Outline of Literature Review

Title: Parental involvement in Pre-primary School Governance: A Study of Parents’ Experience and Expectations in Hong Kong Abstract           While the Hong Kong government has started to take a more active position in promoting home-school cooperation in schools across different levels by various means, such as the establishment of the Committee on Home-School Co-operation, promotion of the set-up of Parent-Teacher association (PTA), publishing educational materials to practitioners and parents etc., the results from studies on parental involvement in pre-primary school governance in Hong Kong remained confusing. Some analysts found parents to be actively involved in kindergarten management and administration, while others reported that parents appeared reluctant in involving in governance at this level. Studies on parental involvement in the administrative frameworks of pre-primary education are still limited and the effectiveness of governmental efforts in promoting home-school cooperation has been questionable. The Committee on Home-School Cooperation (2003) reported a low percentage (25%) of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) in Hong Kong’s kindergartens. With PTAs regarded generally as an important channel through which parents can participate in school management and administration, the low percentage of PTAs in Hong Kong’s kindergartens is puzzling.           The investigator adopts an interpretivist approach to explore parents’ current experiences and expectations of involvement in the management and administration of pre-primary educational institutions in Hong Kong. The study intends to enrich the analytical and policy development frameworks in this area of educational governance, and to provide suggestions for parents, teachers, administrators and policy makers to re-conceptualize parental involvement in pre-primary education governance. The study engages data collected through document analysis and interviews with key stakeholders in this area. The pilot study involving data provided by nine parents who have their children enrolled in different forms of pre-primary institutions suggests that most of the parents had extremely limited knowledge and opportunities of taking part in school governance. Seven out of the nine respondents agreed that they held passive role in various aspects of school governance. These findings are however preliminary and require a more intense engagement of a wider range of stakeholders in Hong Kong.  This confirmation session examines the theoretical, analytical and methodological frames for the subsequent research. Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 Parental involvement in Hong Kong

2.2 The concept of school management and other terms

2.2.1 “Management” and “decision-making” in education

2.2.2 Parental involvement in school-based management

2.2.3 School-based management in Hong Kong

2.3 School administration and management in the existing models of parental involvement

2.3.1 Epstein’s six types of involvement framework

2.3.2 The path to the family orientation

2.3.3 Cheung’s four-leveled model on parents’ participation in school activities

2.4 Parents’ perspectives on parental involvement