A Case Study on Parent Involvement in a Junior High School

[[abstract]]Educational reform in Taiwan has been emphasizing the importance of parent involvement in the past decades. Through the formulation of Educational Fundamental Law and Citizen Education Law, the rights of school choice and parent involvement have been established firmly. Parent involvement has been a crucial issue of educational reform in Taiwan, while we can see it clearly from the recent establishment of National Alliance of Parents Organization, Parents School, and other parent organizations, which all highlight the rights of parental involvement on advancing the students’ learning. However, so called “parent involvement” in educational reform represents parents can participate, involve or intervene in schooling? Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the local practice and the meaning of parent involvement in Taiwan. To fulfill the above-mentioned purposes, in-depth interview, participant observation, and documents are employed to collect empirical data in this qualitative case study. The major findings are as follows: (1) parent involvement starts from choosing a school for their children; (2) parents participate schooling through joining various connections of social networks and parent organizations, and moreover, parents would not only participate the issues related to students’ studies but also school daily life issues; (3) time and distance are the key factors to influence how parents participate in a school; (4) parent involvement brings teachers more pressure; (5) due to the differences of power distribution and educational beliefs parents own, “parent involvement” may represent “ participation”, “involvement”, or “intervention”.