Trainee teachers’ perceptions about parent partnerships: are parents partners?

Abstract

Children's life chances when their learning at home is supported collaboratively with early years' and other educational settings. This original piece of research involved second year trainee teachers who were surveyed about their perceptions about parents and the nature of the partnership relationship. X ( 2007) previously explored early childhood teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning. Teachers act in accordance with their beliefs when their knowledge, understanding and confidence of that area is high. Using this assumption, this small scale study explores the student teachers perceptions about parents. To ensure rigour, the study was contextualised in the literature drawing on qualitative research methods including use of open-ended questions. The study considered the participants own experiences of families and parenting and were debriefed following their participation. Contextual Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse the policy based data for this project. The initial findings suggest that the challenge for new teachers is their own confidence in their potential relationships with parents in relation to their feelings of being qualified but a novice. The four themes that emerged from the data provide a useful framework for the development of a questionnaire for the purpose of investigating this topic further. This is a timely paper, given the proposed changes in the White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere (2016), which will impact on the future training of teachers in England.Children's life chances when their learning at home is supported collaboratively with early years' and other educational settings. This original piece of research involved second year trainee teachers who were surveyed about their perceptions about parents and the nature of the partnership relationship.Meehan (2007) previously explored early childhood teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning.Teachers act in accordance with their beliefs when their knowledge, understanding and confidence of that area is high. Using this assumption, this pilot study explores the student teacher perceptions of what a "good" and "bad" parent looks like. In order to ensure rigour, the study was contextualised in the literature drawing on qualitative research methods including use of open-ended questions. The study considered the participants own experiences of families and parenting and were debriefed following their participation. Contextual Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse the policy based data for this project. The initial findings suggest that the challenge for new teachers is their own confidence in their potential relationships with parents in relation to their feelings of being qualified but a novice. The four themes that emerged from the data provide a useful framework for the development of a questionnaire for the purpose of investigating this topic further. The main study (in development) will pursue the relationship that trainee teachers' beliefs and perceptions about "good" parents and their expectations for ...

Wonder children and victimizing parents – preservice early childhood teachers’ beliefs about children and technology at home

“…The abductive approach discards the idea that the researcher's observations and interpretations could be purely inductive, and acknowledges that there is always a guiding theoretical thread included in the analysis process (Grönfors, 2011). In this paper, the main theoretical thread is the representations of `child computer user´ (Selwyn, 2003 Meehan & Meehan, 2017). However, unlike in deductive analysis, the following of a theoretical thread does not mean that the theory is taken as given or that the role of the analysis process is simply to test the theory.…”

“…Avigitidou, et al, 2013;Meehan & Meehan, 2017). While it is understandable (and even desirable) that the ones applying for teacher education think the best about the children, having uncritical and idolized views about children and discriminating views about parents is another thing.…”

Two worlds collide? Mapping the third space of ICT integration in early childhood education

“…An abductive approach was used as the guiding principle of data analysis in Articles II and III. The theoretical thread in Article II was the representations of the "child computer user" (Selwyn, 2003), and the (mainly negative) representations of parenthood identified in existing literature (e.g., Alliance for Childhood, 2004; Baum & McMurray-Schwarz, 2004;Meehan & Meehan, 2017). In Article III, the main theoretical thread was the different frames-teaching, education, and carethat provide different orientations for early childhood education (e.g., Broström, 2006;Einarsdóttir, 2003;Salomaa, 2016).…”

“…In the essays, the preservice teachers stated that the disadvantages listed above could be avoided if parents were aware of them, if they supervised and regulated their children's technology use, and if they made sure their children's on-and off-screen activities were appropriately balanced. However, this was something parents were believed to have trouble with, and students often referred to children's high technology use as being a consequence of incompetent parenting (see also Lehtikangas & Mulari, 2016;Meehan & Meehan, 2017;Ylönen, 2012). The preservice teachers thought parents lack the skills or the will needed to regulate their children's technology use.…”

Finnish and Portuguese Parents’ Perspectives on the Role of Teachers in Parent-Teacher Partnerships and Parental Engagement

“…Despite the importance of the teachers' active role in engaging parents in learning, research shows that partnering with parents and supporting their engagement is an area where teachers lack confidence and formal instruction [19,20]. The latest reports on teachers in Europe [21] show that 36 percent of teachers consider addressing parents' concerns to be a source of stress in their daily work.…”