BC Educational Leadership Research. Issue 3.
March 16, 2006
Two
years ago the School Leadership Centre joined with representatives
from several of the major educational partner associations
in BC and with UBC researchers to engage the topic of parent
involvement. The Parent Involvement Research Committee (PIRC)
has since undertaken a number of activities to advance the
understanding and practices of parent involvement. Ann Henderson
and Karen Mapp (2004) have methodically collected a large
array of American research studies that conclusively argue
that parent involvement in schools makes a positive difference
for students. However, when Ms. Henderson presented in 2004
to an audience of parent leaders from the lower mainland,
sunshine coast, and the Island, it quickly became evident
that parent involvement in British Columbia was already functioning
at a level of sophistication that her research was just beginning
to suggest might be fruitful. From that time forward, it has
been clear that researching our own parent involvement practices
in BC is a necessity. Not only is there much that we can offer
to the global educational community, but if we don’t
understand and theorize the strengths and weaknesses of what
we do, then we are prone to give up valuable traditions that
have evolved here through generations for the latest policy
flavour of the month. Moreover, as many visitors I have met
here at UBC over the last few years have observed, the education
community here is like no other. The articles in this issue
of the BC Educational Leadership Research reflect our uniqueness:
from innovative leadership, to successful experiences, to
lack of minority parent inclusion, to political fractiousness.
Laurie Ford, Associate Professor in the
department of Educational Counseling Psychology and Special
Education (ECPS), and Debbie Amaral, a special
education teacher for 30 years and currently a doctoral candidate
in ECPS, provide a foundational review of the research literature
on parent involvement. They helpfully define what is meant
by parent involvement, what claims regarding parent involvement
are defensible, and in what areas parent involvement research
clearly needs more work.
Jean Chan and Jennifer King,
both district coordinators for the Langley School District,
introduce the decade long, systematic efforts of the Langley
School District to advance Parent involvement. Langley has
done a remarkable job of turning prevailing theories of parent
involvement into effective practices. I would urge you to
use the link in their article to the Langley Parent Involvement
Handbook which makes available to all of us the fruits of
this decade long initiative in helpful detail.
Pauline Sameshima, Nancy von Euw, and Monika Bonney
present us with an excellent example of collaborative research,
as the three of them reflect on the initiatives Pauline implemented
as a classroom teacher that enabled Nancy and Monika’s
successful parental involvement in their children’s
learning.
Yvonne Martin-Newcombe, Associate Dean of
Education, at the University of Victoria and Michael Prince,
Landsdowne Professor of Social Policy in the Faculty of Human
and Social Development at the University of Victoria, provide
a snapshot of BC Parent Advisory Council (PAC) composition.
Their data indicates that the social composition of those
actively involved in PACs and parent governance, is not representative
of the social demographic of the schools they serve. If the
intent of recent legislation, district, and school initiatives
has been to include all parents, the apparent failure to achieve
this intent should activate further inquiry and action into
the ways and means of how this can be done.
Anita Parhar, researcher with the School
Leadership Centre and doctoral candidate in Educational Studies,
takes a critical look at the way parent involvement, as it
has been conceptualized, excludes minority parent participation
in schools from the outset. She argues that the invitation
for minority parents to be involved in schools is an invitation
to a fixed game where the rules and outcomes are already pre-set.
What is needed instead is an invitation to participate in
the defining of the game, a process she calls democratic,
educational practice. Her article helpfully reveals assumptions
about “parent involvement” that limit attainment
of dynamic and sustaining minority parent participation.
John Moss, Executive Director for the Charter
for Public Education Network (CPEN), and for the Public Education
Research Foundation, is newly appointed Research Director
for the School Leadership Centre at UBC. His doctoral dissertation
explores the conceptual underpinnings of parent advocacy in
public schools, it considers the governance models that influence
parent involvement across Canada, and it analyzes the case
of the BCCPAC Parent Advocacy Project as one model of parent
advocacy. We have included an abstract of his dissertation
here with a link to the complete dissertation. For those of
you perhaps daunted by the time it could take to wade through
a dissertation, go directly to the table of contents, scan
these for areas of interest, and read the 4 page conclusion.
This will take 10 minutes.
Kadriye Ercikan, Associate Professor in
the department of Education Counseling Psychology and Special
Education at UBC, researches in the area of educational assessment.
In the last decade parent choice of educational programs has
increasingly been front and centre in legislation and public
debate. The Fraser Institute has offered its annual rankings
as helping parents make informed choices about schools. Dr.
Ercikan’s webcast challenges the assessment assumptions
that underlie the Fraser Institute’s annual rankings.
She argues that these rankings cannot be used to measure the
quality of education that occurs for students in their classrooms.
Charles Menzies, executive member of the
Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council and Associate Professor
of Anthropology at UBC, in his polemical reflection pointedly
reminds us that the highly politicized reality of education
in British Columbia forces parents to be political too. Dr.
Menzies espouses a particular view of the Teachers’
strike which highlights the importance of parent political
action for the ongoing success and improvement of public education.
Widely varied in content, research paradigms, media, and
perspectives, this issue of BC Educational Leadership Research
carries the journal another step towards its goal of providing
a dialogic and open space for the engagement of ideas of importance
to educational leaders in BC. As happens in dialogue, and
as we would expect from an academic journal, all of the ideas
in this journal may not be commensurable with one’s
own perspectives. However, it is our hope that, as also happens
in dialogue, assumptions will be challenged, new knowledge
gained, and new perspectives viewed. As ever, we invite your
feedback.
Our next issue, focused on educational leadership development
in BC, includes contributions from university and district
development programs from across the province. Corine Clark
is guest editor for this issue. Watch for it to be out in
April.
Regards,
Mark Edwards, Editor
Anita Parhar, Guest Editor
Upcoming Issues of BCELR
April
Educational Leadership Development in BC
Articles from 15 school districts and three universities
present different approaches to educational leadership development
in BC. Watch for this journal to be released mid-April.
June
Action Research.
Data driven decision making has become an expectation for
all actions in schools. This journal will consider the sorts
of action research that educational leaders are involved in,
the strengths of these approaches, and what further is needed.
Submission Deadline: May 23, 2006.
Submissions
Submissions are invited from all educational leaders across
BC: teachers, students, parents, district staff, researchers,
government officers, principals and vice principals, union
representatives, superintendents. Submissions will be reviewed
by the editorial staff of BCELR. Note that copyright of every
article published through BCELR remains with the author.
Submit your document as a word document, with contact
information (e-mail and phone number) and a short biography.
School Leadership Centre at UBC
Scarfe 308 B
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4
tel 604.827.5350 | fax 604-822-8234 | e-mail [slc.edu@ubc.ca]
Two
years ago the School Leadership Centre joined with representatives
from several of the major educational partner associations
in BC and with UBC researchers to engage the topic of parent
involvement. The Parent Involvement Research Committee (PIRC)
has since undertaken a number of activities to advance the
understanding and practices of parent involvement. Ann Henderson
and Karen Mapp (2004) have methodically collected a large
array of American research studies that conclusively argue
that parent involvement in schools makes a positive difference
for students. However, when Ms. Henderson presented in 2004
to an audience of parent leaders from the lower mainland,
sunshine coast, and the Island, it quickly became evident
that parent involvement in British Columbia was already functioning
at a level of sophistication that her research was just beginning
to suggest might be fruitful. From that time forward, it has
been clear that researching our own parent involvement practices
in BC is a necessity. Not only is there much that we can offer
to the global educational community, but if we don’t
understand and theorize the strengths and weaknesses of what
we do, then we are prone to give up valuable traditions that
have evolved here through generations for the latest policy
flavour of the month. Moreover, as many visitors I have met
here at UBC over the last few years have observed, the education
community here is like no other. The articles in this issue
of the BC Educational Leadership Research reflect our uniqueness:
from innovative leadership, to successful experiences, to
lack of minority parent inclusion, to political fractiousness.