Raquel-Amaya Martínez González
University of Oviedo
Title Symposia 1: Social Exclusion Prevention through Positive Parenting measures
Participants Symposium 1: Marisa Pereira González1; Mª Ángeles Cano Muñoz2; Francisco José Rubio Hernández3
1University of Oviedo; 2Catholic University of Murcia; 3UNED
Symposium Summary 1:
Introduction: It is socially recognized that families play a fundamental role in the personal development and socialization of citizenship. However, they do not always have the right circumstances or expected parental skills. Depending on the negative or positive sign of these, families can be affected by social exclusion processes, or constitute relevant support for their members to achieve personal and social goals. Often fathers and mothers perceive that they need family guidance and institutional support, as expressed by the Council of Europe in its Recommendation 2006/19 on Policies to Support Positive Parenting. Methods: In this symposium, three contributions are introduced that analyse in a differential and complementary way family and educational needs associated with 1) social exclusion, investigating with a quantitative and qualitative mixed methodology the influence of family circumstances of childhood in homeless people; 2) the need for family guidance through “Schools of Fathers and Mothers” in schools, and their potential to promote schools and families relationships; a descriptive study on family perceptions was carried out in this regard; 3) the quality of evidence-based positive parenting programmes that are carried out in various entities to promote adequate family life; for this, a meta-analysis study was performed. Discussion: From the analysis of the results and conclusions obtained, it is observed there is a need to institutionally promote preventive educational actions and evidence-based parenting programmes which facilitate family life, the personal development of its members and contribute avoiding social exclusion.
Keywords: Family, Social exclusion, Schools of Fathers and Mothers, School-Family Relations, Evidence-Based Positive Parenting Programmes.
Title Symposia 2: Assessment Instruments in Family Educational Guidance
Participants Symposium 2: Antonio Urbano Contreras1; Verónica García Díaz1; Lucía Álvarez Blanco1
1University of Oviedo
Symposium Summary 2:
Introduction: The continuous changes that operate in society modify family dynamics and the parents’ educational patterns, often generating in them doubts and concerns about their parenting styles. Hence, it is necessary to progressively identify their parenting needs in order to develop family-oriented support measures, as proposed by the 2006/19 Recommendation of the Council of Europe on Policies to Support Positive Parenting. Instruments for assessing parental competencies that allow, among other things, to design intervention programmes and their subsequent evidence-based evaluation are required. Method: In this symposium, the elaboration process following the classic theory of the test, of different scales focused on a variety of aspects to consider in family education is described: 1) quality of the couple's relationships, on which the family coexistence is based as well as the relationships with the children; 2) quality of the role that grandparents currently play with their grandchildren to support their upbringing and education, making it easier for parents to reconcile family, work and personal life, and 3) relationships between schools and families, considering that these two educational contexts condition the development of children and the parenting functions; especially in the adolescent developmental stage, and when these are at risk of dropping out of school. Results: The instruments designed for the assessment of the described areas, their structure, analysis dimensions and reliability and validity indices, as well as some results once applied in the mentioned groups, are provided. Discussion: The quality of the instruments and their contribution to the increase of knowledge in the referenced areas, and its applicability for research, needs assessment and intervention purposes are discussed.
Keywords: Measuring instruments, family education, couples, grandparents, school-family relationship, risk of dropping out.
Short CV
Professor of Research Methods and Educational Diagnosis in the Department of Education Sciences at the University of Oviedo. She is the director of Research Group "Educational Intervention in the Family, the School and the Social Field (IEFES)". Her principal research lines are 1) Positive Parenting, 3) Dynamization of the relationship Educational Center-Family-Social Entities; 3) Educational and Emotional Intelligence. She develops international and national research projects in these lines, and her researches can be found on https://scholar.google.es
She has received the National Prize for Educational Research from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for her research on educational processes that are developed by the family and its impact on training and academic performance of children. She has also received the José Lorca Prize for Defence and Protection for Children's Rights granted by Principality of Asturias for her Programme-Guide to Develop Emotional, Educational and Parental Competencies, published by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Directorate General of Social Services, Families and Children. Guest Researcher at The Australian Institute of Family Studies in Melbourne (Australia).
She is member of the Experts Group on Positive Parenting of the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equity and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces. She is also a member of the European Research Network about Parents in Education (ERNAPE) (www.ernape.net), and the International Network of Scholars on School-Family-Community Partnerships (INET), USA, (http://www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/center .htm). Convenor of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) in the Network on Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research (http://www.eera-ecer.de/networks/network14/convenors/).