How Home-School Relations Policies Can Increase Educational Inequality: A Three-year Follow-up

Abstract

This paper reports research which investigated the possibility that the normal operation of home-school relations policies may increase educational inequality. In most schools, the site for home-school relations work is the school. Parents are invited to attend the school for various purposes (e.g. information evenings) for guidance as to how to assist their child's learning or to assist in classrooms. The parents who respond to these invitations are likely to be those who are more confident in dealing with the school and who offer more support to their children's learning at home. As a result of their visits, they may gain information and skills which benefit their own children's schooling through the help which they give at home. There is the possibility that there may be teacher expectation effects advantageous to the children of the high-contact parents. The research investigated these possibilities by examining the operation of home-reading programs in the preparatory (Prep) level classrooms of five disadvantaged primary schools in Melbourne in 1984. Parents were interviewed and teachers made systematic assessments of the children's reading competence and ratings of the supportiveness of the home environment for school learning of each child. Initial analysis of the data suggested that the above possibilities may be true. The level of contact of the parents with the school was predictive of the children's reading competences, after taking into account the support given by the families for the children's reading development. The three-year follow-up showed that advantages in reading achievement remained for the children of the high contact parents, controlling for their Prep level competences and home background support for school achievement.