Parental Engagement and Early Childhood Education Around the World

Susanne Garvis, Sivanes Phillipson, Heidi Harju-Luukkainen, Alicja Renata Sadownik, Susanne Garvis, Sivanes Phillipson, Heidi Harju-Luukkainen, Alicja Renata Sadownik

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000508147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Exploring the importance of parental engagement in early childhood education, this book delves into research and practices in 25 countries to bring students, researchers, teachers and policy-makers insights into working families around the world. The incorporation and consideration of parental engagement and involvement in early childhood education are a new phenomenon to many countries. Yet, increasing research recognises the importance of parental engagement and involvement in early childhood education services, and the role both parents and teachers play to support children's learning and development. Using a range of materials from curriculum to policy documents, Garvis et al. demonstrate differences in practices and terminologies pertaining to the topic and provide an international perspective on the importance of parental involvement and engagement in early childhood education services.

The content covers a range of countries as well as countries beyond an 'Anglo-Saxon' perspective. The different policy settings across these countries highlight how countries work with, and involve, parents differently, which is useful for jurisdictions where early childhood education is a developing aspect of a country's education system. Looking at cultural influences, partnership approaches, parental collaboration, institutional dominance and child involvement in parent meetings, the content offers readers real understanding of parental engagement and involvement in different settings.

The readership includes students in early childhood education, and researchers, teachers, policy makers, and general members of the public interested in parental engagement or involvement in early childhood education across the globe.

1

AN INTRODUCTION TO PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE

A global perspective

Susanne Garvis, Heidi Harju-Luukkainen, Alicja Renata Sadownik and Sivanes Phillipson

DOI: 10.4324/9780367823917-1

Introduction

A broad range of research has shown that parental involvement is an important factor within early childhood education to support a child’s learning and development (Epstein, 1995; Janssen & Vandenbroeck, 2018). Many governments have created a place for parental involvement in early childhood education curricula. Furthermore, a more limited number of studies have compared early childhood parental involvement in curricula across countries and in one such recent comparative study, Janssen and Vandenbroeck (2018) compared parental involvement in 13 early childhood education and care curricula and identified three curricula approaches that demonstrated a lack of “unanimity in top-down constructions of parental roles and responsibilities” (p. 813). These approaches were (1) school-like, (2) rights based and (3) ambivalent perspectives on parental involvement. The authors concluded that the lack of consensus in the curricula further challenged the notions of how partnerships should proceed and advocated for a stronger focus on democratic partnerships. Thus, there is a clear lack of research especially from a comparative and international cross-cultural perspective especially within parental involvement ( Janssen & Vandenbroeck, 2018).

Building on previous work in the field, this international volume expands current research to include a collection of 24 countries on parental involvement in early childhood education and care settings. Early childhood education services are organised from each country’s own cultural, social and political contexts, which are reflected in the policy documents and further in the work of teachers. How these different policy documents recognise and view parents are varying and they position parents differently in connection to early childhood education services. The intention of this book is to make visible the complexity around parent’s possibilities to collaborate and to get involved in their child’s early childhood educational environment across the globe. We help fill current gaps in knowledge and contribute significantly to the early childhood education profession and policy development. Epstein (1995) has constructed a model for parental involvement in school, pointing at various aspects, dimensions and levels that the parental involvement may actually take place on. By analysing parental involvement country by country, we can reconstruct, following dimensions of Epstein-inspired parental involvement that are either implied in polices or reported by research quoted by the chapters’ authors.

Across the globe, we notice that various terms such as parental involvement, parental engagement, home-school partnership and parental partnership are used. In this book, we encompass all these different terms under the same umbrella of ‘parents’ to provide a collective understanding of how early childhood services and parents co-exist. We do not specifically focus on specific terms or their philosophical foundations, but rather interested in how early childhood services and parents work together. We have also chosen to use the term ‘parental involvement’ based on ideologies of positioning parents as equals in involvement. Similarly with terminology, we engage with the term early childhood education and care as an umbrella term to encompass the vast terms used, such as but not limited to, preschool, day care, kindergarten and childcare across different countries. Our general definition covers early childhood education and care for children aged birth to starting school age (which again varies by country).

Traditions in parental involvement

Different policy, social and cultural contexts of each country seem to establish various approaches for parental collaboration. The pedagogical literature (Bennet, 2005) distinguishes at least two main traditions within this topic. The first is preschool oriented, where children’s future school performance is at stake. The approach focuses on a home-based involvement of parents, continuing the child’s education at home, and thus continuing the preschool’s work. This tradition contributes to fostering cognitive and behavioural dispositions (Bourdieu, 2004) high level of which will help the child to succeed in the institution of school. This approach requires parents to understand the ECEC as preparatory for school. The parents should be adequately informed by the ECEC about the child’s developmental progress towards school readiness, and how it could be supported by the family activities.

The social pedagogy tradition focuses on the community being the setting of a child’s development. Here, the parents are a link between the local community and the ECEC, communicating with the ECEC to co-created and benefit of community’s resources and initiatives. This perspective on parental collaboration is more focused on ECEC-based involvement, transforming it into a local community centre where various initiatives can create arenas for children’s activities, both completing for the home (Epstein, 1995).

The social focus of the social pedagogy approach is in line with the traditional approach’s goals regarding positive school performance. Creating arenas where children can access other competences, sets of meanings, activities and ways of being beyond the home strengthens not only the children’s cultural and social capital but also the ECEC (community of parents and professionals) in its interaction with local community and local government.

Policies and pedagogies described in this book assume, strengthen or facilitate particular approaches to parental involvement. Most of the chapters, however, combine these approaches at the level of either description of practice or future recommendations. For example, the UK policy focuses on parental home-based involvement in the child’s learning, supporting the family from the level of community and local government. Poland in the steering documents focuses on information flow regarding the child’s development progress and school readiness, shedding formal and economic responsibility for preschools to the local governments and making community engagement through parents easier. The Scandinavian curricula (Sweden and Norway) point at the necessity of collaboration between the home and ECEC to strengthen conditions for the child’s overall development. These documents, however, operate in the highest social trust (ESS, 2018) and at a high level of voluntary, collective initiatives, which shows that the social pedagogy tradition may be taken for granted by the steering documents (which then intend to strengthen the preschool approach). Singapore for example demonstrates how policy’s documents try to loosen parental academic admissions and introduce a more holistic approach towards development, while the parents and professionals aware of primary schools’ academic rigour focus on the child’s school readiness. What is clear is that contextual and cultural understanding is also needed when understanding parental involvement across different countries.

Overview of the book

Across the chapters of this book, it is clear that parental involvement is viewed from different perspectives. Therefore, for the reader of this book, it is important to note that different learning spaces in different cultures define partnership with the parents from different perspectives.

The context of Australia is shared in Chapter 2. The chapter focuses on how parents perceive, define and enact parental involvement within the early childhood education and care context. A specific aim of the chapter is to explore ways that different perceptions and definitions of parental involvement can come together to guide future research practice. A framework is shared at the end of the chapter to help shape parental involvement in Australian early childhood education and care.

Chapter 3 introduces parental involvement in Azerbaijan and presents survey results that are first of its kind. There are no previous scholarly works that have presented the status of parental involvement in early childhood education in Azerbaijan. The chapter explores the degree to which Azerbaijani parents become involved with and interact with their child’s schooling. The chapter also highlights the influence of parent and child demographic characteristics such as the parent’s age and gender, child’s gender, educational level, the number of children and marital and employment status have on parental involvement. The chapter provides in-depth information about the background, current practice and suggestions for the improvement of parent involvement in ECE.

Chapter 4 presents the complexity of policy, practice, theoretical approaches and teacher education addressing the issue of parental involvement in Belarus. The policies developed after the Soviet era underline the importance of parental involvement by creating opportunities for both formal and less formal forms of involvement. Parents are, however, mostly involved with extracurricular arrangements and excluded from major decision making. This outcome is quite surprising as the existing theoretical approaches focus on partnerships that support children’s school readings and attitudes towards learning. The authors argue for wider improvements following the outlook on current actual parental roles together with a weaker support for teacher education within this area of knowledge and practice.

Parental involvement in Croatia is discussed in Chapter 5 with the help of a literature review and a research that included a total of 180 interviews of early childhood education teachers. The chapter highlights that although there is a public interest for a teacher-parent relationship, there is a lack of research in the area conducted within the Croatian context. Further, the chapter discusses the importance of parental involvement and teachers’ responsibilities in raising the question of whether the teachers in Croatia have the required competencies to support parental involvement.

Chapter 6 presents the parental involvement in ECEC within the Czech Republic. Parental involvement is understood through a review of the developing system of 30 years in relation to the aftermath of the state-socialist educational system. Thus, the chapter begins with a more general introduction to the Czech ECE system, featuring a short historical contextualisation and a concise overview of the relevant transformations in the last three decades. Parental involvement is then explored and critiqued with issues associated with power and the reproduction of inequalities.

The context of parental involvement in Denmark is shared in Chapter 7. Intentions from the Danish steering documents for early childhood education and care and parental involvement are discussed, with gaps highlighted on what is needed for future development around parental involvement. The chapter shows that all of Epstein’s six types of parental involvement were found in Danish steering documents. A new theme also emerged on the concept of ‘improving’ which seemed to articulate the importance of collaboration between parents and community to enhance the educational environment.

Chapter 8 demonstrates the current situation in parental involvement in the Finnish ECEC context. In reviewing the Finnish ECEC steering documents, cooperation with parents is seen as central. Parents’ attitudes towards their own participation in ECEC as well as teachers’ attitudes towards parents and cooperation are important factors for successful outcomes. Universities in Finland train teachers for cooperation with parents by teaching them not only how to conduct a plan for a child’s development and learning with the parents but also how to meet the diversity of families. The authors suggest developing new structures for parental participation in Finland.

From Chapter 9, we learn that parental role is one of the three central standards of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Germany. The decentralised system of ECEC in Germany leads to a heterogeneous implementation of the required ‘Erziehungs- und Bildungspartnerschaft’ (education partnership). The chapter specifically focuses on exploring current debates around parental engagement in Germany and provides insights into the theoretically conveyed ideal of parental collaboration.

In Chapter 10, the country of Ghana is introduced. The chapter shows the important roles parents play in regard to children’s early learning, education and socialisation. The chapter reviews policy and legal frameworks with current research within Ghana. The key ideas are highlighted around attention to parent involvement and the use of practical enactment. Key ideas to develop and strengthen parents’ engagement and collaboration with early childhood education are discussed.

Chapter 11 shares the context of Hong Kong by analysing how policies stipulate parental involvement within early childhood education. Critical questions adapted from a policy analysis are used to guide the overarching analysis process, showing the differentiations within parental involvement in Hong Kong. The chapter aims to provide a policy-level picture around parental involvement and provide suggestions for improved policies and practices.

In Chapter 12, the legislative requirements and theoretical background that frame the work between kindergartens and families in Hungary are reviewed. In this chapter, the authors discuss the shift in practice from the socialist regime to the present day, with a focus on five distinct models of family engagement. The chapter concludes by identifying key points in strengthening the relationships between families and early childhood education, and explores ways of working together that benefit children, families and kindergartens.

Chapter 13 explores the context of Iceland through an exploration of children’s participation in the light of history of preschool policy documents. In the chapter, the authors describe an innovative project that showcased a parent meeting in cooperation with five-year-old children. Drawing on Habermas’ (2007) theories of democracy and empowerment, the chapter shows the importance of including children. The backdrop of policy development in Iceland’s preschools is also shared, showing the importance of parental involvement.

Chapter 14 presents the parental involvement in Jordan. As the institutional ECE in Jordan starts at the age of four or five, the authors begin with the country’s policies and strategies in motivating parents to provide stimulating, loving and protective environments. Next in the chapter, parental involvement initiatives are presented along with related established theoretical models (such as Epstein’s model). The research overview presented in this chapter points at the professionals’ negative attitudes towards parents, contrasted by teachers’ appreciation of parental involvement generally. The chapter concludes with a complex overview of aspects and conditions for parental involvement that require improvement, where more professionalisation of teacher education, more precise description of PI in steering documents followed by national initiates helping spreading them in the field, stay central.

In Chapter 15, Norway is explored through an exploration of Norwegian steering documents for the ECE sector and teacher education. Concepts of ‘understanding’ and ‘collaboration’ are discussed, showing changes over time. The findings are important for showing how parental collaboration is featured in different documents, including teacher education. The authors try and reconstruct an un-average perspective about services. The findings suggest that the full publication of parental surveys beyond average score reporting.

The context of Oman is presented in Chapter 16. This chapter discusses the paradoxical landscape of parental involvement, starting with the global awareness of the importance for the child’s holistic dev...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• List of figures
• List of tables
• 1 An introduction to parental involvement in early childhood education and care: a global perspective
• 2 The cultural interface of parental involvement in the Australian context
• 3 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Azerbaijan
• 4 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Belarus
• 5 Parental involvement in Croatian early childhood education: challenges and opportunities
• 6 Parental involvement in Czech Republic: towards a partnership approach?
• 7 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Denmark
• 8 Parental perspective in the Finnish early childhood education context
• 9 Educational partnership: parental collaboration in German ECEC settings
• 10 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Ghana
• 11 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Hong Kong: critical analysis of related policies
• 12 From institutional dominance to parental involvement: models of working with families in Hungarian Kindergartens
• 13 Children’s participation in parent meetings in light of the history of preschool policy documents in Iceland
• 14 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Jordan: policy and practice
• 15 Parental involvement in ECE in Norway
• 16 The state of parent involvement in early childhood education: case of Oman
• 17 Parental involvement in ECEC in Poland
• 18 Collaborating with parents for South Sámi language learning: a study in an indigenous preschool in Norway
• 19 Parent participation in preschool education in Serbia: challenges and perspectives
• 20 Taming the Tiger: exploring parental involvement in early childhood education in Singapore
• 21 Parental involvement in early childhood education in Catalunya, Spain
• 22 Parental involvement in Swedish preschools: a reflection of current steering documents
• 23 Parental involvement in early childhood education discourse in Uganda
• 24 United Kingdom – four nations in one country: diversity in policy, research, and practice
• 25 Family engagement in early childhood: policy and practice in the United States
• 26 International trends in parent involvement of sayings, doings, and relatings
• Index