The role of parents in special education: notion of partnership revised - Ingrid Fylling and Johans Tveit Sandvin

Résumé du document

Of late, parents' role in involvement in their ward's school activities has taken a more important position. In several countries, new legislation has given parents a more significant role in the governing structure of schools. Many studies show the importance of parents' involvement in schools because it reinforces the effectiveness of schools and the success of children. Indeed, school and family are the two main forums for socialization. Both the home and the school like the best for their children but not often in the same way. This makes the relation between parents and teachers seem very complicated. According to research, parents are seen on the one hand as posing "problems" because of the liberal upbringing, lack of restriction or dissolution of families in certain cases. Teachers refer to the degree of parental involvement as "not interested" or "too interested" and feel that they always represent a problem because their engagement is rarely satisfactory.

Extraits

[...] We can ask how it is in the case of special education where this relation is more important to understand the child, his needs and so help him to overcome his disabilities. Theory Several researchers studied the concept of "partnership", a notion defined as: "the good and beneficial relation between parents and school." This term is viewed as a concept and as an element of practice. Hughes showed that a common distinction between different roles of parent in relation to school "parents as problems", "parents as partners" and "parents as consumers". [...]

[...] Our own comments We can say that a real partnership is difficult to obtain insofar as there is a relationship of power between parents and teachers. Maybe teachers unconsciously judge parents, so according to this study parents feel in a position of inferiority. We think that this study supports only the side of parents and does not take care of the feelings of teachers. Indeed we do not know if it is the case in Norway but in France, even if parents are not present in school, they are a pressure group for each teacher. [...]

[...] The first was a special school for children with dyslexia and the second was a primary school. Six similar interventions were planned for five weeks in fourth-grade and sixth-grade classes in both schools. The teachers involved were also trained to teach the four cognitive strategies and to continue to use reciprocal teaching. During each of the first four lessons, all the strategies were presented to the pupils and discussed with examples. The instruction always took place with the whole class and no special arrangements were made. [...]

[...] Results For children receiving special education, the relationship between parents and teachers is more complex, and there are more meetings. Parents must be active because they chose different individual programmes for their children, they have decisive power. But the relationship is not always good; there are also disagreements and other difficulties. Thanks to interviews, we see the apparent imbalance in the parent-teacher relationship. Parents think they have very little influence on the school. Data of this study reflect two different roles of parents in special education: parents as "implementers" and parents as "clients". [...]

[...] Research question and aim of the studies Ingrid Fylling and Johans Tveit Sandvin are interested by the concept of partnership. They want to see how teachers describe and perceive their relation to parents, and how parents experience their relation to the school. In other terms, their main focus is trying to understand the role of parents particularly in special education. What was done? We saw that parents are seen by teachers as problems and partners; in special education they are seen as implementers and clients. The role of parents in special education is stronger and more complex. [...]