Contemporary Issues in Childhood

A Bio-ecological Approach

Zeta Brown, Stephen Ward, Zeta Brown, Stephen Ward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315513836
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Social Sciences

Contemporary Issues in Childhood provides undergraduate students with a comprehensive introduction to the current influences and challenges that surround childhood, families and communities. The text carefully explores the lives of children and young people to make clear the link between this particular demographic and social contexts such as family, community and society. Key theories and concepts are examined in each chapter, using Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model to highlight the complex and individual nature of child development.

Written by highly experienced authors who represent a variety of professional disciplines, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to encourage critical reflection on the influences and experiences of children and childhood. A range of rich, practical examples accompany the text, in addition to discussion questions, case studies and further reading designed to support readers in reflecting on their own experiences as learners.

Contemporary Issues in Childhood is essential reading for students on Education Studies courses and Childhood, Family and Community Studies courses, as well as preservice and in-service educators. It will also be of great interest to Early Childhood Studies and Special Needs/Inclusive Studies students.

Section three
Contributing factors to a child’s upbringing

6 Formation of partnerships

An ecological paradigm

Ioanna Palaiologou and Trevor Male

Introduction: partnerships and the English context

In England a central government strategy for parental involvement in their children’s schooling was first introduced close to the end of the last century through the White Paper ‘Excellence in Schools’ (DfE, 1997) and embodied in the subsequent Act of Parliament, the School Standards and Framework Act (1998). There were three key aims within this policy initiative: parents were to be provided with information, to be given a voice and to be encouraged to form partnerships with their children’s education settings. These partnerships were formalised within a ‘Home-School Agreement’ which specified the:

1 school’s aims and values;

2 school’s responsibilities;

3 parental responsibilities; and

4 school’s expectations of its pupils.

The emphasis was clearly on the school being the dominant partner in this relationship with parents being required to sign a declaration that they had taken note of the school’s aims, values and responsibilities and acknowledged and accepted their responsibilities in relation to the school’s expectations of its pupils.

In 2003, the government commissioned a study to investigate the effects of such a strategy and it was found that the formation of effective partnerships can significantly improve children’s achievements, their self-concept as learners and increase aspirations (Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003). Since then, working in partnership with parents has become an important running theme in policies and curricular reforms. In 2004, for example, as a part of reforms to ensure working effectively with parents, the government published funding proposals for childcare based on the recognition that parents have by far the biggest influence on children’s lives and should be able to spend quality time with their children as part of ‘the right work-life balance for them and their children’ (HM Treasury, 2004:2). Similarly, the introduction in 2008 of a curriculum framework in England for early childhood, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), stressed that partnerships with parents/carers were essential to support children’s well-being and development. A subsequent government-commissioned report, published in 2011, further emphasised the centrality of partnership to effective student learning, whilst also noting the ‘agency of children’ to be significant (Goodall and Vorhaus, 2011:86). This report once again emphasised the difference between parental ‘involvement’ and ‘engagement’, as first suggested by Desforges and Abouchaar (2003), with the latter concept embracing more in the way of a proactive relationship with student learning. Perhaps more importantly the report also recognised how outcomes could be improved if children become more engaged in their learning as this was seen to encourage parents to do the same (and vice versa). This appears to be the first recognition in England of the importance of a triangular approach to partnership which not only sought involvement of the school and parents, but also acknowledged the child as an active learner and participant.

At about the same time, the national inspection service, Ofsted, published a report on the relationships between schools and parents based on evidence of visits to 47 schools to evaluate how effectively partnerships had developed. Here they found the Home–School Agreements required by the 1998 Act to be having a low profile by this time and their impact on the day-to-day work between parents and the schools to be very limited (Ofsted, 2011). In the best cases, however, they saw the joint working between the home and the school was leading to much better outcomes for pupils, and where parents had contributed or initiated ideas for strategic improvement these ideas had been taken forward successfully.

Education in England during the early part of this century can thus be judged to have been concerned with how effective collaboration and partnerships with parents could be formed and sustained. Parental engagement was judged to require active collaboration and should be ‘proactive rather than reactive, sensitive to the circumstances of all families, recognise the contributions parents can make and aim to empower parents’ (Goodall and Vorhaus, 2011:10). Whilst there was some recognition of the need to involve students as active participants in the collaborative structures and processes that were recommended for partnerships, this was still a muted call at this stage.

Individual/group task

Reflective question: before you read on, reflect on your work experience and discuss the relationships between staff in educational settings (managers, teachers, practitioners), children, parents and communities. What forms of communication do they use?

How do you rate their communication?

The evolving model of partnership

The dualistic and exclusive relationship between schools and students as learners can be seen to be being abandoned in terms of national policy initiatives, a pattern that can also be seen on the international stage, with a contemporaneous shift in perspective also being recognised within academic research. In addition to the changes in England previously highlighted, the notion of partnerships in education has been embraced and embedded in curricula and policy documents from around the world. The governments of Australia, New Zealand and Sweden, for example, have all endorsed the importance of home–education connections and the impact for children’s well-being and achievements in their preschool curriculum documents (Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009; New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996; Swedish Government, 2010). Similarly, academic research outcomes stress that parental involvement is essential for a successful learning community and learners’ academic achievements (Wolfe, 2014). The conclusion drawn in a meta-review into whether parental involvement interventions increase attainment was that school-led interventions ‘are most likely to succeed when they are aimed at young children, and involve parents and staff meeting regularly in an institution, with parental training, on-going support, and co-operative working with teachers’ (Gorard and Huat See, 2013:4).

Much of the research focusing on partnerships has often been limited to an examination of the relationships between parents and formal education settings (e.g. Goodall, 2013; Miller et al., 2014). In undertaking an analysis of 378 articles reporting research on partnerships published nationally (Australia) and internationally, Hughes and Mac Naughton (2000) found, for example, that the partnerships between families and schools and other education settings are dominated by the constant othering of parental knowledge by staff. By this they mean the implicit positioning by school-based staff to see people other than themselves as being of lesser importance in the development of student learning and enhanced outcomes. They categorise the ‘othering’ effect into three themes:

• Parental knowledge is inadequate: [Parents as actual or potential teachers]. Here, parents are seen as ignorant about what and how to teach their children and parent involvement programmes rectify this.

• Parental knowledge is supplementary: [Parents as collaborators]. Here, parents’ knowledge of their child allegedly complements staff’s professional knowledge, but in reality merely supplements it.

• Parental knowledge is unimportant: [Parents are absent]. Perhaps the simplest and most effective form of ‘othering’ – parents’ voices are absent from much of the literature about parent involvement (242).

These findings seem to reflect those of a much earlier study which suggested that partnership is like the spokes on a wheel where parents were perceived in a variety of alternative ways: as an audience, as direct and active teachers of their children at home, as volunteers within and outside the classroom, serving as unpaid employees or as decision makers (Gordon, 1970). Since then others have examined the parental involvement paradigm and three models depicting parent roles were presented by Swap (1993):

•The Protective Model separates the functions of school and home with parents delegating and holding schools responsible for the education of their children.

•The School-to-Home Transmission Model holds parents accountable for supporting teachers in their efforts to educate children. Supportive activities are outlined by schools and include fundraising, reinforcing school expectations at home, supporting school parties and providing a home environment that nurtures school success.

•The Curriculum Enrichment Model supports the partnership approach to parent involvement, with parents and educators working together.

Since then many studies have examined the development of partnerships that were focused on parenting styles and their relationships with school (Goodall, 2013) and linking parental involvement with children’s learning and school success (Goodall and Montgomery, 2014; Miller et al., 2014). This paradigm is characterised as a ‘binary relationship with an “other” i.e. “with something else that it is not”’ (Hughes and Mac Naughton, 2000:242). In the context of formal educational settings this paradigm of partnership has thus tended to involve one-way communication when parents are provided with suggestions and expectations, are expected to behave in a way that is oriented by the school and to act according to the school’s culture and criteria in sameness rather than valuing diversity (Christenson et al., 2009). This way of partnership and indeed family participation is described as a ‘top-down approach’ (Ruddock et al., 2000) which notably fails to address parental expectations, perceptions and priorities related to their involvement (Souto-Manning and Swick, 2006). Such an approach also fails to recognise educators adhering to the prevailing family involvement paradigm and impedes a full and valid view of the family as a partner.

Consequently, researchers turned their attention to the Empowerment Paradigm of Examining Partnerships, an approach which recognised and amplified the role that could be played by parents, families, children and significant others in terms of student learning and outcomes. Souto-Manning and Swick (2006) developed a six-element empowerment paradigm for parent and family involvement including practices that:

1 focus on family and child strengths;

2 include, validate and engage families;

3 recognise and value multiple forms of involvement;

4 provide lifelong learning for teachers, children and families;

5 build trust through collaboration; and

6 reflect linguistic and cultural appreciation, recognition and responsiveness.

Latterly research thus seems to be concerned with examining the benefits and barriers of effective partnerships in order to identify key characteristics and develop best practices (Christenso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of abbreviations
• Series editor’s preface
• Foreword
• Section One Bronfenbrenner and his bio-ecological model
• Section Two Social, development and learning identities
• Section Three Contributing factors to a child’s upbringing
• Section Four Societal aspirations and expectations on children, young people and families
• List of contributors
• Index