Capabilities of principals managing parental involvement in township primary schools in Ekurhuleni South District

Abstract

In considering well-being in educational settings beyond income generation, Melanie Walker makes the case for a Capability Approach to assess a person’s ability to make actual and valuable achievements that will positively impact their well-being. The Capability Approach, a framework by Amartya Sen, seeks to enhance people’s capability to function effectively to expand their capabilities and functionings until they have reason to value the kind of lives they lead. Principals of township primary schools are expected to manage parental involvement until it improves, while several structural issues cause parental involvement in township contexts to be poor. Such issues include the fact that townships experience higher levels of poverty which leads parents to work more jobs and hours and be less available for educational involvement. An additional reason is that township schools sometimes struggle to create strong connections between schools and families which are exacerbated by the illiteracy of parents because they are less able to get involved in issues of curriculum.

The problem that this study sought to address is the limited knowledge available on the capabilities that principals of township primary schools possess to manage parental involvement. The findings show that the capabilities of township primary schools in managing parental involvement are underdeveloped when considering structural conversion factors but concerning their individual conversion factors, they are equipped to manage parental involvement. The theoretical framework the study employed is the Capabilities Approach and the methodology to implement this framework included data collection through individual semi-structured interviews which was analysed through deductive thematic analysis.