Parenting and Parental Involvement in Secondary School: Focus Groups with Adolescents’ Parents

Abstract

Parental role in the adolescents' development is widely described as challenging, particularly regarding their involvement in school education. With the aim of examining parents' perceptions about parenting role, parental involvement and family-school partnership in the secondary school, two focus groups were conducted with parents in two public schools. Results, overall, indicate that the establishment of rules, monitoring and support were very challenging and important to the adolescents' development. Parental involvement change throughout school and several reasons were pointed out to the changes observed in secondary school: the demands of the level of education, the lack of time, adolescents' autonomy, , and teachers' communication style. Regarding family-school relations, the parents shared different experiences about the way the partnership was promoted and developed. Keywords Responsabilidad Parental e Envolvimiento Parental en la Educación Secundaria: Grupos Focales con Padres de AdolescentesResumen: El papel de los padres en el desarrollo de los adolescentes es ampliamente descrito como desafiante, especialmente su participación en la educación escolar. Con objeto de analizar la percepción de los padres sobre la responsabilidad parental, el envolvimiento de los padres y la colaboración familia-escuela en la educación secundaria, se realizaron dos grupos focales en dos escuelas publicas. Los resultados globalmente indican que el establecimiento de normas, la supervisión y el apoyo son funciones parentales desafiantes e importantes en el desarrollo de los adolescentes. El involucramiento parental se altera durante la escolarización y varias razones fueron apuntadas para los cambios en la educación secundaria: las exigencias de este nivel de educación, la falta de tiempo, la autonomía de los adolescentes y el estilo de comunicación de los profesores. Respecto a las relaciones familia-escuela, los padres compartieron diferentes experiencias en la promoción y desarrollo de esta alianza. Parenting has been one of the main focuses of empirical research in developmental and educational fields and much theorising has been advanced about parents' personal and social factors that better foster children's growth and development. Particularly in adolescence there are several developmental and contextual transformations as well as chal-

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