The schools in rural and farm areas of South Africa still face many chal- lenges in offering quality education for the communities which they serve even post-apartheid. Of concern is that parental involvement in educa- tion in rural and farm areas seems to be very low compared to the involve- ment of parents from well-off socioeconomic backgrounds in their children’s education (Joan 2009 as cited in Kainuwa and Yusuf 2013).
While various post-apartheid educational policies stipulate that parents and the communities should be recognised as partners, it is not clear if school principals in rural and farm schools encourage parents and the communities to be part of this partnership. This is to ensure that the children are constantly motivated to attend school and take part in learn- ing. The discussions in the following subsections demonstrate that beyond the deficit understanding of rural education there are families within rural contexts who play active roles in ensuring that there is learn- ing continuation at home amidst the grand narratives about teaching and learning in rural contexts.
Through the Parents’ Voices
Jabulani said, “I am always involved in task that he is not sure of … tasks that are a little bit complex, he is always inviting me and I am helping.”
This shows that some parents identify the importance of always being available and checking children’s homework, in particular for tasks that seem challenging. This relates to Vygosky’s concept of the zone of proxi- mal development, where children need assistance with tasks they are cur- rently unable to do, to be able to attempt to do them independently. This idea also concurs with Epstein and Salinas (2004) that parents at home
can motivate their children to take the initiative and develop a high work- ing ethos to actively participate in learning. Because of the positive sup- port and inspiration they receive from their parents at home, they can aspire to advance their academic performance and horizons.
The interest that parents show in assisting their children with home- work or monitoring that tasks get completed possibly shows their chil- dren that they are interested in what they do at school. Of importance also to note is that some parents only assist their children when it is pos- sible for them to assist, that is, they are sometimes constrained from help- ing their children due to the nature of the subject. For instance, Thomas said:
Yes, I do assist them … then the other one because she is doing science I make sure that we organise our church member, he also invite all the learn- ers who are doing science and maths, so we are encouraging them to attend over the weekends … when coming to English and other learning areas I do assist …
The response suggests that the participant tries to assist his children where possible and when he is unable to assist due to limited subject knowledge, he seeks help outside. Of importance is that children are assisted with subject knowledge from home to ensure that they are not frustrated at school, at the same time helping teachers to teach the con- tents easily. In addition, Lerato maintained that he does help his child with schoolwork, although the focus is on mathematics and no other subjects:
… to be honest, I used to fight with my first born child because each time she comes from school she must take a break of 20 minutes … undressing and take whatever she can eat and she must seat on the table before she can go around playing … I must assist her do her maths activities… it’s not that I don’t like SS [Social Science], I don’t like EMS [Economic and Management Science], but since I grew up I loved Mathematics…
So, it was interesting for me to see how the parents’ own interests and preferences between learning subjects shape how they help their children
with schoolwork. A question of interest is that since Lerato focuses on assisting the child with mathematics, how is the child assisted with other subjects? However, Leraro seems dedicated to assist the child and make sure the understanding of content knowledge and good performance is attained. While this practice is good, it is also imperative that the parent recognise that other subjects also need as much time at home as the one they are passionate about, to ensure balance in performance.
From the discussion, it appears that parents believe that when they are constantly monitoring their children’s school activities, it does influence their children’s academic performance. This means that parents who are aware of their children’s school work and areas of difficulty motivate their children to work hard and perform successfully at school. Regarding this, Jabulani said: I work with my kids always, because when they have got a task, assignment I sit down with them, I am helping them, I am doing, I am working with them.
The responses seem to suggest that when parents have regular discus- sions about schoolwork with their children and constantly monitor their work, it can shape the children’s motivation to attend school and strive to perform well. Similarly, Epstein (2013) posits that most children want their families to be actively involved in their education and that they are knowledgeable partners in their educational activities. Although partici- pants maintain that they are involved in assisting their children with school work at home, it is also important to acknowledge possible prob- lems that can be encountered if teachers do not clearly set out expecta- tions and guidelines on how the parents are supposed to assist their children. As Epstein and Sanders (2002) state, parental support at home should be through encouraging, listening, reacting, praising, monitoring, guiding, and discussing. It is evident in the information provided by the parents that they are eager to support their children, and it is the partner- ship that the school and parents form that can enable this to happen successfully. The partnership that is formed between parents and school also addresses issues of decision making, that is, involving parents in making decisions about processes of schooling. Parental involvement also includes allowing parents to be part of the decision making body, either during parents’ meetings or through other forms of practice or engagement.
Through the Learners’ Voices
While some participants acknowledged that the classroom—as the microsystem according to the Bioecological theory—is valuable, in par- ticular their teachers in their learning of mathematics, others illustrated that home also plays a crucial role in their learning. This theme is about how learning mathematics at home and interactions with family mem- bers influence the development of particular experiences and attitudes towards learning mathematics. The findings from the interviews with learners suggest that family members play crucial roles in learners’ learn- ing as Guides in Mathematics Content (GMCs), which I discuss below.
This addresses the school-home and home-school interrelatedness in learning mathematics, which Bronfenbrenner calls the mesosystem.
Bronfenbrenner (1979) suggests that the learning potential can be increased as a function of the supportive links that are available for the learner within different microsystems. The findings suggest that learners’
experiences and attitudes towards mathematics are deeper and mostly associated with the learning environment, rather than from interacting with the contents of the subject matter.
Learning at home has been overemphasised in previous research as playing an important role in ensuring that learners are motivated to take the initiative and develop a good working ethos to actively participate in learning mathematics (Epstein 2004; Msila 2012). In this study, some learners’ responses highlighted the powerful influence of the home envi- ronment on their learning of mathematics. Their responses suggest that their family members assist them at home to make sense of the mathe- matical content, skills and processes that were covered by the teacher in the classroom but resulted in misunderstandings by the learner. This relates to what Mestry and Grobler (2007) mentioned that when family members assist their children with homework continuously and consis- tently, it helps to enhance learners’ performance in schools and also shapes learners’ interest to actively participate in learning. For example a learner, Tsan’wisi, said:
My aunt helps me, she doesn’t give me all of these answers, she shows me that you can do this, and do this. She will say, ‘I will give you an answer for
this one, but you will do this one on your own.’ I have to do that on my own and she will never help me, she will never help me.
Even though Tsan’wisi emphasised that his aunt gives him the oppor- tunity to do mathematics himself, his choice of words “she shows me”
and “I will give you” demonstrate that the aunt is helpful when he experi- ences challenges, as a way of mediating unknown knowledge.
While family influence on learners’ mathematical capabilities and the promotion of more positive attitudes has been argued to be essential (Van Voorhis et al. 2013; Mestry and Grobler 2007), it might be perceived that the kind of support that Tsan’wisi receives from his aunt does pro- vide him with an adequate opportunity to make sense of the mathemati- cal contents himself. As the aunt gives him the opportunity to engage with other maths problems without assistance, it suggests some kind of scaffolding and the space to learn and make mistakes. With this in mind, it seems from Tsan’wisi’s response above that his aunt’s availability to assist him with mathematical contents at home fosters a positive attitude towards learning the subject.
Another learner, Tiny stated that: “Maths is not difficult, get the right person who can teach you maths, like my father, he helps me when I am stuck in maths because he studied pure maths”. Similarly, Musa said:
My brother at home gives me questions and I answer, and where I don’t get answers good, he gives me corrections. He takes me and shows me how we do this here; I then have to redo the same questions that I did not understand.
These learners’ responses demonstrate that the assistance they receive from their family members when they encounter difficulties in under- standing the mathematical content promotes a sense of hopefulness in learning the subject. Both Tiny and Musa believe that in adverse circum- stances when learning mathematics, the assistance from the father and brother respectively can help them clarify misunderstandings, which in turn appears to instil positive attitudes towards mathematics. These responses also show that in a rural context there are educated people to assist learners with learning, a reason some learners perform successfully.
The responses show that the identified family members are GMCs, because they have some level of mathematics background. This means that for a family member to act as a GMC they should have some level of mathematical proficiency and rural families, especially parents, are always perceived to lack this proficiency (Ndlazi 1999; Msila 2012). Epstein and Salinas (2004) argue that family involvement and learners’ attitudes and behaviour towards their school activities are directly proportional to each other. This means an increase in parental involvement in educational activities can play a role in shaping learners’ behaviour during the process of teaching and learning in the classroom.