Parental Involvement in Middle School: The Parent\u27s Perspective

Over the years, parental involvement has been studied from the perspectives of administrators and teachers. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to expound upon parental involvement from the parent’s perspective. The researcher’s goal is to understand the reasons why parents choose to get involved and the strategies they consider beneficial and a hindrance in facilitating their involvement. Parental involvement declines as students move through the K-12 system (Benner, Boyle & Sadler, 2016). As students move to middle school, the educational structure changes. Students go from having one teacher to multiple teachers, which presents a challenge to parents, as they are in the habit of building a relationship with just one teacher (Ducreux, 2012) The researcher collected qualitative data in the forms of a survey, focus groups and individual interviews to find thematic connections in participants’ lived experiences. Overriding themes that emerged from the data collection were (a) diversity, (b) resources, and (c) communication. Parents identified school climate as a factor the positively affected their involvement. Parents perceived lack of cultural diversity, the lack of resources and the lack of timely communications as barriers when attempting to be involved in their students’ education. The information gathered from this study addressed opportunities for school to overcome these barriers. The setting of this research is two middle schools located in the piedmont region of North Carolina