Preschool Parents’ Ratings of Parent-teacher Relationships. A look at the Impact of Family Demographics

Relationships between families and teachers are important quality indicators of an effective early childhood program and a child’s development indicators. Assessment of these relationships provides program administrators and policy makers insights into the effectiveness of their programs in impacting children’s and family outcomes. In this study, using the newly developed FPTRQ Measure, parents’ perceptions of parent-teacher relationships in preschool programs were assessed. The effects of parents’ demographic factors income, education, age of the child, years provider had cared for the child, and number of providers parent had worked with were also investigated. The study focused on the parent-teacher relationship components of knowledge of the family, collaboration practices, and teacher attitudes of families. Fifty one parents participated from both Head Start and center based programs. Results show that teachers generally scored higher on family knowledge and attitudes with some items in the practices element scoring fairly lower. Significant core-relationships were found in parents income, education and age of the child and parent-teacher relationship skills on collaboration, communication and commitment. Parents in low income category and of younger children reported stronger parent teacher relationships. The study suggests a need to focus on strengthening the practice component of the parent-teacher relationship, specifically communicating with parents.