Child Rearing in the Home and School PDF
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CHILD REARING IN THE HOME AND SCHOOL CHILD REARING IN THE HOME AND SCHOOL Edited by Robert J. Griffore and Robert P. Boger Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC Ubrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Child rearing in the home and school. lncludes bibliographies and indexes. 1. Home and schooi-United States. 2. School children-United States-Family relationships. 3. Community and schooi-United States. 4. Child rearing-United States. 1. Griffore, Robert J. 11. Boger, Robert P. [DNLM: 1. Child Rearing. 2. Family. 3. Schools. WS 1 05.5.C3 C536) LC225.3.C47 1986 649'.1 86-22613 ISBN 978-1-4757-9678-0 ISBN 978-1-4757-9676-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-9676-6 © 1986 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1986 Softcover re print of the hardcover 1s t edition 1986 Ali rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher PREFACE This volume is intended to address contemporary aspects of child rearing in the home and the school, as well as major dimensions of inter face between the home and the school. The authors of these chapters have used varying styles and approaches, and the range of perspectives is very broad and inclusive. An essential notion integrating all chapters is that child rearing is a human ecological concern of dominant importance for the home, the school, and the community during the 1980's and that this will continue to be true in the future. This volume is intended to be useful as a reference book, as a text, for researchers and for policy-makers. It is hoped that the volume also will be of use to parents, teachers, school administrators, child-care workers and others who are interested in child nurturance. The editors wish to extend appreciation to many individuals who made this effort possible. Our colleagues, Hiram Fitzgerald and Marjorie Kostelnik, have been most helpful and encouraging. We thank them for their patience, support, and invaluable editorial assistance during the production of the camera-ready copy of the volume. We also thank Barbara Taylor for her assistance in typing the chapters, and Carrie DeMyers for typing the camera-ready copy. Carrie's good-nature and posi tive outlook helped to smooth over the many frustrations inherent in the assembly and production of anthologies such as this one. We believe that child rearing is one of the most important enter prises of our culture. Further, we believe that the home and the school are linked as a team in accomplishing the objectives of quality child rearing for our children. In the 1980's and beyond, social, economic, and technological change will continue to place new demands on families and schools. This volume can be of assistance to all those who are concerned with increasing the holistic network of effective support for child rearing in the home and in the school. Robert J. Griffore Robert P. Boger East Lansing, MI 1986 v CONTENTS Parent as Teacher: What Do We Know? ••••••• 3 R. P. Boger, R. A. Richter, and Beatrice Paolucci Family as Educator, Parent Education, and the Perennial Family Crisis • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 31 S. Schlossman Strengths of the Home and Family as Learning Environments 47 N. Bobbitt and Beatrice Paolucci Limits and Possibilities ofF amily and School as Educators 61 R. J. Griffore and M. Bubolz Home Environment and School Learning: Some Quantitative Models and Research Synthesis . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 105 H. J. Walberg Minority Family Agendas: The Home-School Interface and Alternative Schooling Models • • • • • • • . • • • • 121 L. Phenice, E. Martinez, and G. Grant Communication: Key to School-Home Relations 157 E. E. Gotts and R. F. Pumell Focus for Education Reform: Building the Home-School Synergism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 D. Rich Author Index 223 Subject Index 231 vii Child Rearing in the Home and School PARENT AS TEACHER: WHAT DO WE KNOW? Robert P. Boger(!), Richard A. Richter(2), and Beatrice Paolucci Institute for Family and Child Study and the Department of Family and Child Ecology Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 The concept of parents as teachers represents a large and rapidly expanding volume of literature. The proliferation of research studies, reanalyses, and evaluations require extensive organization and integra tion to discover what is said. The problem is not a lack of information, but rather the ability to use the information we have. In addition, as Leichter (1974) has noted, "The family is a different subject for inquiry because it is so much a part of everyone's experience that it becomes hard to avoid projecting one's own values, beliefs and attitudes onto the experience of others" (p. 215). All of this nothwithstanding, the considerable face validity engendered by the concept of parents as teachers has been supported by powerful empirical evidence (Bronfen brenner, 1974; Lazar, 1981) supporting the position that parent involve ment in the education of the child improves the effectiveness of that education. What follows is not a comprehensive state-of-the-art paper nor a comprehensive review of the parent as teacher literature. It is, however, an attempt to respond to the literature, particularly integra tive summaries, and further, to place these in a context that we interpret to be important to their synthesis. We hope by so doing to place them in proper introductory perspective to provide the foundation for what follows in other chapters of the volume. Parent education is not a new area of inquiry. Goodson and Hess in their 1975 review noted that childrearing advice was communicated to mothers through pamphlets as early as the eighteenth century (pp. 8-9). Groups comprised of middle-class mothers called "Maternal Associa tions" (Sunley, 1955) were organized before 1820 to meet and discuss childrearing problems. The middle-class orientation of early parent 3 4 R. P. BOGER, R. A. RICHTER AND B. PAOLUCCI education efforts is referred to in the 1928 Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, which noted that programs of this period were not remedial programs for disadvantaged families, but were "supported by parents giving thoughtful consideration to training" (p. 276). Brim (1959) reports that by 1920 there were over 75 major organizations conducting parent education programs. National private organizations, university-based research programs, teacher's colleges, public and private school systems, social agencies, child guidance agen cies, health agencies, and religious groups all were providing parent education at that time. Since the initiation of these earlier efforts to "educate" parents, the focus has shifted from the moral and religious development of children to an interest in emotional and personality development, physi cal health, mental health, and cognitive functioning. The inception of Head Start in the 1960's saw a shift toward programs designed to aid low-income families. The primary emphasis was placed on cognitive development and better early preparation that might lead to improved school achievement of the children as they progressed through the educational system. Many of the early Head Start programs sought not just to educate parents but to involve them in partnership roles with professionals toward bettering the potential development of their chil dren (Boger, Kuipers & Beery, 1969; Bronfenbrenner, 1974) and this seems to be very much related to the long term impact of those efforts (Bronf enbrenn er, 197 4) . The federally funded Head Start and Follow Through models were premised upon the assumption that the deficiencies of the home environ ment could be compensated for by expanding downward the role of the schools. Beginning in the 1970's, however, there has been increasing debate and questioning of the rrel influence of the school. Gage (1977) states that "a measure of the pupil's scholastic aptitude or prior achievement, obtained before the beginning of instruction, correlates much more highly than teacher behavior variables with measures of pupil achievement obtained at the end of the teaching period" (p. 76). He estimates this correlation to be as high as .7 to .9. But what accounts for these preinstructional variations? Bloom (1976) feels that a large amount of the variation in academic achievement can be attributed to the influence of the home. More recently Walberg (1984) has pointed to effective home/school partnerships as having major impact on academic function. What are the conditions in the home that account for these differences? When an attempt is made to look at education of children by parents, considerable similarity is prevalent in the use of concepts such as socialization, enculturation, development and education. The pervasive influence of parents on their children is described in muddled terminology across disciplines that inevitably involves questions of education even when the label "education" is not used (Leichter, 1974; PARENT AS TEACHER 5 Paolucci, 1977). Indeed, one of the issues that becomes apparent upon review, is the need for educators to consider parents as educators in the broad rather than the narrow meaning of that term. Literature dealing with the effects of parental behavior on children has been primarily on cognitive dimensions, particularly aspects of school achievement. This is understandable based upon renewed cries for educational reform (Nation al Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) and the continued emphasis placed on educational outcomes, with limited attention being given to the complex relationship of the family to the system of the school. As Leichter (1974) has pointed out "There is a certain vagueness about the process by which parental behaviors are linked to educational effects. The process is often implicit and assumed rather than explicit and observed" (p. 186). FAMILY FROM AN ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT PERSPECTIVE Ecological perspectives can be an aid in understanding the family's needs and resources. Such ecological models allow for more holistic approaches to the study of the family. This affords the opportunity to view the family, the environments which act upon the family, and the impacts that the family makes on the environment. Parents and children do not exist in isolation. What affects one family member also affects the family unit. The family and the environment interact and are interrelated in specific events. The answer to questions about an individual family member, the interaction of family members, or the collective action of the unit, is dependent upon the analyses of intrafa milial dynamics within a holistic family context. The relationships of education occurring in various societal settings and the relationship of these settings to each other is extensively examined and synthesized by Leichter (1978). Paolucci (1977) has also examined the contextual dynamics of the home as a learning center. These dynamics are outlined in more detail in Chapter 3. Through time and across cultures the family has been viewed as the first instructor and the home has been viewed as a primary setting for learning basic life tasks. The education of family members to assume productive and supportive roles within the family and in the larger society is a critical and, at s14ecific points in the life span, a unique output of household production. The pervasive influence of the family environment on its members, both young and old, has been widely documented (Aries, 1962; Baker and Paolucci, 1971; Carew, Chan and Halfar, 1976: Lamb, 1976; Rapaport &: Rapaport, 1971; White&: Watts, 1973; Lareau &: Benson, 1984; Walberg, 1984). Family members actively respond to the environmental demands of the family setting and their own physiological needs and in so doing learn and develop over time. They simultaneously modify the environment by their responses. In this way family members learn, grow and develop through the activities that occur on a day-to-day level. For the child, transactions with the most significant family adults and an ongoing expanding linkage of these
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