Abstract:

As stated by Joyce L. Epstein (2011: 4) school and family partnerships framework is “a better approach” to the involvement of all subjects of the pedagogical process, i.e. pupils, parents and teachers than its two extreme options, i.e. “waiting for involvement or dictating it.” The fact that school-family partnerships play a crucial role in children’s wellbeing is well documented. Despite the unquestionable fact, though, there is a field of study centered around the dichotomy between the beliefs about the importance of building parent-teacher collaboration declared by teacher educators and novice teachers’ unwillingness to collaborate with parents. In the paper the author refers to her previous study devoted to Preservice teachers’ attitudes related to family involvement in light of their school placement experience (2017). In the small scale (pilot) study it was proved that direct contact with parents during school placements of Type 2 – Communication of Epstein’s six types of parental involvement, correlates with ex-trainee teachers’ high opinions about the importance of parental involvement in supervising learning activities at home (i.e. Type 4 of Epstein’s six types of parental involvement). The current paper further elaborates on the topic and presents results of a study conducted on a larger group of preservice elementary teachers of English and Polish with an attempt to ascertain that above findings. It appears that direct contact with parents during school placements of Type 2 – Communication and Type 3 – Volunteering correlates with trainees’ high opinions about four types of parental involvements, i.e. Type 2 – Communicating, Type 6 – Collaborating with the Community, Type 7 – Parents observing lessons, and Type 8 – Home visits by teachers.

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