Improving Parental Involvement

The book titled Parental Involvement: Practices, Improvement Strategies and Challenges is a collection of papers focusing on different challenges and practices to obtain greater involvement of parents in the schooling of children and youth. The authors espoused, to varying degrees, the unique and complex patterns of parent-school relationships pointing out two significant areas where parents should become involved, namely home-based and school-based. In their exposition of these two areas, the authors of the various chapters point out both macro and micro antecedents of how parents are involved both at home (home-based) and at school (school-based) supporting their children towards achieving success. At the macro-level, the authors who contributed to this book reflected upon policy issues whereby the Ministries of Education in various countries (i.e., New Zealand, Israel, Finland, South Africa, and the United States) instigated strategies for parental involvement with varying degrees of success. There is also evidence of socio-cultural perspectives and teachers' ethnic and professional identities impacting on attitudes towards parental involvement both at school and at home. In addition, the authors point to the impact of gender differences (fathers and mothers) and at-home engagement with children's educational success. In sum, there are many and variable barriers, obstacles, and challenges towards enabling parents for greater involvement in their children's academic achievements, and a need for more consistency and collaboration across home and school systems. Presenting their most up-to-date research findings, the authors of the various chapters espouse their viewpoints pertaining to parental involvement from the perspective of the parents themselves, the perspective of the teachers, and the views of students both in the home and at the school. For the most part, however, the authors advocate the belief that strengthening parent-teacher relationships will promote the child's development and success in school and in life.