Parental practices depending on parents' educational level : A case study aiming at school's self evaluation

The purpose of this study was twofold. Firstly, it was aimed to investigate the existence of differences among parents’ practices, depending on their level of education. Secondly, the frequency and the reasons why they were visiting their children’s school were examined. To achieve this goal, an original questionnaire was designed and delivered to parents in two languages, namely Greek and Albanian (n = 129), because of their Greek (n=95) or Albanian origin (n=33) (See Appendix). The research results showed that the higher the educational level of a parent, the lower the degree of control was regarding his/ her child. As a result, parents who were university graduates were less likely to a) control their children"s preparation for the next day at school, b) check their schoolbag, c) correct homework mistakes, and d) report that their children sometimes need help in a statistically significant degree than parents of other educational attainment. The lower a parent’s level of education, the more support he/ she considers that his/ her child needs. However, parents with a low level of education stated that they cannot provide their children with the support they need. On the contrary, parents with a higher education level stated that their children did not need any support. Finally, parents who were university graduates were more consistent in attending festive school events than parents of other educational attainment.