Effect of Demographic Changes on Family/Community Involvement

1. Effect of Demographic Changes on Family/CommunityInvolvement

2. Learning Outcomes • Students are able to: • Explain the contribution of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model in demographic changes • Evaluate the effect of changes in family structure and family process on school-family collaboration • Discuss the effect of family/community transformation on the collaboration • Discuss the changing roles of administrators and educators in promoting family/community participation

3. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model • Relationships among children, parents, and schools are independent: No one is an island • The parent who is stressed also has children who are also stressed • Teachers, administrators, counselors, and other professionals in schools must be able to observe, record, and evaluate child behavior that reflects stress or development concerns or both • Classrooms are becoming more diverse in terms of ethnicity, developmental ranges, and socioeconomic levels require educators/professionals to be prepared and trained to deal with the complexity of the classroom • The model (next template) indicates how the interaction between and among schools, families, and community with all parties responsible for the success of the interaction

4. Microsystem (Home, child, mother, father) Mesosystem (child-care center, School, peer system) Exosystem (Parents’ work places, social networks, local government) Macrosystem (Historical events, broader culture)

5. The microsystem The nuclear family with each person influenced and being influenced by the other • Mesosystem Child-care setting, the school, the church, home of an extended family member • Exosystem School boards, government agencies, the workplace, other community agencies and institutions • Macrosystem Includes the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem which exist in a larger culture

6. The Effects of Family and Community Changes on Quality of Collaboration Among Schools, Families, and Community • Family structures Extended family, grandparents, and ‘new’ family forms • Maternal employment Its effects on dynamics of family system • Patterns of family formation The existence of neolocal and quasi co-residence • Family dissolution Blended families, involvement of extended families in young-parent families, … These families are becoming more vulnerable • More children seem tired, preoccupied, and less prepared for the everyday demands of the classroom • All these phenomena make parenting and teaching so complex today!

7. In contrast, case studies show that children who: grow up in violence-infested neighborhoods are exposed at early ages to drug experience the emotional turmoil of because of divorce, remarriage, and mobility in fact develop into productive and hopeful young adults • The resilience of children and families are impressive • Teachers who view families from the resilience perspective are most likely to succeed in their interactions with children and parents • “Until schools acknowledge the range in dispositions, backgrounds, experiences, and strengths among families, efforts to establish sound home/school communication and partnerships will falter” (Edwards & Young, 1992, p.86)

8. Key Implications • Strategies and initiatives used in school-family interactions 10 to 15 years ago are not effective with today’s complex family makeup and lifestyles • Addressing family diversity is the key to building constructive home-school relations • An understanding of diversity among families allows schools to change, so that they can be familiar to variety of families represented in contemporary school settings • Administrators and teachers need to recognize the change that is happening to the child – family dissolution Schools can offer the child a stable and sensitive environment – avoid stereotyping ‘terms like broken home’ • Appoint blended/single parent families to serve on advisory councils • Treat grandparents as you would treat other parents • Reach out – to involve single and working parents • Keep positive expectations for the children

9. Characteristics of Functional Families(Ben Schlesinger, 1998) • Communicates and listen • Affirms and supports one another • Develop sense of trusts • Teaches respect for others • Has a sense of shared responsibility • Teaches a sense of right and wrong • Has a balance of interaction among members • Has a shared religious core • Respects the privacy of one another • Shares leisure time • Admits to and seeks help with problems

10. Characteristics of Dysfunctional Families • Distrust • Low self-esteem • Inability to have fun • Shame

11. Transformation of Families • Parents are the most obvious stakeholder in children’s education • When parents are involved in children’s lives and help them with their homework, the effects of poverty and lack of formal education is reduced (Epstein, 1991; Henderson & Berla, 1994; Liontos, 1992; Zellman & Waterman, 1998) • Father’s involvement significantly increases overall achievement • Parents’ participation in educational partnership has declined

12. Familial Structures Educators can effectively meet children’s needs by having knowledge about their families • Intact (traditional family) It includes husband, wife, and their biological and/or adopted children • Single-parent families (The most stereotyped) Single unmarried mothers and single divorced mothers Unmarried mothers: Two categories: Teenagers and women twenty and over Twenty and over constitute for 54% of births to unmarried mothers (Usdansky, 1996) Unmarried teenagers give birth to approximately 13% of children born in U.S.A.

13. Teenager mothers tend to live in poverty, unemployed, and with low-level employment skills The social phenomenon of skip generation parenting: Grandmothers who rear the children of these young mothers (as young as 15 years old) Teachers have to work with children’s grandparents or both Scenario in the classroom: Teachers dealing with unmarried mothers who are mature, well-educated and financially secure or young mothers who are unable to attend school functions Divorce Single Mothers Complications: Coping time, finances, and stigmatization

14. Blended families Marriage of divorced and unmarried (used to be death of a spouse) mothers is the most common reason for such family Myths about blended families: • Family roles in blended families are similar to those of intact families • Members instantly love one another • Blended families function like traditional families • Life is just a family sitcom

15. The role of fathers • The role of fathers in forming partnerships with school is often overlooked • More and more fathers are actively involved in parenting (example the Art Mom case) Educators need to recognize that fathering is qualitatively different from mothering • Different roles played by divorced fathers – They want to continue to be involved in their children’s education • More fathers are rewarded child custody

16. Characteristics of men as parents: • Fathers and mothers are different • Fathers are essential and not easily replaceable by other male role models (Blankenhorn, 1995) • Standards for fatherhood must be revised to reflect a higher common ground (Jackson, 1994) • Fathers and mothers often contribute different human, financial, and social capital resources : The existence of co-parental relationship in terms of social capital • Differences between mothers and fathers should be reframed from deficits to strengths (Doherty, 1991)

17. Research indicates that: • Lower and blue-collar fathers tend to be more involved in daily child care when their wives are at work than fathers who are economically or those in managerial and professional jobs (Gadsden & Ray, 2002; Simons, Whitbeck, Conger & Melby, 1990) • A father’s willingness to engage as an equal partner in family life, child care, and child socialization influences the extent of involvement

18. Gay and lesbian-headed families They fear discrimination and the possibility of custody battle (unfit to be parents in some states) They become parents by artificial insemination and adoption How will educators’ attitude affect their perception towards children of gay and lesbian parents?

19. Maternal Employment/Quality of Child Care • The social context within which the family exists has evolved from agrarian and rural to industrial and urban and now to society based on information and technology • 1950: Less than 30% of married mothers with school-age children were in the workforce • 1970: Almost 50% of married mothers were working • Today: About 75% of married women with school-age children are in the labor force (U.S.A.)

20. 65% of mothers with children under age 6 and 79% of mothers with children ages 6 – 13 are in the labor force (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001) • Schools must b able to recognize child and family needs related to maternal employment • 80% - 90% of child-care settings are unlicensed (Ryan, 1992) • The challenge of providing quality, safe and developmentally appropriate child care remains one of the greatest issues for America’s early childhood teachers and administrators (and also in other parts of the world)

21. Divorced and Blended Families • The percentage of children in single-parent families climbed from just under 10% in 1965 to 22% in 1989 (Coleman) and 50% today • The new cultural attitudes: • Americans have changed their minds: About staying together for the sake of children The necessity of putting children’s needs before their own Marriage as a lifelong commitment What it means to be unmarried and pregnant • Emotional repercussions can be expected for young children through adolescence and even adulthood

22. What Teachers Need To Know • Issues facing students who are members of stepfamilies: • Embarrassment over divorce and remarriage • Social stigma over ‘step’ status • Unresolved mourning of the loss of previous family member • Feelings of confusion over “Where do I belong to?”

23. Latchkey Kids • The nuclear family is a dying institution, much the same as extended family • The twin deficit that afflicting children today are the resource and time deficits • The factor in time deficit: Parents in two-earner family simply spend less time with their children • The average working parent spends about 30 minutes in conversation with his/her children per week

24. The amount of ‘total contact time’ (time parents spend with their children while doing other things) has dropped 40% during the last quarter century • A generation of ‘latchkey’ kids emerged • Study by Steven Nock (UVA) shows that employed mothers of preschool children on average spend less than half as much time with children as full-time mothers at home

25. Research Findings • Fathers’ and mothers’ involvement in their children’s school by family type and resident status It was found t that students who live apart from one or both of their biological parents tend to do less well in school than students who live with both their biological parents (Zill 1996; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; Lee 1993) The involvement of stepparents is generally lower than that of biological parents. Biological mothers in stepfather families are less likely to be highly involved in their children's schools than biological mothers in two-biological-parent families.

26. Biological fathers in stepmother families, on the other hand, are more likely to be highly involved in their children's schools than biological fathers in two-biological-parent families. Students living in father-only families are the most likely of all students to have highly involved father’s involvement in school is associated with a higher likelihood of students getting mostly A's. This is true for fathers in two-biological parent families

27. The number of households headed by single fathers increased by almost 62% in the past decade, new data show (USA TODAY, May 21, 2001) • Non-Custodial Parents' Participation in Their Children's Lives: Evidence from the Survey of Income and Program Participation Studies have shown that the amount of contact non-residential fathers have with their children diminishes over time Most of the non-residential fathers did not maintain regular contact during the child's entire childhood (Furstenberg and Harris, 1993). • Even when contact is regular, the role that non-residential fathers play in their children's lives is often quite limited • The proportion of joint custody arrangements in which both mother and father retain legal control over their children is growing.

28. Developments and Transformationsrelated to the Family • Increasing number of single adults • Delayed childbearing • Smaller completed family sizes • Preference for neolocal residence • Multinational families • Cohabitation • Increase in divorce rate • Greater number of single parent families • Assisted reproduction

29. Changes in Patterns of Family Formation • Teenage marriage is becoming less and less common (especially the Chinese) • The total fertility rate of the Chinese in West Malaysia has fallen from 4.6births/woman in 1970 – 2.3 in 1990 • Residential patterns after marriage are changing from patrilocal (sharing a house with parents from the husband’s side) or matrilocal (wife’s side) to neolocal (live on their own) • Existence of quasi-coresidence (live apart from parents but do visiting during weekends) • The phenomenon of globalization leads to ‘multinational family’

30. Alternatives to the Traditional Family • Cohabitation: PM of Malaysia 2000 ‘It is sad that marriage is no longer consider a sacred act as advocated by Islam. In some places, people no longer consider marriage sacred. Some just live together and if they feel they want children,, they just have them.’ • Homosexual marriage (still taboo in Malaysia), but … In the State of Vermont U.S.A., homosexual relationships are called ‘civil unions’ and are officially recognized by state law

31. Family Dissolution • It can occur through abandonment, divorce or death • Divorce rates – In United States today, one out of every two marriages end in divorce • Abandonment and divorce have contributed to rising numbers of single parent families • Such families are associated with poverty and lead to low educational attainment • The phenomenon of ‘blended family’ – Consists of a husband and a wife who both have children from previous marriages

32. Dysfunctional Families • Spouse abuse and domestic violence • Child abuse and neglect • Are dual career couples neglecting their children? • Is domestic violence occurring at higher rates? I

33. Non-custodial Parents in TheirChildren’s Lives • Studies have shown that the amount of contact non-residential fathers have with their children diminishes over time (Furstenberg et al, 1983; Furstenberg and Nord, 1985; Seltzer and Bianchi, 1988) • Data indicate that approximately half of all children with a father living elsewhere see that father less than once a month or had not seen him at all in the past year • Research on stepfamilies has shown that stepfathers do contribute income to their families, but in many other expects children in stepfamilies do not fare better than children who remain in single- parent families.

34. Numerous studies have revealed that children do not fare well when there is substantial conflict or hostility in the family (Hetherington and Parke, 1993; Peterson and Zill, 1986; Rutter, 1979). • Single parent families are more likely to be poor than two-parent families, especially if the lone parent is the mother. • The poverty rate for female headed families with children was 39.2% compared with 7.8% for male-headed families (1998 United States( • There are three primary reasons why low income can adversely affect children's lives: Children do not receive the nutrition and medical care that they need for healthy development.

35. Economic pressures can adversely affect maternal emotional well-being and maternal parenting practices. Low income can adversely affect children's lives through the neighborhoods in which they reside

36. Transformation of Community • The circle of adult relationship is now less likely to include parents of their children’s associates, thus reducing the availability of knowledge about what their child is doing, and the opportunity to influence the child’s action through norms and sanctions (Hoffer and Coleman)

37. Conventional communities: • Families stayed put, growing up, working, raising children, and retiring in the same town/neighborhood began to recede • Many communities become places for stopovers rather than places to live from birth to death • That bonds that joined school to community loosened gradually

38. Women and Development • Women account for more than half of the working age population • Strategic efforts to be taken: • The private sector will be encouraged to introduce necessary support facilities such as: Child care center Transport and housing facilities for women employees Employment Act needs to accommodate flexible working arrangements such as teleworking, part-time work and job-sharing

39. Homeschooling • It is defined as instruction and learning, at least some of which is through planned activity, taking place primarily at home in a family setting with a parent acting as a teacher or supervisor of the activity (Lines, 1991) • In most cases of homeschooling, the mother is the teacher, and she usually teaches her own children • In the 1990s homeschoolers ranged up to 2 million in U.S.A. • In 200 2 the SAT scores for public school children was 1020, while it was 1092 for homeschooled children

40. Reasons for Homeschooling(1999, U.S. Department of Education) • Can give child better education at home • Religious reason • Poor learning environment at school • Family reasons • To develop character/morality • Object to what school teaches • School does not challenge child • Other problems with available schools • Student behavior problems at school • Child has special needs/disability • (In a descending order according respondents’ perception)

41. Challenges Faced by Schools • Almost 90% of teachers identified lack of parental support and abused neglected children as problems in their schools (Carnegie Foundation Survey) • Schools are h social worker as the result of violence, drug use, teen pregnancy, and student apathy • Schools find it difficult to define their role and mission in today’s world

42. Schools need to decide whether it’s an academic institution or a social welfare institution. Most schools are ill-equipped with this dual role • If schools are to prepare students for today’s workforce, they must work with business to design appropriate curricula