Investigation On The Status Of Rural Parent Involvement In Education

Parents as children’s first teachers,its educational role is self-evident.The social development in the new period constantly emphasizes that the combination of family education and school education is to encourage parents to actively participate in the education of their children and form a joint force of education between family and school.In recent years,the marginal area of education in rural areas has gradually received attention.Rural education needs to be optimized and developed,so as to reduce the educational gap between urban and rural areas,and parent involvement in education may be a feasible way of improvement.Therefore,this study attempts to explore the issue of rural parent involvement in education,analyze the differences and influencing factors,and after rational thinking,put forward feasible and effective suggestions for improvement.This study is based on a questionnaire survey of parents in some natural village areas in X County,Xiaogan,Hubei Province,supplemented by formal and informal interviews.The questionnaire mainly refers to Epstein’s theory of overlapping spheres of influence and Coleman’s social capital theory,and compile it by combining relevant literatures.The study found that in the overall comparison of rural parent involvement in education,there were significant differences in “parent-child companionship”,“learning at home”,“being a good parent”,and “participating in activities”.Further analysis of influencing factors found that parent-child relationship,parental status,parental education,child achievement,and child grade were the key influencing factors of the five dimensions of parent involvement in education.Data analysis and field interviews can reveal related reasons such as families,schools,and rural society.In order to further analyze and explain,this study combines the correlation theory to analyze from three aspects: family sphere of influence,school sphere of influence and rural sphere of influence.The main causes in family sphere of influence are the single-line parenting structure and the weakened parent-child relationship;the main causes in school sphere of influence are the heterogeneity of the home-school culture and the "island" characteristics of the school;the main causes in rural sphere of influence are cultural change of “depending on soil” and transfer of cultural institutions.The three areas of influence overlap,showing different parental education participation status.Rural society has its own unique social culture and mechanism.Improving the status of rural parent involvement in education needs to start from the native soil itself.Therefore,based on relevant theories and survey analysis,we can proceed from three aspects: the first is to encourage parents to effectively participate in their children’s education,regain their educational role,and maintain parent-child relationships;the second is to build schools with rural characteristics,train "acquaintance" teachers,and organize campus activities with local characteristics;the third is to build a "third space" to break the binary oppositions of urban and rural culture,form a joint force of education between the family and school,which will jointly promote rural parents involvement in education.