Abstract:

The aim of the current research is the presentation of parents' expectations and requirements of the primary school in the current period of economic and social crisis in Greece. The issue is approached by determining the contents and structure of their social representation about the effective school.

Participants were 227 parents who had at least one child in primary school. They came from different urban and rural areas in the mainland of Greece and had been living in the country for at least the last 8 years. The data were collected through self-administered questionnaires including their cognitive responses to the verbal stimulus "good school", followed by an open question about recent changes in the stated priorities. An instrument measuring parental involvement, based on the six types framework developed by Epstein, was also included as well as demographic information. The 1607 responses to the stimulus were analysed qualitatively and resulted in 27 thematic categories, 12 of which comprised the contents of the social representation based on their frequency. Subsequently, each of these categories was coded regarding its frequency and importance for each participant and the data were quantitatively analysed, using SPSS. Thus the study is a mixed methods research, producing both the contents and structure of the social representation of effective schools in Greece.

The core of the social representation included ‘knowledge transmission’ and ‘adequacy of material and teaching staff resources', while categories like 'integrating the extracurricular activities in the school programme', 'safety and hygiene', 'parental involvement', 'cooperation in the school classroom' were found in the zone where themes pertaining to changes are located. The less frequent categories were: 'the good educators', 'the development of pupils' skills', 'the socialisation', 'the psychological support' and 'the changes and the enhancement of the curriculum'. The role of the school in the moral development of children and citizenship building were underestimated by the vast majority of parents. Parental involvement was considered an important factor for the effective school while Greek parents stated that school generally involves families in different ways to increase student success. The increased requirements of parents regarding schooling, since the outburst of the economic crisis in the country, are discussed.

Keywords:

Effective school, social representations, parental involvement, economic crisis.