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• Specific Needs of Families of Deaf Parents and Hearing Children

  39-45

  Eva Klimentová

  Vít Dočekal

  Views:

  3900

  The aim of the paper is to describe specific aspects of deaf parenting of hearing children, based on an interpretation of research findings concerning the target group. Deaf parents, isolated from the verbally communicating majority by their sensory disability, face the challenge of raising and preparing hearing children for life. Our research based on semi-structured interviews with both deaf parents and hearing children demonstrates, however, that these parents do not primarily describe their parenthood as difficult or complicated. They are reconciled to their handicap and its consequences and use tools in the social environment to overcome the disadvantages of deaf parenting. Some “children” (all our respondents were adults reflecting on their childhood) describe, in contrast, their experience as a gradual reverse of natural family roles, with children eventually navigating their parents around the hearing world. These results indicate the need for further activities with these target groups in social work.

• Opportunities and Barriers in the Partnership Between Foster Families and Schools

  Nóra Kocsis

  Views:

  67

  The primary socialisation area is the family, and the secondary socialisation area is educational institutions.  From the point of view of educational sociology, the meeting between the family and the school institution represents the intersection of these socialisation areas (Kozma, 2001; cited in Bacskai, 2020). This issue and its methodological development is something that Joyce Epstein has been working since the 1980s (Epstein, 1986; Epstein, 1987). According to Pusztai (2020a), parenting can be understood as a multifaceted concept, typically referring to the mutual relationship between parent and child. Researchers have focused on this parenting resource mainly from the perspective of the child's progress at school and learning at home, with the parent acting as an external supporter of the work in school. In this research we focus on the specific characteristics of the cooperation between foster parents and schools, and examine the characteristics of foster parent involvement, along with the supporting and detrimental factors of the partnership between foster parents and teachers at the intersection of child protection and public education. Recently, the number of research studies on foster care has increased (Erdei, 2019; Rácz, 2021), but the relationship between foster parents and teachers is still a little-researched area in Hungary. The novelty of our qualitative research lies in the fact that we are dealing with a special, rarely studied group of parents in Hajdú-Bihar County in terms of family-school relations. The second phase of the analysis has us exploring the narratives of teachers. Our basic research questions are: (1) How can the relationship between foster families and school be characterized? (2) What are the forms of contact and cooperation between foster families and teachers? (3) What factors support or hinder the development of partnerships between foster families and teachers? The focus group data collection was based on semi-structured interview schedules. The research participants were foster parents (N=15) and teachers (N=10). The interviews were coded and analysed using Atlas.ti software. The results show that, overall, there is regular, daily, mainly personal contact between foster parents and teachers. The teacher's tolerant attitude, taking into account the specific educational situation, appeared as a supportive factor. However, there were also a number of cases reported by foster parents where they had been received negatively by teachers. In order to facilitate collaboration between the two parties, teachers would like to receive training (foster families, foster-parent-school collaboration) and would find it useful to have ongoing supervision.

• The Impact of Secondary School Students’ Perceived Parenting Values on School Choice

  37-43.

  Imre Tódor

  Views:

  189

  The target group of our quantitative research is comprised of secondary school students from Szeklerland (Romania). A multistage sampling was used: in the first stage students from all denominational schools were included, then students from the assigned non-denominational schools, while in the second stage we included students from the 9th and 11th grades (N=1927). A questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument. We were interested to find out which educational sector boasted most prominently the dimensions of autonomy and conformity values and whether they correlate with the decision-making process regarding the choice of school type.

• Supporting Background, Caring Practices and Perceptions of Care in Narratives of Parents of Children Living With Autism Spectrum Disorder

  Eva Nagy

  Views:

  74

  This study explores the childrearing practices of parents raising children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using D. H. Morgan’s family practices framework (Morgan, 1996, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2011), the concepts of care capital and Bowlby’s thoughts on caringscapes (Bowlby, 2012, 2017, 2019). It also addresses questions of care and autonomy within the context of disability. The author’s dual role as both researcher and parent plays a significant part in the research process. Using Grounded Theory methodology, the study involved 19 interviews with Hungarian parents of children with ASD. The findings reveal that parenting practices are shaped by the lack of formal care. Deficiencies in institutional support shift additional care responsibilities to the primary sphere of care (Lynch, 2007), intensifying parental care burdens. Parents are forced to stretch already limited resources, which can restrict both their own and their child’s experience of autonomy. Furthermore, the availability of formal care alone does not ensure a sense of agency or control for parents. Some parents with greater resources extend their roles beyond individual caregiving. They challenge dominant perceptions of autism and strive to reshape local caringscapes, effectively “rewriting” societal understandings of otherness and disability.