Perspectives of Family Education for Educational Assistance

Elternberatung und
Prof. Dr. Julia Lepperhoff
Protestant University of Applied Sciences
Berlin, Project Coordinator “Kompetenzteam
Wissenschaft”, German Federal Ministry for
Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and
Youth
Perspectives of Family Education for Educational Assistance
The Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach surveyed parents of children under the age of 18,
asking what is particularly important to help children have a good chance in life (Institut für
Demoskopie Allensbach 2013, 25f.). The most frequent response to the survey was that
children need a good school education (98%). They should also be individually supported
throughout their education, corresponding to their strengths and weaknesses (84%). However,
parental support is also regarded as essential: help with learning and studying (77%) and
encouragement to read (72%) were stated particularly frequently.
Education is thus obviously considered very important, according to this survey. However,
parents wish for more support for themselves, so as to accompany and help their children on
their educational paths. I will argue that family education can make a central contribution to
providing this support in Germany.
I would like to detail the following five points:
1. Why is educational assistance so important for children’s equal opportunities in the first
place?
2. What is the family’s significance as a place of education?
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Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Familienbildung und Beratung e.V.
3. Why is family education particularly important in this respect?
4. The German federal programme “Elternchance ist Kinderchance” run by the Federal
Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
5. Conclusion
1. Educational Processes for Children’s Equal Opportunities
Why is educational assistance in families so important for equal opportunities for children? I
would like to start by going into this subject.
Educational chances for children and young people are significantly dependent on family origin.
This link is still extremely strong in Germany, above average levels. As a rule, children from lowincome families and from migrant families in which German is not spoken at home are
particularly disadvantaged. Children from these families are subject to an increased risk of
facing educational barriers. Since 2000, international comparative studies measuring reading
literacy performance at primary school level (PIRLS) and at the age of 15 (PISA) have made this
particularly clear.
These results show that there is an overall need to give children better support in building
competences. In the meantime, however, it has been generally acknowledged that this
educational achievement gap does not come into being only when children start school.
Experiences and processes of education begin at a much earlier point. There is evidence that
even in the first years of life, a section of children do not profit from educational stimulus to the
desired extent.
This leads to a mandate for action: taking the initiative to give children opportunities for
education, educational qualifications and thus self-determined lives in our society, from the
very beginning. Educational economic research has shown that early investment in education is
particularly profitable, as the US economist Heckman has highlighted in his highly respected
studies. Heckman sums up his findings: “The longer society waits to intervene in the life cycle of
a disadvantaged child, the more costly it is to remediate disadvantage” (Die Zeit, 20.06.2013,
No. 26, 68).
Accordingly, the focus in Germany has extended to educational processes that take place
before school age. Firstly, these consist of early-childhood and pre-school education within
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public childcare. Secondly, however – and this is what I will concentrate on here – these
processes encompass the family as a place of education. The contribution parents make
towards childhood educational processes goes far beyond decisions on the educational path in
the narrowest sense. Everyday family life in particular is highly relevant in terms of education
(Büchner 2006, 2013).
2. Families as a place of education
In the second part of my talk, I would like to present recent findings on the importance of
families as a place of education, referring to Walper/Stemmler 2013.
The high significance of families as a place of education is now undisputed in pedagogical and
psychological research. According to the British Professor Edward Melhuish, “what parents do
is more important than who parents are.”
Parents take on very different roles in their children’s education. With reference to
Walper/Stemmler 2013 and Schneewind 2008 there are three main roles:
˗
Parents as interaction and relationship partners for children
˗
Parents as child-raisers and educational supporters (child-raising style & stimulus)
˗
Parents as door-openers for childhood development opportunities
2.1 Parents as interaction and relationship partners for children
Building a secure parent-child bond is regarded as a prerequisite for children’s positive socioemotional development. Sensitive interaction behaviour by parents and a stimulating family
atmosphere create wellbeing and security in children. However, these family conditions also
have a positive effect on cognitive and linguistic development. Central factors for a positive
parent-child bond are the linguistic-communicative interplay between parents and children and
the degree of stimulus in the home. Bonding is thus a prerequisite for education.
Laucht (2000) illustrates this link. A positive parent-child relationship in the first two years of
life initially has a positive effect on linguistic competence at age two, and then at age eight on
children’s self-perception. Consequently, this also contributes to better performance at school.
2.2 Parents as child-raisers and educational supporters
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Parents’ direct child-raising behaviour is a further important factor for good childhood
development. In studies of child-raising style, an authoritative style of child-rearing combining
emotional warmth and affection with clear rules is regarded as particularly beneficial. Many
studies show that orientation to this authoritative style, above all early encouragement of
autonomy, has a positive effect on later educational performance (Walper/Stemmler 2013).
Parents also support the acquisition of the basic skills of reading, writing and mathematics. This
support is not always targeted, but often takes place incidentally, by means of the domestic
learning environment (via stimulus, instruction or positive example). Learning opportunities
include joint family reading activities, singing together and telling stories, reading aloud of
signs, and games involving letters, dice or numbers at pre-school age.
2.3 Parents as “door-openers” for childhood development opportunities
Finally, parents also influence children’s access to the learning environment outside the family.
They decide, for example, on entry or transition into care institutions and schools. And with
younger children in particular, they also influence children’s contact to their peer group.
Children’s access to leisure activities is also significantly dependent on the family context
(Eckhardt/Riedel 2012).
These examples are intended to show that the family is in fact a place of education for the
children growing up in it, and parents can therefore be regarded as “educational facilitators for
their children” (Walper/Stemmler 2013). This applies throughout childhood and young
adulthood; however, it is particularly evident in early childhood.
3. Perspectives of Family Education
In the third section of my presentation, I would like to show in seven points why family
education plays a particularly important role in strengthening parents in this role.
- Educational competence as parental competence: According to § 16 of the German
Social Code (SGB VIII), family education has the task of supporting child-raising within
the family. In recent years, the range of tasks in this area has increased (Pettinger and
Rollik 2008). For instance, issues of educational competence have been added to
subjects of child-raising competence. Education is thus no longer understood solely as
formal school education, within the field of family education. Instead, it encompasses
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processes of everyday learning and the encouragement of a stimulating domestic
learning environment, and includes bonding – in the early childhood context – as a
prerequisite for education.
- However, it is still a challenge for all actors involved with the subject to make this link –
that educational competences are an essential element of parental competences –
more clearly visible in public, and to integrate the support of such educational
competences into the range of family education services provided.
˗
Orientation to needs and everyday life: Family education is principally addressed to all
parents and orients its services, corresponding to today’s diversity among families, to
different phases, forms and conditions of families and family life (Rupp/Neumann 2013).
It also focuses on particular crisis and stress situations. Family education programmes
are therefore also able to demonstrate everyday practices that do not demand too
much of parents. It is not a question of bringing forward school starting age, but rather
of supporting educational processes through play in everyday life.
˗
Empowerment: This support, however, not only entails imparting knowledge about
childhood development and educational and child-raising issues. It also means
supporting parents looking for strategies for educational assistance, and is intended to
activate parents’ own resources. It is thus also ‘help for self-help’ in the sense of
empowerment.
˗
Preventative orientation and early start: Family education programmes in Germany are
designed to be preventative and to provide voluntary, free or affordable services for
parents and their children. Services are made available in situ as a “general” duty of the
public child and youth welfare bodies (Correll/Lepperhoff 2013; Lösel 2006). This
preventative orientation makes them ideally suited to cooperating with families at an
early point in children’s educational process.
˗
Target-group orientation and low-threshold access: Family education bodies and
researchers have noted self-critically that some programmes were previously aimed at
the middle class. In recent years, there have been increasing attempts to address
families with fewer resources (Dienel 2002; Thiessen 2010; Mengel 2007; Stange et al.
2012). However, there is still a need for further intensification with families whose
children face educational barriers in particular. For this purpose, low-threshold services
in particular are being extended, also using home visits. Family education is thus
increasingly entering the places where families spend their everyday lives, and
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accompanying parents and children inside the direct family environment. Family
education is thus a central bridge-builder to families.
˗
Professional self-image: Another important factor is the staff who work on a primary or
secondary basis in family education, supporting families in their everyday lives. A central
challenge is the very differently qualified personnel working in family education and the
high percentage of volunteers in the field. Without limiting this diversity, targeted
efforts at qualifying staff and extending their competences are desirable. Efforts could
focus, for example, on qualifications for home visits to disadvantaged families.
˗
Network and cooperation requirements: The unequal preconditions and situations in
family education also make it more difficult to anchor structurally. As a consequence, a
wide range of cooperation structures exists in family education, but these require much
stronger institutionalisation. This anchoring in institutional form creates reliability
beyond short-term or isolated cooperation.
4. The federal programme “Elternchance ist Kinderchance”
In the fourth and final section, I would like to detail a particular example, the federal
programme “Elternchance ist Kinderchance” (parental opportunities are children’s
opportunities) run by the German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women
and Youth.
The ministry (BMFSFJ) has been funding the federal programme “Elternchance ist
Kinderchance” since 2011, as part of the larger “Qualification Initiative for Germany”. General
government expenditure for education and research in Germany is to be raised to ten per cent
of the gross domestic product by 2015. The focus of the federal programme “Elternchance ist
Kinderchance” is on family assistance for early childhood educational processes, and thereby on
family education. “Elternchance ist Kinderchance” consists of two programme sections:
(1) Primary or secondary employees in family education are qualified as parental assistants.
This section invests in further professionalization of staff in parental and family education. 4000
professionals will be qualified as “parental assistants” by the end of 2014.
(2) In addition, the programme is funding 100 “Parental Assistance Plus” pilot locations, which
are networking with other local educational actors and are intended to use new paths to reach
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families whose children face educational barriers in particular, via family education services (for
more information in German, see www.elternchance.de).
The “Parental Assistance Plus” model projects are distributed across the whole of Germany,
located in both sparsely populated rural regions and in urban sites. Various types of institutions
are supported: family education centres and institutions, family centres, parent-child centres
and childcare centres are the most frequent types. The remaining projects are, for example,
multi-generational houses or postnatal parenting course providers. The spectrum of
cooperation partners with the institutions is also broad, the largest group being childcare and
family centres along with family education institutions, followed by municipal youth welfare
and health authorities and primary schools (Correll/Hiemenz/Lepperhoff 2012).
A further focus is on networking and cooperation in social space. In this way, cooperation is
expanded between parents and the local actors in the child-raising and educational sectors (e.g.
childcare centres, schools, parental and family education institutions). The web of innovative
parental and family education programmes is thus becoming more tightly woven. The aim
thereby is to develop and/or reinforce educational spaces in situ in the long term, especially
with a focus on particularly disadvantaged social spaces (for an overview, see BMFSFJ,
undated). The relation to social space in parental and family education can make an important
contribution towards reaching new target groups from disadvantaged backgrounds.
5. Conclusion
Education is an elementary prerequisite for individual life chances and societal participation. It
is important to focus not only on pre-school and school education, but also more strongly on
the role of the family, as the most important first educational instance. Research findings
reinforce this conclusion.
Family education in Germany is particularly suited to providing the necessary services. It
reaches parents at an early point and offers them programmes corresponding to their specific
situation and “help for self-help”. It can take effect in breaking down educational barriers for
disadvantaged children in the first instance; increasingly, via home visit programmes that are
better at reaching families with lower educational backgrounds. Not least through their
presence in local communities, family education institutions can mediate between the actors
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relevant for our children’s education and forge new alliances and cooperation schemes for
greater educational justice. The German federal programme is providing an important political
impetus with the further professionalization of family education and qualification of staff in
terms of education, which should be stabilized.
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