Models of Parent Involvement in Schools

Luneburg, F. C. & Irby, B. J. (2002). Parent involvement: A key to student achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, Burlington, 5-10 August.

Luneburg and Irby (2002) advise that a number of studies have demonstrated that effective parent involvement in schools is a critical factor in students' academic success. Parents who have high expectations for their children's achievement:

participate in school activities
offer encouragement
provide positive home learning environments.

The authors argue that well-planned activities and outreach can increase parent and community involvement in schools.

A model of effective parental involvement in schools can assist schools in developing, evaluating and redesigning current programs for parent involvement. A number of such models exist, including:

Gordon's systems approach
Systems Development Corporation study
Berger's role categories
Chavkin and Williams's parent involvement roles
Honig's early childhood education model
Jones's levels of parent involvement
Epstein's typologies
minority language parents involvement approach.

Luneburg and Irby provide overviews of the various models, and then extract from the models some strategies that are suitable for all year levels (R-12).

Strategy 1
Consider developing a 'centre on families' partnership, based upon the six Epstein typologies (cited in Luneburg & Irby, 2002).

Type 1 - School help for families (such as adolescent development programs)
Type 2 - School-home communication (such as three-way parent-student-teacher conferences, with prepared guidelines)
Type 3 - Family help for schools (such as encouraging teachers to be creative in their requests for assistance so that the many skills and interests of parents and community members can be tapped)
Type 4 - Involvement in learning activities at home (such as interactive homework that requires students to talk to family and community members)
Type 5 - Involvement in governance, decision making and advocacy (such as membership of school committees)
Type 6 - Collaboration and exchanges with community (such as community resource directories and work experience)

Strategy 2
Consider the establishment of a parent centre, which typically is a location within the school where parents gather to decide how they will become involved in the school. Parents can congregate at such a place, perhaps taking ownership of it, and receive support from the school for programs that further parent involvement in the school.

The authors conclude that 'school, family and community' partnerships is a better term than 'parent involvement' if we are to recognise schools as equals in the partnership and to encompass the influence of all family members and the many social and geographical communities that provide a context for students' academic lives (p. 26). There is no one-size-fits-all model for school-parent partnerships, but the model chosen by any particular school should reflect site-based goals for revitalisation and student success.