benefits” associated with. knowing that your parents are working for you behind the scenes and are invested in your education and invested in your community,” “peer relationships that [parents] build,” and benefits that benefit the entire school. community comes from “people supporting other people and their efforts.” There was no one 'right way'. being involved in the life of the school in the eyes of every administrator.
For example, one administrator explained that engagement would include showing up for their children's specific activities," as well as "supporting the school financially." That said, a relatively new administrator distinguished parent engagement from parent involvement" showing that how stakeholders define the role of parents can relate to and be reflected in the ways parents participate in the life of SPA: I think it's meaningful for them to know that their mothers are coming and making wreaths and making the school beautiful, but I think, um, it's a little behind the scenes.
Stakeholders Have a Shared Understanding That Parents
And then they know at the end of the day that we will make the best decision that is right for the group. I think it's one of those slippery slopes because "you can't please everybody ... and the administration is obviously watching. They emphasized that the distribution of power between parents and schools should be fair but not equal, and emphasized , that "the goal is a distribution of agency so that parents and schools can work together with young people to support the best possible outcomes" (Goodall &.
The Order That Exists Around Parent Engagement has Been
Valuing Parents
If you don't have that, then you're going to make compromises everywhere else. And then when this [new] group [of parents] comes in, it's a new way of how we're doing things. That they believe they are a valuable voice in the community and that they are valued.
Research Question 2
How do Parents Who Participate in the Parent
Participate?
Parents Who Participate in the PTA View Engagement as a
When asked how they like to engage in SPA life, the non-participating parents invariably mentioned events linked to their children's school activities. What emerged from the data is that parents who do not participate in PTA have a desire for engagement that links more directly back to their children's educational life and experiences and the parents' desire to interact with them at school. The interviews suggested that many parents who participate in PTA are likely to value these activities as well.
Parents Who Participate in the PTA Value it as a Socially-
I would like this thread, this through the line, with my children's lives and all that, because I can find these other things. An administrator told a story about a parent who refuses to go to PTA events because they don't appeal to him socially. At the same time, this parent feels deeply connected to SPA because of the way the community responded when he tragically lost one of his children.
Parents Who do Not Participate Rely on Self-
One veteran administrator explained, "I think an engaged parent community is very helpful in helping parents connect with other parents ... I think that's super important." Another administrator who attends the PTA meetings. Yet another administrator explained how she attends the PTA meetings but intentionally leaves them to give. Parents who do not participate in PTA do not have an institutionalized channel for relationship formation.
I feel like the PTA does a lot of planning events and activities that are geared toward organizing social events and decorating things, and I work full time. You know, we have a book that we're all chewing on and we want to kind of get together and talk about it as it relates to raising kids today in [SPA]. And talking about those real things versus getting together and talking to people who are in the same situation and talking about sailing and my trip to Bermuda and whatever else is not that interesting to me anymore.
The PTA Does not Currently Attract a Diverse Body of
So while that would be nice, I don't know if they have, I hate to say it, but I don't know if the interest is there... So I don't know, I don't know, I'm I'm not sure What do I have to do. A school counselor offered: “Men don't come to the lecture series.” Finally, a senior administrator said, “I don't really know how. The one thing I don't think many independent schools are good at is catering to working parents.
Stakeholders expressed many of the same sentiments about wanting to do more to involve working parents in PTA. You know, so a lot of coffee is happening in the morning, and there's very little activity happening in the evening. What if you live 45 minutes away?…. So I think that's an…important conversation to some extent, but I don't know what's formally in place just to hear that voice.
Research Question 3
What Forms of Engagement Help to Build Parents’
Identification With the Institution at Large?
Parents Seek Educational Opportunities Beyond Those
Not entirely, but it's good to see how they're educating, because I think some parents, just from my past experience, think, "My kid's not doing X, so I'm not going to worry." And they don't know if this is their only high school child, they don't have one. And parents sometimes abdicate their responsibilities to the schools, and then less and less people are part of the religious group... So in many ways, the schools are kind of left there holding the whole chair.
In the Middle School and Upper School, opportunities to interact with students are more limited. We have a middle school event called [Invention] Day, and the PTA's sole purpose is just to provide lunch for the kids. Especially even after that, I would also love to be a fly on the wall in the classroom.
Parents and Administrators Perceive a Need for
Engagement Modalities That Capitalize on Parents’
Professional Skill Sets and Enable Parents to Share Their
I continue to think that [SPA] is doing a good job of building this road for students. Continue to somehow give opportunities for our parents to advocate and participate, but it doesn't necessarily have to be done on campus. And to do it in a way where it somehow adds to their strength rather than their crafting ability.
Recommendations
Opportunities to Connect
Enhance Existing Support Systems Within the PTA by
Relationship Building
First, having affinity groups of parent stakeholders with shared interests or identity markers will help provide a richer menu of engagement. modalities within the PTA for all parents, even those who already -based engagement creates spaces for a kind of. authenticity of gathering that one might not find in the setting of a. Thirdly, improving existing support systems within the PTA will serve to diversify PTA participation by.
Opportunities to Learn
Offer Informal, School-
A school counselor would be adept at creating opportunities for active and open dialogue between participants about core issues facing parents and students within the SPA community. Based on the research, it can be expected that these efforts will position stakeholders to express their identities, speak more fluently about their shared experiences, and build funds of knowledge within the SPA community. This exchange of funds of knowledge between parents and school personnel would remove parents from being “passive beneficiaries of.
Offer Opportunities for Parents to “Pay it Forward”
In facilitating such conversations, it is important for the counselor to drop the role of expert and simply be a good listener, as well as share their hopes and concerns for the school.
First, it would provide a feel-good opportunity for current parents to help current students, which according to SPA parents increased their social capital and sense of connection to the school. Second, these opportunities would tap into parents' occupational strengths, increasing their self-efficacy and providing them with social currency in the community as servants. Dempsey and Sandler (1997) concluded that “the most effective efforts to improve involvement must include invitations that support and build on these two socially constructed qualities (ie, parental efficacy and parents' belief that their involvement is desirable)” (p. 36). .
Conclusion
Head teachers' preferred parent-school conflict management styles in public primary schools in Nyahururu sub-district, Kenya. They're going to tear the doors off this place”: Upper-middle-class parental school involvement and the educational opportunities of other people's children. Engaging parents in schools and building parent-school partnerships: The role of school and parent organization leadership.
Appendix A. Parent Interview/Focus Group Protocol
Focus
Conceptual Framework
Ice Breaker
Parent Involvement
Is there any form of commitment not provided in the SPA that you would like to see implemented.
Negotiated Order
Can you give me an example of a parenting activity you participated in that made you feel part of the SPA community. Can you give an example of a time when a conflict was resolved by the school to your satisfaction.
Wrap Up
Appendix B. Administrator Interview Protocol
