This qualitative study aims to explore the core leadership practices of school principals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Given the exploratory nature of this study, a qualitative research design m...

Core leadership practices of school principals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

AFRICAN-CENTERED EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS: THE DECISIONMAKING PROCESS IN A PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT MODEL by LATRICE N. HICKS May 2012 Advisor: Dr. David Whitin Major: Curriculum and Instruction Degree: Doctor of Education The ways in which key stakeholders influencing decision-making processes in African-centered schools in urban areas are qualitatively different from that of parental involvement in mainstream schools; these perceived differences influence decision-making in various ways. The purpose of this research is to investigate ways in which parents, teachers and administrators of African American middle-school student’s talk about the decision-making aspect of parental engagement in Africancentered school settings. Parental involvement significantly impacts student achievement. Therefore, identifying beliefs about parental roles at the school and home level provides some insight into ways in which parents are a part of the decision-making process in curriculum and instruction. Increasing parents’ ability to negotiate the education of their children is the goal of this research. An ethnographic research approach was utilized in this study. This pragmatic approach was chosen because of the interest in understanding the effect of the actual role of parents and

African-Centered Education in Middle Schools: The Decision-Making Process in a Parental Engagement Model.

The purpose of this study was to identify teachers' perceptions of the costs and benefits of participating in a school-based decision-making process. These costs to teachers are increased time demands, loss of autonomy, risk of collegial disfavor, subversion of collective bargaining, and threats to career advancement. The benefits include: feeling of self-efficacy, workplace democracy, and ownership. The study also determined the relationship between selected variables that were developed through a review of the literature, and teacher members' perceptions of the costs and benefits of participating on a decision-making council. Approximately 400 teacher members of SBDM councils Jefferson County Public Schools were surveyed via Survey Monkey website. The response rate was approximately 40%. The results indicated that one of the main factors that affect teachers' perception of SBDM is the principal's leadership style.

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Teachers' perceptions of the costs and benefits of sitting on a school-based decision-making committee.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) emphasizes the expectation that parents be actively involved in developing and monitoring the educational decisions that impact their children with disabilities. Research has long established that a positive relationship exists between parent involvement and student achievement. Yet at the same time that Black students in special education programming often experience markedly worse academic and social outcomes than their dominant culture peers, research evidence demonstrates that Black parents display lower participation rates when compared with White parents. Unfortunately, research regarding low parent involvement in special education decision­ making tends to focus on Black parents from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, using low SES as a proxy for minority status. This trend perpetuates the deficit perspectives with which Black parents are characterized, and silences the voices of Black parents from middleto highSES backgrounds who are involved in the special education process. Ultimately, educational decisions made on behalf of students of color are manifested within an array of negative academic and social expectations and outcomes that include disproportionality in identification for special education. This study, which was situated in a critical humanism paradigm, examined the sociocultural contexts, processes and experiences that shape middle-class Black parents’ perceptions of and attitudes toward their involvement in special education decision-making. Critical race theory (CRT) tenets that establish the permanence of racism, Whiteness as property, interest convergence, and a critique of liberalism created the research lens through which the indepth interviews of four parents, plus three local educational agency representatives (LEAs) and three practitioners from the schools in which the parents’ children were enrolled, were analyzed. The study’s results centered around three primary findings, the first of which identifies power differentials in which professionals possess markedly more decision-making power than parents, shaping interactions between parents and professionals throughout the special education process. Second, school district-based structural issues were noted that compromised the parents’ ability to ensure provisions of a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and the least restrictive environment (LRE) for their children with disabilities. Finally, study results showed that the parents’ view of themselves and the professionals with whom they interacted shaped parent-professional partnerships in pervasive ways. The results of this study illustrate that in order to truly understand the extent to which Black parents are engaged in the special education decision-making process, one must acknowledge that parents and education professionals approach the decision-making arena within multiple and often conflicting dimensions of their own socially imposed identities, conflated with compromised assumptions about power differentials that are rooted in perceived racial and professional identities of self and others.

A critical study of Black parents' participation in special education decision-making

Parent Perceptions Of Actual and Ideal Levels of Involvement In Decision Making in T en n essee Elementary Schools

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Parent Perceptions of Actual and Ideal Levels of Involvement in Decision-making in Tennessee Elementary Schools

Being a cross-national analysis, the aim of this study, which draws on data from school principals, is to evaluate parents’ involvement in decision-making processes comparatively in Turkey, Germany and France, which are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and were included in the study in terms of some variables, such as data in Human Development Index (HDI) report 2016 and results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 reading skills, math and science literacy results’ based on demographic, socio-economic, socio-cultural variables as well as achievements in education, population trends and parents’ involvement in education. Phenomonology research design from qualitative research methods was used in this study. Data analyses relied on content analysis technique. School administrators from Turkey, Germany and France were included through criteria sampling method from purposeful sampling methods. Interview technique was employed in order to collect data through a semi-structured interview form. The findings of the study highlighted that all participants agree on the positive impact of parents’ involvement in decision-making but there are some ambiguity how and what level parents must involve in decision-making processes. Some recommendations are made on how to improve involvement in decision-making process.

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Murat Gürkan Gülcan

Papers

A Cross-National Analysis of Parent Involvement in Decision-Making: Germany, France and Turkey.