Parental involvement in multi-ethnic Schools

Introduction

Staff in all the schools we visited talked about the importance of involving parents in the education of their children if attainment was to be raised. Similarly, all the parents who took part in the study agreed that their participation in their children's education was very important. However, our discussions with minority ethnic group parents in the focus groups indicated that there is often a difference of perception between schools and parents as to the nature and purpose of parental involvement in their children's education.

From parents' accounts, it seems that schools do not communicate clearly what they expect of parents, nor do they always understand what parents expect of them. This results in systems of communication which parents do not always find helpful or appropriate, and in discussions about children which do not address some basic concerns which parents have. In some situations, cultural and language gaps were obviously an obstacle to effective communication. However, parents' experiences as reported in our focus groups suggested either that schools do not do enough to bridge this gap with many parents, or that such cultural and language gaps are not the only obstacle. One Community Liaison Officer was of the view that teachers did not always realise that they 'talked down' to minority ethnic group parents and dictated what parents should be doing rather than listening to what parents themselves had to say and valuing their contribution as the primary carers of the child.

Racism, much of it unconscious rather than blatant, was also seen as a major obstacle to communication. Some parents thought that racial assumptions about the different ethnic groups were prevalent and that this prevented teachers from relating to them and respecting them as partners in the education of the children.

It is clear that in many of the schools we visited there were genuine attempts to communicate with parents, although it was not always clear how far 'parental involvement' meant responding to parents' own agendas rather than simply keeping parents informed of and helpful in implementing the school's agenda. One Head of Year questioned the extent to which teachers really wanted parents to be involved. She thought that what teachers wanted and what parents wanted could sometimes be 'worlds apart', and that teachers did not necessarily want parents who were too 'empowered' so that they felt that the school was theirs and they had a right to complain about things:

"In my mind, teachers expect parents to come in here just for the parents' evening, the disciplining... I think that teachers expect parents to support the school when it suits the teachers for the parents to support the school. But if the parents come in about something that they want, then it's like, 'This is our school and parents should not be involved in that'."

We did note, however, a number of schools where serious attempts were being made to work with parents through one-to-one meetings on children's progress, workshops on the curriculum, and consulting parents through parents' groups and associations on educational matters. In some schools minority ethnic group parents were represented on school governing bodies. These features of provision made a difference to parents who felt intimidated and excluded, and encouraged them to participate in school activities, which they might not otherwise have done. 'Link' teachers, bilingual teachers and home-school workers seem to be a valuable resource in this process.