Society of Social and Economic Research in the Universities of Turku
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to find out Turkish early childhood educators’ views about parental involvement and their attitudes towards its types. Based on Epstein’s parental involvement frameworks, four different types of parental involvement was used in this study and these are communication, volunteer works, home support and decision making. Furthermore this reseach also aims to find the reasons behind inefficient usage of parental involvement types. For these purposes the relationship between parental involvement and the backgrounds of educators such as education level and teaching experience in the field is also investigated. Data was collected in capital of Turkey with questionnaires prepared by the reseacher. 113 early childhood educators participated in the study. Quantitative analysis were done to find the associations between parental involvement and the backgrounds of educators such as education level and teaching experience in the field. Results indicate that the Turkish early childhood educators have positive attitudes towards parental involvement and its types. Additionally the most popular parental involvement type is home support while the least popular one is involving parents in decision-making process. According to the results, Turkish early childhood educators’ views about parental involvement and the parental involvement types they use do not correlate with the years they spend in the teaching fields and their education level. However the usage of parental involvement types correlates with themselves. Finally the main reason of unefficient usage of parental involvement is that parents seem not willing to participate in parental involvement activities in Turkey. For further studies, parents’ views about parental involvement would be enlightening. </p
