Teacher Perception About the Families’ Participation at School – Factors Predicting Participation

Abstract

This study aims to analyze teachers’ perception about families’ participation at school. Also, it is intended to know what factors are those that predict this type of participation. For that purpose, it was selected a sample composed of 347 teachers from the Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary Education stages belonging to both public and private schools in Gran Canaria (Spain) with an average of 19.8 years of professional experience. It was used a 28 like Likert items with values between 1-6 with a total ordinal alpha of the scale of 0.95. Four factors were measured on this scale: opening school to the community, school’s social prestige, closeness and personal treat towards families and students and families’ participation in the school decision-making. As a result, significant differences were found among these factors depending on the teaching staff’s age, the years of teaching experience, the type of school and the educational stage. Significant differences were also found depending on whether the teaching staff had held management positions as well as in relation to the degree of teachers’ participation at schools. On the other hand, it was carried out a hierarchical multiple regression analysis that explains the variables that predict families’ educational participation at schools. These predictive variables are the following ones: the age of the teaching staff, if this latter promotes cultural activities, being a member of the management team, a greater degree of teacher’s participation at school, whether parents’ association organizes activities at school and whether the teaching staff has got a good perception about the level of families’ participation at schools.