Involvement and participation in pre-primary education governance : a perspective of Hong Kong parents

Abstract

Parental involvement in school governance has received increasing attention from educators in the last decade. The Hong Kong government has put considerable effort into the promotion of home–school cooperation in pre-primary education. However, parents’ participation, as response to institutional involvement strategies, remains limited in the governance of pre-primary institutions. This study aims to understand the challenges that parents encounter in their participation in school governance in pre-primary institutions.

The integrative framework of parent-involving governance was designed and tested to provide information on how those challenges evolve. In particular, this study examines how the five perspectives of the framework, namely local involvement strategy, social, space, capital, and individual, influence parental decisions on taking an active part in pre-primary education governance.

The study is informed by collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. In the qualitative phase, 12 parents were interviewed on their participation experiences and challenges. Next, 400 parents participated in the survey, which was developed based on the data collected from the qualitative phase. In the data analysis, the researcher summarized six parent roles in school governance: (i) nonparticipant, (ii) reactive participant, (iii) information-craver, (iv) policy-follower, (v) active participant in communication, and (vi) involvement and participation in pre-primary education governance extra manpower for school. These roles were investigated regarding the listed challenges, including limited access to information, the domination of school managers, parents' low self-efficacy, and practitioners' unfavorable attitudes. Finally, the analysis examined the most influential factors, including personal time arrangement, nature of involvement, and workload from participation, affecting parental decisions to participate in school governance.

The results from this study make two major contributions to the literature on parenta1 involvement in pre-primary education governance. First, the integrative framework of parent-involving governance was developed to investigate parental participation in school governance and covers the individual and contextual considerations. The framework can be used in future studies on parental involvement in pre-primary school governance and possibly at other levels of education. Second, the study explains why the extent of power distribution and the process of power devolvement can contribute to the creation of partnerships in pre-primary education governance. Finally, the implications of the findings are discussed at the levels of early childhood practitioners, pre-primary school managers, and government policymakers.