Facilitating parental involvement: From rhetoric to reality [PowerPoint presentation]

Abstract

This paper reports on parents' empowerment, using the concept of appreciative inquiry, that is, the process of transforming and strengthening a system to heighten positive potential of parents (Cooperrider, 1990). It draws on Bronfenbrenner (1979) model of ecological human development, which advances that human beings do not develop in isolation but are influenced by their interactions with their family, home, school, and communities. The paper examines how different ecological systems work together to stimulate parents' social and intellectual capital. Parents, teachers, and principals of two primary schools-one situated in a rural district and the other in a town-participated in this study. The paper examines parents' empowerment in the two very different contexts. It further examines how parents are able to negotiate available systems to become empowered to assist their children in improving their performance. A mixture of focus group sessions, discussions, theatre arts, and audio visual aids was used to encourage both parents and teachers to participate and come up with solutions that would enable them to identify and navigate the systems in their environment to the benefit of their children and charges. Preliminary results suggest that the systems within which the parents operate impact on their involvement