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.

La participación familiar en el centro educativo: Percepción de las familias y del profesorado

“…En lo referente a la percepción del profesorado sobre el nivel de participación de las familias en los centros educativos, cabe destacar que los hombres muestran una percepción mayor sobre el nivel de participación familiar en las escuelas. No se encuentran diferencias notables ni entre los diferentes grupos de edades, ni en función de la tipología de los centros, aspectos que resaltan, de manera contraria, Alemán et al (2023), quienes demuestran un mayor nivel de participación familiar en relación con aquel profesorado de mayor edad y con más experiencia, así como niveles superiores en los centros públicos, con respecto a los privados.…”