Parents' expectations of pre-school education

Pre-school parents' expectations have considerable influence on the early childhood curriculum. With better understanding of what parents expect for their children from pre-school provisions, constructive partnerships between school and parents could be established. This paper examines parents' expectations of pre-school education with reference to a small-scale study conducted in Hong Kong. Parents' understanding of the purposes of pre-school education and their curriculum expectations were investigated through interviews. Results of the eighteen parents' interviews showed that only a small number of these parents had high expectations on their pre-school children, which was different from some of the previous Hong Kong reports but was in line with a large scale survey conducted by a local pre-school education service provider. The nursery parents seemed to be less demanding on academic learning and showed more concern on learning self-care skills than the kindergarten parents. There was no obvious difference in expectations between parents with high and low education levels.
家長的期望對學前教育課程往往有相當的影響。多了解家長期望子女在學前階段能學到些什麼，學校與家長之間就能建立建設性的伙伴關係。這篇文章透過一個本地的小型研究，調查家長對學前教育的期望。研究以訪問形式進行，訪問家長對學前教育目的和課程的理解及期望。結果顯示，在18個接受訪問的家長中，只有少數對他們學前子女的學科學習抱有很高的期望。結果有別於以往一些有關的香港報告，但與一個本地學前教育服務機構做的大型研究結果吻合。本研究指出幼兒中心家長在學科學習方面的要求較幼稚園家長為低，但幼兒中心家長較幼稚園家長關注幼兒自理技巧的學習。不同學歷的家長對學前教育的期望並沒有明顯分別。 Copyright © 2004 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.