The School-Family Relationship and Student Benefits
Open AccessParent engagement is recognized as valuable to a child’s education (Epstein, 2016; Henderson & Mapp, 2002). A potentially important piece of the school-family relationship that has not been studied is the degree to which schools and families agree philosophically and thus project consistent messages to children. To explore philosophical agreement, this case study examined the experience of a single classical school. A cross case design has been selected for its benefits in investigating previously unexamined causal paths or relationships (George & Bennett, 2005).Data collection and analysis occurred in two stages. The first stage included a survey of families. The main purposes of these data were to identify crucial cases (George & Bennett, 2005) and to provide the foundation for the subsequent in-depth examination of those cases. In the second stage, document review, parent focus groups, and observations all provided data for a rich understanding of agreement at the academy. Results of the study did not demonstrate a connection between philosophical agreement and parent involvement or proximal conditions for student achievement. However, as an exploratory study, important questions were raised. The largest issue was the use of class level data. Individual results offset each other within each class such that differences in educational philosophy were masked. Philosophical neutrality, philosophical paradoxes, form of parent involvement, and form of student achievement were all identified as factors for future study on the topic.
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