Parent Involvement in Schools

Literature Review: Parental Involvement in Schools
Parental involvement in schools has been an intense issue since many years. The results of this effort have been heavily addressed in educational research. According to research, high parental involvement is greatly beneficial to children as it leads to higher grades and standardized test scores, improved behaviour at home and school, and better social skills and adaptation to school. Parents may feel a sense of guilt when not being involved in their child’s school or may not be sure on how involved they should be. Whatever the situation, the first step in helping one’s child would be to provide a rich learning environment in the home. From there involvement could take place through communication with a teacher and school, discussion of school activities with the child, and monitoring of out of school activities. But who are the parents not becoming involved and why are they not involved? And how does involvement affect those parents who have a child with a disability? Studies have been conducted to find answers to these questions, which will be addressed within this paper.
A common misconception of parents who are not involved in the school is due to their lack of care; however, communication is usually the barrier between parent and school (King & Goodwin, 2002). Jean Conteh and Yasuko Kawashima (2008) discuss family involvement in schools when culture, language, and identity become the issue. Conteh & Kawashima believe that parents with limited English skills are frequently viewed as “hard to reach”; since they are mainly insecure and feel they do not have anything beneficial to offer to the child. However, schools are also blamed for this insecurity as they tend to have a narrow point of view of parents with limited language skills. Educators tend to disregard the ways in which they can help parents support the child’s learning at home to make positive changes in the school. To begin, educators must be...