Parental Participation - for Socially Just Schooling

Parental participation: for socially just schooling

Socially just schooling aims to offer every student an education of equality regardless of factors such as ethnicity, gender or social class. Often however, achieving social justice in schools can be complex when considering what lies outside classroom-control: a student's home environment and the level of their parents' participation. The film Take the Lead illustrates through two characters how schooling can be experienced differently by those from differing backgrounds. Rock, an African American young man comes from a lower social class with parents who appear to be completely uninvolved in his education at his local predominantly-black state school, whereas Caitlin is a white young lady who appears to be from a highly privileged social position and whose mother is concerned and involved in her progress at her Dancing Academy. Pierre Dulaine is a teacher who instructs at the Dancing Academy and additionally decides to take on a detention class at Rock's school. Both Rock and Caitlin attend, Caitlin voluntarily. Although the film predominately looks at issues of social class, it will not be the focus of this analysis. The aim here is not to link social status with levels of parental participation and ultimately student success, but to argue the need for teachers and parents to create consistent messages about learning through supportive environments in and outside of school. This paper will look at why parental participation and consistent learning environments are important for a student's education; how environments are constructed, with examples and assessment of Delaine's teaching practices and school curriculum; what the potential barriers are that stop parents becoming involved in their child's education, and what educators can do to further levels of parental participation in student learning.

The home environment is hugely influential for children; before they even encounter a teacher their parents have equipped them with a unique set of skills, attitudes, values and behaviours which can shape their future schooling experiences (Sloane, 1991). Thomson (2001) calls these collected skills a Ð''virtual schoolbag' that children bring from home to school. Rock and white girl evidently have radically different skills gained by their own life experiences and home environments, and these would prove more valuable and relevant in some environments than others. Rock is shown to be supporting his family through labour intensive employment, whereas white girl is not shown in any work environment and mostly struggles with social aspects. Valuing students' skills equally across the classroom is a matter of social justice and is often at the mercy of the school's habitus and practiced pedagogies (Cullingford, 1999). If a school does not consciously and consistently aim at reaching inclusive classrooms where all skills are recognised and respected, the dominant culture of that school will naturally value particular students' skills over others (Cullingford, 1999).

The culture of the school environment dictates largely the level of social justice in its classrooms, and it is up to educators to practice inclusive pedagogies to enhance engagement with learning and value all student skills and backgrounds (Fisher, 1999). Dulaine in Take the Lead exercises this when he recognises the passion the ghetto students have with their music, and allows them to mix up his traditional ballroom dancing tracks with their favourite songs. In this way he is acknowledging and validating their skills and interests and encouraging their own cultural identities. Research from the Parents are Teachers Project (Christenson, 2001) found that students perform their best when they experience six particular factors within their learning environments, all of which teacher implements with his detention class. It was proposed that students excel within a classroom if they are given standards and expectations; structure; opportunity to learn; support; relationships and teacher-modeling (Christenson, 2001). Dulaine treats his students with respect, models politeness by treating women traditionally by opening doors and addressing them appropriately, and most importantly Ð'- expects the same in return. After the initial student resistance, the class adapts to teacher and begins to model his behaviour and begins to reach his high expectations. Dulaine is effective in this film at engaging the disengaged students, namely black boy who initially sat out. Dulaine realised that he could not change the students' home environments or backgrounds, and so sought instead to engage them within the classroom with pedagogies of inclusion and respect.

Although supportive learning environments in the classroom work toward education of equality, the comparison between student outcomes from those who receive support at both home and school achieve on average much higher than those who do not (Christenson, 2001). It is therefore important to build a cooperative relationship between the home and school to enhance educational equality across all students. When a student's environment both in and outside of school encourage and support their schooling it sends them consistent messages about learning (Comer, 1996). Phelan, Davidson and Yu (1998) argue that students are educationally disadvantaged when they experience great discontinuity between their in and out of school time, mainly between school, home and peer contexts. Rock experiences these contexts as different worlds where transition is difficult between them. Rock's home could be classified as relatively poor, with seemingly unsupportive and unstable parents. Rock's parents are never shown as involved with his schooling, and if anything they potentially hinder his education by kicking him out and misusing the money he had earned to support them. To Rock, school is his way out of his social position, and a place where he strives to succeed so as to not replicate his father. His peer group, however, encourage him to get involved in crime and violence that could potentially shatter his educational goals. The film also shows a scene from his work environment, where he is fired from his job after arriving late coming from school. Evidently, Rock's worlds are incongruent and offer no consistent message about learning. In contrast, Caitlin's mother approaches teacher at one point for advice and to express concerns. Evidently for Caitlin her context of home and school are similar, where her teachers and parents are both concerned and involved with the success of her schooling. When transition between contexts of school and home is difficult like in the example of Rock, it can be detrimental to the quality of education they receive when compared to those like