Parent Involvement in the Lady Gowrie Child Centre, Adelaide, 1981: An Exploratory Study Into Why Parents Become Involved to Differing Degrees in Their Children's Early Childhood Centre Part of an exploratory project inquiring into causes and consequences of parent participation, a study was undertaken to identify possible reasons for differences in the extent parents become involved in their children's preschool. The study was conducted at the Lady Gowrie Child Centre in Adelaide, Australia, a center promoting optimum physical and mental health among preschool children from low income, multicultural areas and needing parent participation to maintain its programs. Administered across three terms to three different samples, a total of four questionnaires were employed to ascertain the extent to which parents were involved at the center and to obtain measures of factors thought to be related to involvement. These factors were parents' (1) attitudes toward child development; (2) attitudes toward parent involvment in education; (3) personality; and (4) background, experience, and apparent availability of time. Results indicated that parents were involved in 2 to 36 different ways and varied widely in the amount of time they participated. Of several factors thought to bear on the degree of parental involvement, only two were statistically significant: mothers previously involved spent more time involved, and mothers in paid employment spent less time involved. It was concluded that the question of why parents become involved to differing degrees remains unanswered. (Appended are questionnaires used and additional findings not reported in the text.) (RH) |
