The Purpose of Parents: School Personnel Perceptions of the Role of Parents in Secondary Schools

ABSTRACT

The argument for the importance of a parent's engagement with their child's learning over parental involvement with their child's school has been shown to be valuable in research literature. This study, conducted in England prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic, therefore aimed to understand how school leaders and their staff understand parental engagement, parental involvement, and the role they believe parents should play in the education of their children. Whilst not expecting schools to know and utilize the language used in research literature, the findings suggest a lack of delineation between practices attributed to parental engagement and involvement by Goodall and Montgomery (2014). It also appears that in some schools, a focus remains on encouraging parents to support school policy, rather than empowering parents to support the shaping of school policy and supporting them to engage with their child's education at home. An argument can therefore be made for increasing the availability of research literature in schools and the importance of educating school staff about the value of parents and the role they can play inside and outside formal education.