Building capacity for parent involvement through school-based preschool services

Abstract

This study investigated whether experience with school-based preschool services would build parents' capacity for school involvement. The research design compared parent involvement in kindergarten across school sites differing in the availability of preschool services, including sites with (1) multiple, integrated school-based preschool services, including seamless child care, family support programmes, and kindergarten (MS); (2) a single preschool family support programme; and (3) no preschool services. Parent surveys were employed with 206 parents of four-year-old and five-year-old children to investigate whether the site types differed in terms of several dimensions of parents' involvement: (1) feelings of efficacy in helping their children succeed in learning, (2) perceptions of their responsibilities in communicating with the teacher, and (3) perceptions of whether their children's school works with them. Parents in the MS sites reported feeling more efficacious, more welcomed by, and more responsibility to link with the school.