CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Historical background

Since early times, parent have been most important educators of their children. Children receive their first education in their home until 1580BC, When in Egypt, the first formal education outside home started. The root of the current emphasis on parental involvement, however, can be seen in the work of Rousseau (1712-1778) and Pestalozzi (1747-1827), Rousseau emphasized education on the importance of models being involved in the education of their children. In the United States, the kindergarten movement began in 1880s.

With its emphasis on involving parents in their children education. As a result, in the late 1880s, national parent education organization will establish the 1920s and 1930s. There were more than 75 such organization Gestwiki (1992) Reported that during the 1980s parent cooperative nursery schools began and continue today involving middle class parents helping to define school philosophy and practices to aiding in the care and maintenance of facilities.

In the post-World War II Era (1945-1950s), parental involvement included participation in parent conferences, monitoring of homework, signing of report cards, attending PTA meetings, and fundraising events. In the 1960s educators and policy makers focused on parental involvement as a way to improve educational success for the poor and underachieving students. This led to the development of a variety of models and strategies to promote such parental involvement (Milbrey & Shields, 1987).

In 1965, Haiman began experimenting with parent involvement program strategies. He designed and wrote the Parental Involvement Performance Standards for the National Head Start and this was used as a consultant to Head Start throughout the nation (Haiman, 1965). In 1968 he spoke on the relevance of curriculum, administration and community involvement (Chicago Tribune, 1968). By 1979, many schools had started incorporating parental involvement into their school programs. Parental involvement in special education programs also increased (Los Angeles Times, 1979).

By 1989, the National Education Organization had started incorporating parental involvement programs in their agendas. They provided training to school staff and parents on parental involvement. The School Board Association produced sample school policies on parental involvement which they believed would make schools more secure and more likely, academic development would take place. Best practices and models to support parental involvement were developed.

Many reports were written to recommend the necessity of parental involvement in school improvement (USA Today, 1989). In the 1990s, studies demonstrated that parental involvement could predict academic achievement. Parental involvement was considered an integral part of the school curriculum. The level of parental involvement was increased in most of the school districts across the nation (USA Today, 1990).

In the 1980s and early 1990s, studies were published that suggested the importance of parental involvement in school. In the mid-1990s, the popular press, policy makers, and school administrators actively advocated parental involvement. Legislation was enacted, such as the Goals of 2000 which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in the United States, which have made parents’ involvement in their children’s education a national priority. Research had consistently demonstrated that parental expectations for their children’s educational attainment strongly predict academic achievement. Parental expectation for educational attainment had positively predicted students’ achievement test scores (Benner &Mistry, 2007; Neuenschwander, Vida, Garret, &Eccles, 2007; Singh et al., 1995; Zhan, 2006), as well as Grade Point Average (GPA) (Seyfried& Chung, 2002).

Today, laws have been created to enforce parental involvement in schools including provisions of School Accountability Teams. Movements for community control of education such as the education of low-income children, special education students, and English Language Learners have been developed to meet the needs of students.

Districts focus on implementing strategies to promote parent, family, and community involvement (National Center for School Engagement, 2004). The Family Strengthening Policy Center (2004) established that states can develop a state-wide network to support teachers’ preparation for parental involvement, and also provide technical assistance to local districts and schools on how to get parents involved.

School districts must have a written policy for administrative support and training for staff, parents and community members on parent involvement programs. The community should be able to advocate with state education agencies and school districts to promote widespread and effective parental involvement policies and practices.

Conceptual background

Parental involvement includes a range of practices by the parent toward their children that are intended to promote the latter’s motivation and educational achievement such as discussing school with children and monitoring children’s progress. Parental involvement is Multidimensional, and that has made it difficult to define it (Hill and Taylor, 2004). For example, Epstein (2001) suggests six categories of involvement: parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating within the community. Grolnick and Sowiaczek (1994) describe three categories of involvement: behaviour, cognitive-intellectual, and personal.

Construed most broadly, parent involvement is any action taken by a parent that can theoretically be expected to improve student performance or behavior.  In other words, parent involvement consists of those actions that help a child meet or exceed the norms or expectations of the student role and encompasses parent-child, parent-teacher, and to some degree parent-parent relations. Given the breadth of the topic, it is not surprising that research findings have been largely inconsistent. Parent involvement can be described as social relations that are imbued with norms of trust, obligation, or reciprocity (Coleman 1988; McNeal 1999).  If described in this manner, parent involvement is conceived of as a form of social capital.

Parents invest their time, attention, and resources in their children with the expectation of a return that their children will perform better in school. Using this framework, McNeal (1999) contends that parent involvement encompasses three broad domains, parent-child relations, parent-school relations, and parent-parent relations.  In all three cases, it is generally assumed that parents invest time with their children, school personnel, or other parents with the expectation that their involvement will yield a tangible return.  The exact form of the expected return is not always clear, but can include improved educational expectations, improved role performance (i.e. better attendance, increased homework done, reduced delinquency, etc.), increased achievement, or strengthened relationships with school personnel or other parents.

Parental involvement means different things to different people. A recent newsletter published by The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement (2006) explained that some people equate involvement to chaperoning field trips or volunteering for PTA committees while others define it as attending an open house or signing off on homework folders.

National PTA (2006) described parental involvement as regular participation of parents, a two-way process, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities. National PTA pays particular attentions to parents, who are economically disadvantaged, disabled, have limited English proficiency, have limited literacy, or are of any racial or ethnic minority background.

Under National PTA, schools are required to do evaluation and design strategies for more effective parental involvement, and also to revise, if necessary, the parental involvement policies. It also places the responsibility for schools to be certain that parent involvement initiatives are properly developed and evaluated.

Parental involvement can encourage children’s and adolescents’ achievement in many ways. One way that parents can contribute positively to their children’s education is to assist them with their academic work at home. Parents who read to their children, assist them with their homework, and provide tutoring using resources provided by teachers tend to do better in school than children whose parents do not assist their children (Izzo et al., 1999).

Theoretical Background

The theoretical background of this study is shaped by sociocultural views of childhood and development. It includes Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural views on children and childhood, Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological model, Dewey’s concepts of democracy in education and child development from the African perspective.

The reason for using these theories is because their views imply that children learn by interacting within the social and cultural context of a society. They emphasize that with assistance, children can learn beyond their developmental level and equally advocates that the child’s immediate environment as well as other external settings impacts their academic performance.

Statement of the Problem

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) mandated that schools close the student achievement gap by placing a high demand on parental involvement. Lack of communication hinders parent participation in schools.

Factors that contribute to this lack of communication include the inability to speak, read, and understand English in an academic or personal school setting and the belief of parents that they are overstepping their boundaries by questioning authorities or upholding the rights of their children in schools (Smith, Stern, & Shatrova, 2008).

For example, some school sites do not have systems in place that promote parental involvement as an “invaluable asset” for student achievement.  In addition, research suggests that schools often struggle with effectively involving parents in promoting their children’s achievement (e.g., limited bilingual staff, correspondences, newsletters, school calendars, lunch menus not written in the spoken language), which results in minimal communication with parents (Smith et al., 2008).

According to Dohner-Chávez, (2006), “Aside from ethnicity or economic background, parental involvement in a child’s education has a profound effect on academic success”. The need for adequate guidelines, strategies, and techniques to involve parents in school is crucial and should be a priority of any administrator.

If public school educators want parents to assume more responsibility, schools need to take proactive approaches that identify solutions to remove barriers to parental involvement (Smith et al., 2008).  Parents are an important asset to improving academic achievement, and they should be given the tools necessary to be active in their children’s schools. It is on this backdrop that this research wishes to investigate more on parental involvement in student’s education and their effects on their academic performance in the Buea municipality.

Objectives of the Study

General objective of the study

The main objective of this study was to find out the effects of parental   involvement in students’ education and their effects on their academic performance in the Buea Municipality.

Specific objectives

1. To examine how parental guidance affects students’ academic Performance in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.
2. To understand how parental motivation affects students’ academic Performance in secondary schools in the Buea municipality
3. To examine the extent to which parental expectations and aspirations affect students’ academic performance in secondary schools.

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