Types and forms of parents' volunteering activities in Hungarian schools – Results of a pilot-study, 2024.
Anna Mária Bartal - Georgina Csordás
Abstract
In Hungary, parents' involvement and volunteering activities in schools is determined by a highly centralized education system, narrow legal framework in addition to moderately low civic activity and low volunteering rates that is characteristic of the entire population. The main objective of this study was to examine the types of involvement of Hungarian parents in school functions that meet the criteria for informal, quasi-formal and formal volunteering based on the results of a non-representative, small-sample pilot study. Another aim was to explore the structure of informal in-school and out-of-school volunteering activities of parents as well as the initiatives for such activities. In addition, our goal was to discover the characteristics of parents active in quasi-formal (parent-teacher associations) and formal (school foundations, other nonprofit) organizations. The validity of all these research aspects was examined at two levels: primary (lower level and upper level) and secondary educational institutions. The research involved 119 parents, who formed a highly homogeneous pattern in terms of participant status (typically mother), educational attainment (mostly tertiary) and faith (mostly religious). The children of the parents who responded to their informal volunteering activities were attended in classes and/or schools as follows: 70 children were in primary school at lower level, 57 were in primary school at upper level, and 50 students were at secondary school. According to our results, the structure of in-school informal volunteering activities of parents showed that instructional support was less typical. The focus of informal volunteering activities of parents was on providing support to relieve the burden on schools' human and material resources. The parents' out-of-school volunteering was focused on community building and helping other parents and teachers in their work. In terms of frequency, in-school volunteering activities of parents was episodic, while out-of-school involvement was mixed (regular or episodic). In initiating volunteering activities of parents within schools, especially at primary school upper level, the parent-teacher association (PTA) had a great proportion of "authority", and parents were reactive. In contrast, extracurricular volunteer involvement was initiated by proactive parents. Latent group pressure and reluctant altruism were the leading reasons for volunteering in the parent-teacher associations, and only the minority of members were conscious and goal-oriented. In line with the literature, the frequency of parental volunteering, both informal and formal, decreased significantly in direct proportion with the age of the child. More detailed statistical analyses indicated that the variable "number of children" in the sample studied significantly and negatively predicted the parents' informal volunteering, while the variable "publicly maintained school" similarly significantly and negative predicted the formal volunteering activities of parents. Among contextual variables, the variable "the participation in parent-teacher conferences" showed a medium-strong correlation with informal-type parental volunteering, while a weak and medium coexistence with formal-type parental volunteering.
Keywords: parental involvement in schools, informal parental involvement, formal parental involvement, quasi-formal parental involvement, parent-teacher association (PTA), types of schools