| Abstract |
The collaboration between school and family poses a particular interest in modern education. The study of modern bibliography points out the beneficial impact that such interaction can have on students performance at school.
The school and family environment are two important frameworks and their collaboration and dynamics should be indisputable. The prime aim of this collaboration is the child ΄development.
For this collaboration to flourish, important role plays the family ΄s environment and their attitude towards their child ΄s educational potential. And all this in a time of extreme and abrupt change in the institution of family, school and society in general. Also, the sociocultural background of both the teachers and the parents potentially can affect their relationship as regards the attitude of teaches towards parents and the parents involvement in the school life of their children. It΄ s matter of concern why parents don ΄t collaborate with the teacher in the same way. Some show involvement while others not, without really knowing the reasons behind this behavior.
Both theory and research have showed that such involvement and communication can prove to be a driving force in the development of a child as a whole and can have a positive impact not only in the school life of the child but also can have a positive impact on the students, the teachers, parents, schools and society. It is a challenge that we have to address in order to develop a family centred approach and form the bases for such collaboration to become fruitful for the child.
Different theories and models have been developed concerning the collaboration of school and family and all them have affected researchers. These theories and models take into account political issues and also practical ones and can function supplementary one to other.
The aim of this research is to look into from a sociological study, macrosociological, based on a structural functionalism, the relationship between family and school from a theoretical point of view and also from a practical one, questioning the perceptions and the attitude of parents towards this collaboration, raising potential educational inequalities in the classroom. The prospective aim being a more fruitful collaboration of the two parts.
This research aims to show that the communication between family and school should be an interactive one, based on mutual trust and respect, should be cohesive and concise and create good communicational bonds between the parts.
Taking into account the positive feedback that such collaboration can have in the modern classroom and also this relationship is not a stable one, because there are times that it is missing and other times that is coincidental because of various reasons some of which have to do with racial, linguistic and ethnic variations and these are a norm in the modern classroom. This is a qualitative research of descriptive character and aims to research the attitude and behavior of the family concerning the parental involvement in the modern classroom af the primary school.
Our prime aim is to see the importance that parents attribute to the collaboration between school and family. In the way, this research aims to contribute and enrich our knowledge on this area and to contribute to the everyday teaching practice towards a more substantial one.
The outcome of our research points out that i) the collaboration of teacher – family in the primary school is of average to high standard, ii)the parental involvement, in different ways, in the primary school is that of average to high standard, iii)generally most parents think that there are no substantial problems in their communication with the teacher of their child and they feel that the teacher understands them, iv)the problems that impede collaboration of parents and teachers are of an average level, v)families desire a few measures to be taken in order to improve their communication with school such as: more flexibility in the meeting hours, participation in “parent schools” that take time during afternoon hours, vi)parents value that collaboration of family and teachers in the primary school and vii) family characteristics such as: the sex of the parent, their educational background, their job status, their family status, their place of living, their nationality and number of children are co-related when it comes to working together with the school.
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Η συνεργασία της οικογένειας με τον εκπαιδευτικό σε δημοτικά σχολεία της Κρήτης
