Action Learning Report: Parental Engagement and Child Development

This action learning report investigates the effect of diverse multilingual families on child development, particularly focusing on the impact of parental engagement. The abstract highlights the central role of parents in their children's learning process, emphasizing activities like responsive verbal play, intentional teaching, and interactions with educators. The research aims to understand how education programs and early care can promote parental engagement within diverse, multilingual families. The report addresses three key questions: defining linguistically diverse families and their learning approaches, identifying features of effective education programs, and outlining policies to enhance parental involvement. It examines the influence of parents' attitudes towards language acquisition, the importance of mother tongue multilingualism, and the impact of individual differences in learning. The methodology involves analyzing data from the National Child Development Study, considering factors like social class, material deprivation, and parental involvement. The report explores the relationship between parental involvement, child achievement, and personal adjustment, highlighting challenges faced by linguistically diverse families and the importance of supportive educational environments. The study also explores the aims and objectives of parental involvement and its impact on child outcomes and positive family relationships.

Action Learning
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Unit 7:
Action Learning to Support Development of Subject Specific Pedagogy.
Assignment Layout
Section 1
Topic: Effect of diverse Multi lingual Families where educational level of parents encourages
learning
Abstract
It is an evident from the wide range of parenting behaviour that parents do play the central
role in the learning process of their young children. Some of such behaviours are implanted in
the everyday routines like that of the responsive verbal play of the parents with their toddlers
and infant during their bath time and conversation during preparing dinner. Parents also
engage in an highly intentional manner with their children with an intention to help them
learn like for example, explaining the word meanings while reading storybooks and helping
their children learn counting.
The interactions of the parents with the educators and care takers who take care of their
children and teach them in the child care institutions or in early education system also have
an impact on the overall development of the child. This is because these interactions help
both the care givers and the parents to learn ways for supporting the learning of the children
in light of their child’s needs. Researchers have shown that there are various forms of
parents’ engagement practise that could positively influence the learning and development of
the children (Fan & Chen, 2001; Jeynes, 2012; Galindo & Sheldon, 2012; Van Voorhis et al.,
2013)
Many scholars and researchers have agreed to this point that the education programs and
early care education system should support the engagement of parents which could promote
the early learning of the children. It is also to be noted that these supports must be inclusive
of different and diverse families.
 The aim of this action research is building the potential of education programs and
early care in order to promote engagement of parents in the diverse families that are
multi lingual. The word “parent engagement”, in this paper refers to two different
types of activities.

 Responsive interaction with the children, nurturing of parents at the home as well as
in the community which could help the child in acquiring competencies that they
require in their schools.
The families who belong from multilingual diverse families are the ones whose family
members have varied degrees of proficiency in English but their home language is not
English. The designing policies which help the educational programs to promote engagement
of parents in the linguistically diverse family background could benefit large number of
children.
The young children of the immigrants consists of 25% of the total children who are less than
nine years of age and 47% of the internationally born children within this age range reports to
limited English proficiency (Park & McHugh, 2014). Encouraging the parent engagement
belonging from linguistically diverse family background in the childhood period could also
encourage school readiness among the children who could face high educational risks
inclusive of linguistic isolation or family poverty, while leveraging the key family strengths
too.
This action research is aimed at answering the below mentioned three interrelated questions:
 What do we mean by linguistically diverse families and how the parents of these
families encourage the learning and development of their young children?
 What are the features of education programs and early care that appears to bestow to
high level parent engagement in the linguistically diverse families?
 What are the policies that could help in increasing the capacity of the early care and
the education programs for encouraging parent engagement in the linguistically
diverse families?

Introduction:
Parents along with other primary caregivers are the ones who have strongest influence on the
first language acquisition of the children during their early years. The goals, behaviours and
the ‘first teachers’ attitude that are related to the initial language development of their child
influence the developing language skills of the children. Gardner and Lambert (1972) were
the two among the first investigators who had characterised the language attitudes of the
parents as ‘integrative’ and ‘instrumental’. The attitude of the Instrumental language have the
focus on the utilitarian and pragmatic goals like whether the one or the other language would
support to the personal security, status and success.
In contrast to that, an integrative language attitude primarily focus on the social
considerations like that of the wish or desire to get accepted by cultural groups which makes
use of language in order to serpentine an identity that is related to the language. Furthermore,
Baker (1992) has cautioned as an opposition to the assumption that the attitudes stated by the
parents about the language acquisition of their child definitely match with their language
behaviour with the child- the relationship in between the behaviours and attitudes are
regularly complex. Most of the parents belonging from multi lingual families are anxious to
see that their children prosper both in their school as well as in the society. With the same,
they also want that their child learns the first language and they be proud of their own cultural
heritage.

This action research foregrounds the several considerations while designing the policies and
programs for supporting the mother tongue multilingualism in early years of child
development.
 The values that are perceived by the parents regarding the values of different language
learning results for their children is very important considerations fro the advocates of
the mother tongues education and preservation.
 The possible differences in between things that parents say that they want with their
original language behaviours along with their child are very crucial for the advocates
of priority of the acquisition of mother tongue in education.
 The individual differences in the learning capabilities, learning styles, their interests,
temperament and motivation might notably influence the quality and speed of the
language acquisition of the children.
Baker (1992) has further described the ways how the parents of minority language have the
attitudes towards majority language and its influence in the quality and speed of the
acquisition of children in second language. He has identified three different conditions which
may influence the majority language learning of the young children if any one or both of the
parents speak in minority language and they are-
 The supportive attitudes of the parents towards both the languages;
 Continuous development and use in the first language
 Strong and dynamic parental involvement and commitment in the educational
progress of their children, their daily conversations, and collaborative activities.
Factors internal to the child also affect learning.
The responses towards the opportunities of the Children or their demands for learning is
based on their personality variables (Krashen, 1981; Strong, 1983; Wong-Fillmore, 1983)
comprising of learning styles, motivation, sensory abilities such as vision and hearing and
intellectual capacity (Genesee &Hamayan, 1980). There are very little research that has been
conducted on the impacts of the differences in individuals on the results of the alternative
models for the language in education.
Rational of the study
The parent provider relationships that are related to the child outcomes and positive family
are generally characterised by shared decision making process and mutual process (Forry et
al., 2011). The parents belonging from the linguistically diverse families might face several

challenges while experiencing such kind of relationships along with the education providers
and early care.
The parents especially the ones who have very less or limited skills in English language have
reported the fact they feel unwelcomed in the educational settings in various studies (Turney
& Kao, 2009; Park & McHugh, 2014; Adams & McDaniel, 2009) The limited understanding
of the teachers about the parenting practises and live circumstances of the linguistically
diverse families might contribute to such a feelings of parents- feeling unwelcomed in the
programs. Likewise, the times when the teachers are unaware of the practices that are
culturally appropriate and which the parents make use of in order to promote the learning of
their children, it might me much more difficult for establishing a constructive and build a
positive relation with the parents (Parecki and Gear, 2013; Halgunseth, Jia, &Barbarin,
2013).
Methodology
By using the Registrar General’s index of occupations, the social class to which the parents
belong was assessed. The school composition on the other hand was assessed as a mixture of
the percentage of the children belonging from the non-manual families or homes as well as
the percentage of the schools that are considered to be above the average educational
standards.
The material deprivation was listed by:
 The use of facilities such as hot water, bathroom, toilet rooms
 Overcrowding degree
 Claiming benefits
 The housing tenure such as tenant or the owner occupier
 The type or kind of accommodation such as flats or rooms
The involvement of the parents was indexed by the head assessments of the head teachers of:
 The initiative taken by the parents in talking with the teachers
 The apparent interest of the parents in the child scored on a scale of four-point
 The time spent by the parents with their children in having outings, reading books or
visiting some places

The aspiration of the parents was rated on the base of the desire of the parents for their child
to stay on at the schools when they were of the age of seven to eleven years. When the child
develops to an age of sixteen or seventeen the parents then tend to think about their
education, their first job and everything related to their future. Their Achievement was
measured by using the standardised tests of reading and doing mathematics while the
personal adjustment was assessed by using British Social Adjustment Guide.
The data and information from National Child Development Study was considered to test the
model. This study followed about 98% of all the births in the country of England, Wales and
Scotland in week three – 9 March 2009. Near about 17,400 people have been followed up
from the ages 7, 11, 16, 23 and 33 years. The categorization has been given by the
immigrants to the people born in UK in the same week. Sacker et al (2012) has used the data
from this cohort study when members were 7, 11 and 16 years old (data being collected in
2005, 2009 and 2014 respectively).
Children belonging from the higher social classes are considered to have high levels of
attainment as well as better score on scale of personal adjustment as compare to the children
who belong from lower social classes. All through, there was a very powerful relationship in
between adjustment and achievement. The attainments that were higher better adjusted as
compare to the lower attainments. The method by which the social class had worked has
changed in accordance with the age of children. At the age of 7 the pupil adjustment and
achievement was usually affected positively by their parental involvement and with the same,
they were negatively influenced by the material deprivation. At the age of 16 years parental
involvement continued to have a notable influence but the school composition has become a
much stronger determinant of the adjustment and achievement.
Material deprivation had both strong and negative influence on the parental involvement. As
the material deprivation gets worsened, the parental involvement decreases markedly. At the
age of 16 the impact of the material deprivation on the adjustment and achievement of the
pupil was just that of the parental involvement, “significantly undermining the positive
effects of parental involvement on children” (Sacker et al, 2015, p 871).
Some of the complications in conducting a research on the impact of the parental
involvement are both introduced and examined.
Aims and Objectives
Parental involvement is something that is considered to be a “catch-all” term for many of the
different activities consisting of ‘at home’ good parenting, interacting with the teachers,
helping the children in doing their homework, attending functions in schools etc. It is
comparatively very easy to describe what the parents actually in the name of involvement.

Some of the issues of analysis and measurement are illustrated and further examined by the
references to the “state-of-the-art” studies in the field. The results of these studies suggest
that the involvement of parents in the education process of the children have a very powerful
impact and effect on their adjustment and attainment. The below mentioned Fig 1 is an
attempt to show some of the processes that are implicated. It should be emphasised that
‘child outcomes’ is broadly conceived. It consists of the attainment as accredited in the
public examinations and the National tests. It also refers to a wide array of attitudes, values
and knowledge that are taken together and help in sustaining a commitment to a long term
learning as well as good citizenship.
Whilst in the Figure 1 below, it has showed potential processes and key players in shaping
the achievements of the students; it leaves evacuated many of the details. The term “family
and parental characteristics” refers to size, Family, education, income, structure, and the
employment patterns that have all implicated as bearing on the personal adjustment and
educational achievement. The attempt for identifying the influence of family education and
parental involvement on the educational outcomes should proceed with clear recognition
which these processes would be impacted by a wide array of other factors and at the same
time will work through a great range of intervening methods.

Section two
Literature Review
This action research has focused on the parent involvement on the diverse families from
different ethnically diverse families. The things that will be very important in this context
are:-
 The families in this research are mostly the diversified groups. Most researches have
been done on the multi lingual families.
 The families that are mostly diverse from the multilingual aspects have many things
to share with the monolingual parents who speak English only. Many different
challenges can be seen in this context regarding the parent engagement in the schools.
 The studies that deal with the parent engagement regarding the different language
speaking parents have been very evident in this context. The immigrant families have
been taken in this consideration as well. The language proficiency of the parents
should be put under the scopes of research as well. The parent engagement in the
English proficiency has been a very important source of knowledge.
It has been found by the studies that the parents who are diverse in the linguistic aspects are
very much poor than the English speaking parents. This is why it will be very problematic for
the linguistically diverse parents to be a part of the school management as they do not have
much money. They are much likely to fall into the linguistically and economically separated
communities. As a result, the children of these families face several risks in the development.
This is why they fall into the category of the isolated communities and they face cases of
discrimination among their friends in the schools. This is why these children from the low-
income families face several issues.
It has been also noted that some of the families face several other challenges as well. The
language barriers are very big risks in the development of the children and their parents in
taking part in the education programs in their schools. They will not be able to take part in the
parent-teacher meetings as well. Many parents are immigrants from other countries so they
will face the problem of communicating with the English speaking people. It has also been a
factor that some of the parents have been living in UK without the proper documents so they
might be facing problems of interacting with the various public agencies. This might cause
things like trauma and dislocation for the refugees in the countries. This will be very much
problematic.

Several factors have been found to be related to parent engagement in families generally,
including linguistically diverse families. Less parent engagement is associated with lower
levels of parents’ formal schooling (Schaller, Rocha, &Barshinger, 2007), lower family
socio-economic status (Mistry, Biesanz, Chien, Howes, & Benner, 2008), and less proficient
parent language and literacy skills (Baker, 2014; Hammer, Miccio, &Wagstaff, 2003; Keels,
2009). Parent mental health problems (Farver, Xu, Eppe, &Lonigan, 2006; Mistry et al.,
2008) and smaller parent social networks (Durand, 2011) are also linked to less parent
engagement. In order to partner effectively with linguistically diverse families, early care and
education programs will need to respond to both their strengths and the challenges they face.
These include those shared with many other families and additional ones related to language
proficiency and family circumstances, such as immigrant status.
Professional debate
The earlier studies were not at all consistent. The correlation coefficients had been naïve
indeed. It has been seen that the parents have to take with the teachers about their children.
The correlation is very much negative for the two outputs. The outputs have showed that the
parents used to talk to the teachers and the scene turned out that it completely had a negative
impression on the minds of the children. The progress of the children had halted. The
conclusion can be taken that the interference of the parents with the teachers had been very
much harmful for the progress of the children. The studies have shown that the parents go on
to talk to the teachers whenever they see a problem. This is the time that the problem
emerges. The parents talk to the teachers about the overall improvement of the children. This
can remind the fact that the parental involvement can be impose negative impacts on the
progress of the child. If the parental involvement is doubled, the achievements will not all be
doubled and in fact it can decrease. It is very much proactive and reactive as well. The
involvement of the parents can be in two ways. One in the home before the formal education
begins and one is in the schools after the beginning of their formal education. This is in
response to the child’s progress.
The studies done in the earlier times have shown that the parental involvement and child
development had very much positive result indeed. The socio-economic status of the parents
is also very closely linked with the progress of the children in the schools. The progress of the
children could be aggravated if they were in the schools. There were very few complex
relations in the variables. The involvement of the parents in the pupil progress was not mature
at all. It is very challenging to understand the complex interacting systems in the human
minds. If the scientific approach is taken in this context, one would need to arrange for a
program. The experiments could be done very carefully and this could be designed properly
tp address the impacts on the education system as per the variables in the questions. It will

not at all be ethical to address the human systems in the best ways. In the modern days an
alternative can be taken and this is the use of the various statistical techniques on the large
data sets. The system will work according to the statistical control. The recent studies have
shown that the parental involvement in the education and other improvements of the children
has been very instrumental and it has earned some positive impacts as well.
In the following sections the analysis will be done on the major studies in this field of
education that will be helpful to give a proper illustration of the data. This research will show
the impact of the parental involvement on the progress of the pupils.
Sacker et al (2015) has showed how the inequalities could be designed in the educational
achievement and the adjustments. It is known for long time that the progress of the pupils
depends on the social class of the parents. This relationship has yet not been that much
helpful to be established. The impact of the social class on the school achievement will be
discussed here. The Fig 2 will show this model:
Developments based from the findings of my own
This action research will help to identify the policies that would be highly important for the
development of the early care and development programs. These following strategies will
help to address this situation on the background of the diverse families from a linguistic
aspect.
 Program requirements should be established and quality standards should be set that
would address the situations where the home language of some families is something
other than English.
 The individuals who will be able to linguistic and cultural diversity to the early child
care and education workforce should be given educational opportunities.

 The parent engagement resources and practices should be provided and activities
should be undertaken that would help the linguistically diverse families. The support
programs could be initiated as well.
 The programs should be undertaken by which the diversified families could be helped
with much strength.
Findings from the research
Many studies have shown the impact of the parental involvement and the importance of the
parental values seen by the students in its explanation. The examples could be given such as
of Fan (2001) who showed the impact of the parental involvement on the academic gains of
the pupils of United Kingdom. Ma (2001) also showed the impact of the expectation of the
parents on the performance in mathematics for the students.
Experts have come to the conclusion that the parents are considered to be the most influential
people to be assessors for the pupils. The motivation on the pupils has been very much
dependent on their parents. Lynch (2002) has said that the if the mothers of children between
the age group of 8 to 9 years have the belief to help the children, they will be able to grow
themselves as the better learner-readers. The educational abilities of the pupils are very much
dependent on the various family factors. Thus the impact of the pupils on their extracurricular
activities will depend on this as well. This is a very important part of the students’
“educational self-schema” and the role of the parental involvement is very important indeed.
Conclusion
The objective measures of the parental involvement have been assessed in this section. The
statistical techniques and strategies have been used to test the various assumptions on these
facts of the involvement of the parents. The educational impacts of the pupils have been
discussed here with the persistent process. This account will be very much important for the
progress of the research in a better manner. The data that have been collected are more than
decade ago. These research studies had been done in th context of United Kingdom. The
large scale studies have been on the background of the United Kingdom.
The difference between the researches will have to be done based on the parental
involvement and intervention programs. This is why the samples have been very small and
they are very weak from the technical aspects. The evaluations have been subjective without
providing any references to the groups of comparison. The records have been good regarding
the parental involvement in the educational achievements of the pupils. The objective records
regarding the impact should have to be kept as well. The comparisons will have to be drawn
according to the professed impact and intervention activities. The study designs will be

important for the safe conclusions on these events. The studies have explored the consistent
things in the backdrop of this.
Recommendations
The action research on the parental involvement has created the fact that the parents should
engage in the academic progress of the children. The performance of the children should be
promoted to a new degree with the involvement of the parents.
 ‘The parents should provide with the better pre-school parenting for the security and
good self-concept
 The pupils should take part in the social programs like fetes.
 The parents should learn from the teachers about the different rules and procedures
from the teachers. The learning should be based on the curriculum, homework and
assessments.
 The parents should take part in the management and governance of the schools as
well.
 Parents should visit the schools to know about the different problems
After going though the different issues in the parental involvement it can be said that:-
 Parental involvement definitely depends on the social class. If the social class is
higher, the involvement will be more
 The involvement can be reduced by the ill health of the mothers and single parents.
The materially deprived parents will not take part in these things properly as well.
 When the children get older the participation will be reduced as well.
 This can also get some influence by the ethnicity of the families as well.
 This can be very strongly inspired the attainment of the children. If the child is
attained more, the involvement will be more as well.
This action research has showed that the parental involvement has been very much effective
on the growth of the children. The different factors like the poverty, maternal education and
others have left a big impact as well. The aptitudes of the children and its achievement should
be discussed. The ‘at-home’ relationships have been very much effective in the parental
involvements. The involvements of the parents are very much beneficial for the children to
build their careers from the aspects of pro-social, pro-learning, self-concept and aspirations
from high education. The amount of the parental involvement is very much evident on all the
social classes. The different ethnic groups will be dependent on the involvements of the
parents. This will be highly important to see the differences in the various ethnic groups and
the parent model values are also very important for the development of the children.

The recent researches have shown that there are huge differences between the levels of the
involvements of the parents. The different dimensions have been set forth in this study.
However, some parents have not seen this involvement process as very evident and a part of
the education of their children. The children are somewhat inspired by the participation of
their parents’ involvement very deeply.