Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of parents and staff in Title I and non-Title I schools as to the degree to which Joyce Epstein's six types of parent involvement exist in their schools. A second purpose was to compare the perceptions of subjects in both types of schools. The subjects were from two Title I schools and two non-Title I schools. A total of 168 questionnaires were collected. Findings. The study found that ail six types of Joyce Epstein's parenting styles existed in the four schools. Parents of Title I schools perceived "parenting activities" to be more evident compared to the staff of Title I schools. Effective forms of communication about school programs and children's progress were evident of high levels in both types of schools. Parents perceived learning at home activities to be more evident than staff. Decision making activities were also evident of high levels. There was a significant difference in the responses from Title I respondents versus non-Title I respondents when scoring the following six variables, three in the "parenting" type, two in the "volunteering" type and one in the "collaborating with the community" type. Conclusions. This study's data support the conclusion that parents and staff members perceived Joyce Epstein's six types of parenting styles to somewhat exist in all four schools. One key structure in helping schools and districts to develop and sustain effective programs of School, Family, Community Partnerships is to implement Epstein's Action Teams for Partnerships. The data collected will help in providing information about, and a framework based on Joyce Epstein's six types of parent involvement for schools and districts to use in developing parent involvement programs that effectively involve parents. Recommendations. The recommendations resulting from the data gathered for this study serve to inform elementary school administrators, teachers and parents of the importance of Joyce Epstein's parenting types and how they can be implemented to strengthen current parent involvement, current parenting strategies, practices and insights about possible future directions or needed improvement to support parents.