Parental involvement in early childhood classrooms: Turkish teachers’ views and practices

Deniz Ekinci-Vural and Zübeyde Doğan-Altun

African Educational Research Journal
Published: January 19 2021
Volume 9, Issue 1
Pages 60-68
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30918/AERJ.91.20.208

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand Turkish early childhood teachers’ views and practices of parent involvement (PI). Qualitative research design was utilized for this research by asking five open-ended research questions to one hundred female teachers who work in the public preschools. The results of the study indicated that teachers apply various forms of parental involvement considering Epstein (1995) six type of parent involvement model. The findings suggest that while volunteering in the classroom was the most common PI, on the other hand decision making was one of the least PI form that teachers used. The results highlighted that teachers’ aims to involve parents are relevant to their thinking of beneficial outcomes for children, families, and teachers. Majority of teachers think that parental involvement is very high in their classrooms and they have significant role in that because they are very intent in informing parents, or organizing the activities. According to the teachers, some of the obstacles of parental involvement are; families education level, having multiple children in the family, fathers’ absence in classroom activities, parents unwillingness to do the homework, parents not participating in seminars, lack of space and crowded classrooms.

Keywords: Early childhood education, parental involvement, preschool teachers.

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