Prácticas y Consultorías

The effects o f pre-school education on the child’s success at school depend to a large extent on its impact on the family, as already mentioned in the first chapter o f this document. This impact produces, more specifically, a change in the perception o f the child’s potential, with the result that there is an increase in the family’s expectations and support.

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Over and above motivation and aspirations, the family’s educational skills play a role in the child’s development. A study carried out in Norway by Hartmann (1991) tested the effects o f the experience o f outside provision and the education received from the mother on the child’s learning ability. The study was based on two samples: one consisted o f mother-child dyads who used pre-school provision on a full-time basis for two years, while the other consisted o f mother-child dyads who did not use it. The mothers and children were met some months before the child’s entry to the first year o f primary school to assess the educational skills o f the mother (to inform, anticipate, show an alternative, assess the child’s understanding, offer emotional support, etc.). The child’s readiness for learning, in terms o f mastery o f rules, decision-making and planning, or inadequate expression o f interest, passivity, etc., was also assessed.

The results showed the positive effects o f the mother’s teaching strategies on the child’s aptitude for learning. The greater the m other’s ability to put herself on the child’s level, the greater the child’s capacity to learn, whether or not the child attended a pre-school centre. Furthermore, pre-school experience improved the child’s learning abilities, whatever the m other’s level o f skills. The children covered by this study were 7 years old at the time o f the interview. A follow-up is envisaged.

In Spain, the Contexto Infa n cia en la Z o n a Franca de Barcelona project has sought to develop a policy for early childhood based on a series o f actions carried out in one area o f Barcelona. In this project, a descriptive study o f the educational contexts (family and school) has provided insight into the quality o f the environment and o f the activities provided, and o f the educational values o f the parents and teachers. The other aspects o f the project aimed to provide in-service training for teachers, and to develop pre-school facilities different from the traditional services, with involvement o f the parents. The main thesis o f the project coordinators is that continuity in the two educational areas, home and school, is most important for children’s development.

The conclusions o f their research (Bassedas, Vila, 1992) show that the activities and the concept o f the child are close in both educational contexts when the children are young (0 - 3 years), but that they diverge as the children get older. Important differences between children then start to emerge.

For some children, both contexts contribute towards their development. For others, one o f the contexts is dominant. Sometimes it is the family which helps the child to make progress, sometimes it is the school. It has been noted that educational stimulation o f high quality at home promotes success at school, whereas a major gap between family and school can reduce the importance o f school learning and contribute to school failure.

These studies confirm the extent o f the role which parents’ educational attitudes and skills play in their children’s development and in their success at school.

F am ily-centred intervention projects

A project has been launched in Ireland to develop a pre-school service involving parents (Hayes and^McCarthy, 1992). This project concerns deprived children in a Dublin suburb. The model for the scheme is based on the H igh/Scope programme. It promotes learning through action with, in. addition, particular stress on language development. One parent from each family is asked to come and work in the centre for one day every three weeks. Meetings are also held to help the parents develop other skills relating to family management.

Evaluation o f the project covers the children’s development from the point o f view o f language, cognitive skills, physical aptitudes and socialisation. It also takes account o f the parents’ development, their attitude to their child’s learning and their involvement in its development. It emerged from a preliminary analysis that evaluation o f the parents using formal measures (structured interview, questionnaire, etc.) is a delicate matter and that they were very reluctant to divulge some o f the information requested in the questionnaires. The authors therefore decided to use a more informal type o f questioning. There will be an evaluation o f the long-term effects o f the project.

Another project is being developed in the south o f Spain (Proyecto Granada) with a population which includes a Gypsy community (Rodriguez, 1992). The aim is to admit the children along with their parents, who will take part in the training, cultural and educational initiatives by interacting and comparing their experiences. The first positive results are, amongst others, that the children become integrated more easily in the schools (colegios) and that the mothers receive training from a cultural development and family training viewpoint. This project is one o f a series o f programmes developed in the rural areas o f Andalusia. A study in England evaluated the impact o f a pre-school development project using home visits (Hirst and Hannon, 1990). It describes the impact o f the procedure on cognitive, social and emotional progress and language. At the outset, the parents had relatively little useful educational experience, with a resultant negative attitude to school. They generally also had little awareness o f their educational role.

In this project, teachers regularly visited children and parents in socially and economically deprived families. They introduced activities such as story-telling, singing, the discovery together o f picture books, etc. Several families have continued the activities with their child, responding with interest to the possibility o f going to the local library and o f joining adult education groups. The teachers undertaking these home visits on the other hand returned with a different view o f the children’s situation, both more positive as regards their family

relationships and better informed as regards their actual home conditions. The authors stress that this home education service is expensive, but that it is the only way o f obtaining such effects on the family environment.

In the Netherlands, a home intervention project has been in operation for several years, using not only teachers but also mothers in the community involved in the scheme. This is based on a list o f structured activities, designed to prepare the child for its future education at school. After a training session, local mothers present this list to the families during weekly visits so that these parents can learn how to repeat the activities with their children. The parents also meet regularly in small discussion groups.

A recent study has assessed the impact o f such intervention on the intelligence, language skills and behaviour o f the children in class (Vedder and Eldering, 1992). Overall, the results are mixed. Only children o f Moroccan origin who took part in the programme had better language skills than Moroccan children who had not taken part in the programme. For the other measurements, there was no observable effect. These results do not, however, imply that the programme is not useful.

Monitoring o f mothers’ participation rates in the programme enables the correlation between the regularity o f their participation and the cognitive development o f the child to be calculated. This correlation is significantly positive. In the opinion o f the authors, an increase in participation must result in an increase in the effects. They therefore advocate improving the conditions o f implementation o f the programme. One o f their conclusions is that the programme o f activities was too rigid and that it was difficult to regulate according to the children’s learning. Furthermore, work with relatively uneducated, sometimes illiterate, mothers reduced the possibility o f a more flexible approach.

Conclusions

There are a number o f intervention projects in operation in Europe. Some involve attendance at a pre-school centre by children accompanied by their parents. Others are based on visits to families, either by a professional or by other local mothers. All these arrangements have their advantages and disadvantages. The differences in the situations and the absence o f comparative evaluation mean that it is difficult at present to determine whether one is better than another. The fact that these projects are tied to specific cultural contexts means that it is practically impossible to make any generalisations.

It can, however, be noted that the high rate o f participation by families in the intervention partly explains the effects observed in programmes focused solely on parents. This participation clearly depends on living conditions, and also on the level o f the parents’ awareness o f their role in the education o f their children.

There is currently little certainty as to the effects o f actions involving parents in culturally deprived contexts. As was shown in the large-scale study described in the first part o f this paper (White, Taylor and Moss, 1992), an instrumental type o f action that introduces parents to specific activities to be developed at home offers hardly any benefits beyond these provided by good pre-school education. The various European attempts at intervention in the family

have yielded more qualitative results, but from which it is hard to generalise. Nonetheless, these actions give an idea o f the importance o f parents’ real involvement in the education o f their children, which undoubtedly extends beyond carrying out specific activities home. Again, Schweinhart and Weikart (1980) showed that changing the way in which deprived families regard their children, and consequently their aspirations for them, is a key factor in the long-term effect produced by pre-school education. A hypothesis could thus be formulated to the effect that, in as far as programmes o f intervention in the family affect the perception that parents have o f their children, they are effective.