A comparative study to determine appropriate roles for parental involvement in selected high schools

The purpose of this study was to compare the views of parents, students, teachers, and administrators concerning roles appropriate for parental involvement in high schools and their own willingness to either be involved or encourage involvement. An additional purpose was to consider the effect of the culture of different high schools on these views. Data sources were the administrators and randomly selected parents, students, and teachers at each of three high schools. The high schools were selected to provide a wide range of school size, socioeconomic status (SES), school setting, racial backgrounds, and current levels of parental involvement. Semi-structured interviews were the primary method of data collection, and 100 interviews were conducted. Data were analyzed qualitatively using a mixture of general analytical procedures. It was found that both high school students and parents think parents should be involved. Many parents would like to be more involved than they are now. Teachers thought parents should be involved, but how they thought parents should be involved and what they did to encourage involvement differed greatly from school to school. The culture of the school was the most important factor in whether and the extent to which parents were involved. One of the schools had an optimal parental involvement program from which recommendations are drawn to guide parental involvement in other high schools. It was concluded that the actual roles that parents could be involved in at the high school level were of lesser importance than that parents be invited and encouraged to be involved. The attitudes and beliefs of administrators and teachers create a culture which strongly influences whether or not parents will be involved. Each school has different needs, and parents can be a part of helping to meet those needs if administrators and teachers include them as partners.