Community Regeneration Through Parents’ Engagement For Education. A Moldavian Socio-Educational Experience

Abstract

This paper presents a corpus of a qualitative research project conclusions aiming to generate the favorable premises to increase the social cohesion in Republic of Moldova rural communities, a specific case of evolution from traditional to the consumerist society, case related to multiple changes occurred during the last 25 years. The process of increasing the social cohesion itself involves the development of a set of activities which targets to identify and to activate the interaction, collaboration and cooperation mechanism to increase the educational system socio-performance. We highlight the key role of one of the most important endogen agents for the change: the parents, particularly the fathers, as part of the problem and solution for any intervention having as purpose the socio-educational development. The parents’ bonds to education are a precondition for development and a basic element to regenerate the community social tissue, but their action is strongly related to the social capital reinforcement and to the socioeconomic status.

Keywords: Community developmentvulnerabilityparents’engagement

Introduction

Understanding the educational system from the social development paradigm offers also a view of

the underdevelopment phenomenon also, particularly the modernization theories and the dependency

theories. The development as modernization paradigm follows the evolutionary approach; ‘the

modernization theories converge to a common conclusion: underdevelopment is a common characteristic

of societies in an early or intermediate road to modernity, in contrast to developed societies, who have

attained this point’ (Zamfir & Stănescu, 2007, p. 565).

Rostow’s structural model (as cited by Bădescu, 2012) focus on a five stages evolution of

communities from traditional society (mainly agricultural, with low efficiency resources use, with a firm

and resistant to change society) to the consumerist one. The second stage of development, ‘the

preconditions to take-off’, is characterized by technical progress and industrialization, by openness to

trade and to the outside, by changing its structure and social mobility through the national identity and

shared interests development.

Education plays a key role in the transition to modernity, diminishing the resistance to the new and

becomes an adjuvant to reconfigure the social change. The sociological perspective on the modernization

integrates the economic, but also the social and cultural determinants of modernization. These factors

explain differences in economic development between countries by socio-cultural differences between

their societies.

New approaches of the underdevelopment phenomenon shed a new light on the social capital and

on the human capital. Those two pillars are indicators and predictors of social development as well

(Preotesi, 2013).

The community development is a particular case of the social development. The measurement of

local/community development (Sandu, 1999) identifies the local infrastructure and the human capital as

two types of structurally related factors. Human capital is considered an indicator and a trigger of

consumption, being operationalized in three dimensions: (1) the educational capital (at communitarian

level); (2) the number of people locally employed as a predictor of social development; (3) the weight of

population employed in agriculture, which negatively correlated with the degree of social development

(in terms of Romanian rural areas where agriculture is the dominant form of subsistence, a prerequisite

for a low material and cultural consumption).

The existing data and our research experiences allow us to consider the model transferable and

applicable in Republic of Moldova, appropriate to the theoretical approach presented above. The local

infrastructure precariousness, the low educational capital, the low share of the employed active

population and the high percentage of people laboring in subsistence agriculture are predictors of the

local underdevelopment that largely characterizes the nowadays-rural space. Secondly, high rates of

circular migration increase the negative impact of the local context on Moldovan villages’ children

chances for life (Mînăscurtă, 2007).

The notoriously Coleman Report (1966) stated that family history was a more powerful predictor

of school performance than any of the schools features themselves. Recent data show that individuals

deprived of social networking vulnerable communities have a low mobilization of resources related to

their own objectives of socio-professional insertion (Smith, 2000), even they belong to societies in

another stage of development than the ‘preconditions to take-off”. The social capital defined as

‘interactions in which individuals take part, being included in social networks and norms associated with

them’ (Voicu, 2005, p. 105), explains the dynamics like those conceived on the community educational

issues.

Dissolution or absence of social capital has a direct impact on the school, on the quality of the

education, on the individual academic performance and on social relations, particularly. Meanwhile, the

generational changes and social evolution show new ways of updating the social capital (Kapucu, 2011).

The local context relationship with the educational system was operationalized from a practical

approach of initiating mechanisms for the community involvement process into the local development.

Education as a strategic variable in a local social development process is the basic theme for a

comprehensive research approach, whose results are subsequently summarized.

The analysis we proposed focuses on the parents’ bond with the educational system. It is based on

the E DUrability comprehensive framework, consisting in researches and interventions developed in

Republic of Moldova starting with June 2014. All the three projects cover the areas of public

participation, community development, advocacy, and policy-making in order to increase community

participation to education.

Method

Results

It is important to mention that the research revealed an interesting phenomenology of

vulnerabilities related to the families and subjects participating in this research.

The first vulnerability is caused by the revenue scarcity. In some cases, it is high for people

without school, employed as ‘housemaids’ and for other people with a (theoretically) higher status: ‘part-

time caregiver’, ‘part-time nurse’, ‘teacher in kindergarten’ etc. Most of the female subjects in the study

reported themselves to work as seamstresses and house cleaners. In addition, both women (mothers) and

men (fathers) declared to work as seasonally agricultural laborers. The socio-occupational status of adult

family members was identified to be the main factor of vulnerability. It is associated with the income

level, the frequency, the certainty, and the practical means to producing it. In each of the three

communities, the dominant model is the one of families without set income sources, get from the formal

labor market employment. The families where both parents are employed are rare: n = 3 in Racovăţ, n = 2 in Lupa Recea, and n = 0 in Codreanca.

The subjects’ employment status is consistent with the situation of rural areas in the Republic of

Moldova. The research revealed differences between the current situation in rural areas and the

nationwide situation (for a detailed discussion see Cace, 2015). In sum, at the national level, 34.2%

parents are employed in the public sector, 22.2% are employed in the private sector, and 26.7% are

inactive (unemployed, housewives, jobless); 3.3% reported themselves as entrepreneurs, and nearly 5%

are self-employed agricultural laborers (N = 600 parents).

A third important social vulnerability is the family structure as the data analysis reveals:

•2 of the 51 families have only children and grandparents.

•Other 4 are extended families (including grandparents).

•Father is the missing parent in nearly half of the single parent families, with 1 exception (where

mother is missing).

•The mother’s life-partner is not the children’s biological father in almost a quarter of families. •Subjects involved in the experimental activities belong to 7 one biological parent families (including

adults in cohabitation) where the mother or father have a physical or neuropsychological inability.

•Most households in the sample have at least three minor children. The average is 3 children per family, and most households have 4 children, with a minimum of 1 child and a maximum of 7.

The income of vulnerable families in the sample ranges between 500 and 3,000 MDL (𝑀!"#$%& =

1500 𝑀𝐷𝐿). Please note that precise calculations cannot be made, as the subjects’ estimations are either

lacking or approximate. For an appropriate connection to the socio-economic context, in July 2016 the

average gross nominal earnings constituted 5,274.0 Lei, an increase of 8.0% compared to July 2015. The

index of the real salary in July 2016 compared to July 2015 was 100.9%, 0.9% higher compared to the

previous year. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, employees of ICT industries (10,800.3

MDL) and of the financial industries (10,025.2 MDL) scored the highest values. The lowest were in the

leisure services (3,221.9 MDL) together with the primary economic sector employees (agriculture,

forestry, fishing and hunting) with about 3,567.7 MDL (National Bureau of Statistics, September 2016).

The main sources of income are the social benefits (child-raising allowances or for schoolchildren,

disability compensations etc.), from the subsistence agriculture or the semi subsistence (based mainly on

economic practices such as barter - exchange of products); from occasional and/or seasonal labor abroad.

It is interesting to notice that the estimated level of this type of income does not differ greatly from

that earned inland, with one exception: a person who said that without the labor in Russia would not be

able to pay prior loans for the house building.

Related to the subjective perception of income , half of vulnerable families say income hardly

assures the survival of the family. The other half say it is not even enough.

In addition to the investigation of socio-economic status and its impact on parents’ participation,

the authors were interested in understanding how the parents in these three communities interact with the

educational system, particularly in contexts when their involvement is requested. The data collected

through individual and group interviews validate and complete the results of questionnaires applied to

parents in the target group.

Answers like ‘to work with the school and teachers for better education’, ‘I advise teachers’,

‘check my child homework’, ‘have an active part in school life’, ‘to help him materially and emotionally

to attend classes’ provide a representation of paternal roles. Table 2 synthetizes the most frequent parental

roles and relevant quotes to support the ideas expressed by the parents during interviews.

Discussions with parents and especially with children and teachers (in the communities) reveal an

insufficient cognitive equipment or a reduced capacity of parents to help their children with

homework, for example. Parents cannot provide appropriate support, fact proved by observations made

during the camp organized trips. The vast majority of parents could not provide basic explanations when

they were asked by children or about the history of the places they visited, about natural phenomena and

their consequences, by visible and impressive aspects such as caves or keys (‘I asked my mother how to

last so many years the castle. And she didn’t answered’. ‘My mother knew, but I asked the guide’, says

one of the children). Many children have not even tried to ask their parents, feeling they have difficulties

to answer, but asked the experts during or after the trips or activities.

The parental roles distribution in family appears to be unbalanced emphasized from an

educational perspective. Mothers and older siblings can and are willing to provide answers for existential

questions or to fulfill the cognitive interest, in some cases. Here are some quotes from discussions with

the children: ‘My father rarely helps me, my mother do it more.’, ‘My brother helped me...’, ‘I once asked

my father and he said he did not know. He was pretending, just to leave him alone. I go to my mother…’

The importance of fathers in education seems to be minimized including by mothers who believe

that ‘if he remained with his mother, I think does not matter. For example, my kids were constantly with

my mom.’ ‘You know, from my own experience I would like to say, I had more influence on children

when I was single.’ In addition, it seems the male parent’s strategies are challenged: ‘But why is not

right? If they remain with Dad, Dad give them raslabuhă’ (Leave them alone, NB.) ‘And it looks the

father, in a way, too much freedom gives them.’

Another aspect considered to be monitored during the experimental-applicative activities was

related to the ways and forms of local identity ownership . Identity, from family to the local level and to

the national level, is reflected and assumed by attitudes transferable to the individual and group

behaviors. On the other hand, the behavioral aspects of identity intersect our attitude towards otherness.

As humans, we have a tributary tendency to minimize uncertainty and a preference for a mental comfort

zone represented by the facts perceived as familiar. In this context falls the initial spontaneous groups’

organization of participants in experimental-applicative activities, from how they decided to placed

themselves in the bus and then for the first organized activities. Along the days, as the participants began

to know each other, we acknowledge differences in interactions between children and parents in terms of

increased density, variety and intensity.

Among the elements of identity, we considered relevant for the analysis the description each group

of participants made for their commune, as a planned exercise. The identification and emphasizing of

some or other significant aspects in describing their community, from the historical times to nowadays,

reveals different ways of taking local identity. A relevant comparison is the case of two villages of the

same commune: while Codreanca village is presented as ancient village of free peasants never laboring

for the landowners, the Lupa Recea villagers relate their history to one of the local boyars (like those in

Racovăţ). Pride of the village is considered to be the manorial mansion where functioned the school until

the recent schools’ network optimization . The subjects from Codreanca described themselves as

hardworking people and using elements as traditional habits or jobs (woodworking). The Lupea Recea

people highlight the beauty of nature, forests, cold springs, and nostalgic insights for better times people

living in harmony with nature and satisfied, even they were laboring the nobleman’s land.

The Racovăț presentation put less emphasis on the past (briefly mentioned as ‘ancient settlement,

which took its name from a nobleman, Racoviţă’) and focuses on current and proud certain skills locals

have (as well the art of folk dances). An excellent proof has been provided in the campfire evening. The

first songs were initially individual initiatives, supported by a greater or lesser extent by family members.

The next step was the building of an ad-hoc ‘local group’ of singers. Along with the songs and their lines,

to the end of event, almost all participants (be they children, parents and teachers) sang together in a

collective endeavor to assume the national identity.

Discussions

The analysis of data collected in the three communes’ households leads to some conclusions:

• mothers are employed more than fathers (male life-partners);

• fathers (male life-partners) are mostly employed in seasonal job, temporary or casual;

• slightly more than half of families have experienced migration, exclusively in Russia and in the former Soviet Union space;

• only for 7 families (about 14% of subjects) laboring abroad provide now a revenue,

• the abroad labor cannot be considered a successful alternative, only a survival debouche;

• there are no major differences between families having revenues from domestic/inland labor, from laboring abroad or from pensions and social benefits – labor wages are on a level that cannot provide a decent living.

Analysis of data collected through individual and group interviews with all the 18 experimental activities participants (including 8 vulnerable parents) validates and completes the conclusions above. Some of the cases of vulnerable families in depth analyzed in the context of the experiment activities can be considered exemplary by their drama and overlapping vulnerabilities.

Related to the parents’ perspective on the importance of school, on the interaction of children with the education process and on the expectations they have from this interaction, the opinions converge to a particular social conformism. It generates a certain tendency to exacerbate the school importance and therefore an exacerbation of assuming their role of parents in relation to school.

Practical aspects of the family everyday living negatively influence children's school results. This covers conditions improper for habitation, the income precariousness (reflected in some cases on an insufficient and inadequate nutrition of children), but also unable to provide minimum resources necessary for vulnerable families pupils to participate with equal opportunities in the education process.

Maybe the most cited and real reason is the Republic of Moldova experience of an aggravating social underdevelopment, negatively enhanced by the amplitude of a relevant circular migration. The abroad labor and the significantly lower successful rate of this strategy increases the individual and collective vulnerability. One of these is the temporary abandonment of children and the emergence of a new type of family: the family temporarily disintegrated, that can be considered an alternative form of family (Mînăscurtă, 2007).

Two-thirds of the migrants are men and the women a third. Among female immigrants, 70% are from rural areas. Though the proportion of mothers who leave to work abroad is low, the results on the family seem to have a more negative impact than the departure of fathers: a third of families where the mother frequently leave to work abroad is falling apart (UNDP, 2016).

Despite the circular migration, one of the reasons for this quasi-absence of fathers in the children education is the type of activity generating income they perform. We often have periods of absence from the family life for seasonal abroad labor or even in Moldova. In other cases, the work difficulty drains resources assigned to the children, theoretically. The reasons put forward to explain this behavior aim attitudinal and behavioral aspects, rather the passive educational perspective. On the consequence, based on the educational model assumed in most of these vulnerable families, ’the education is the wife/mother education is charged with the education, we only support her, from time to time’.

Sentimental assertions, such as those made in the lyrics of one of the village representatives

(‘Small is our village, Lord, how small!’) correspond to the pragmatic description of marginality. This

leads to direct effects on socio-economic development of the own community, but also on the individual

wellbeing. This case, the marginality is identified in relation to the commune center, but also to the

situation of being on the border of three districts, actually belonging to none of them. Other reasons for

frustration are the recent effects of the school network optimization, old educational facilities remaining

only a relic of a past, missing any functional bond to the present.

Conclusions

The socioeconomic picture of rural communities in Republic of Moldova reveals aspects largely

consistent with those that define a significant area of the current Romanian rural. Dimensions such as

scarcity of local infrastructure, low educational capital, the weight of the low employed laboring

population and high percentage of people employed in subsistence agriculture are the premises of social

underdevelopment of these rural communities.

The almost total lack of alternatives to provide a decent life for those left home created significant

differences between those were able to access alternative employment abroad and had a contact with

other social realities. The gaps between those who have worked abroad and the rest of the population

(both parents and children) are embodied in the iconic marks of prosperity and social prestige symbols or

the family survival only. These discrepancies turns into social polarization in some cases and sharpen the

social inequality and individualism, making room for the potential growth of low social solidarity. Social

relationships have evolved in conjunction with collective and individual experiences of the community

members, manifesting an obvious erosion over the past 25 years, including small villages and relatively

isolated, functioning on a rather traditional social relations model at the community level.

This paper analyzes how parents from disadvantaged communities, most of them touched by the

leaving for work abroad phenomenon, are a frequent situation with multiple effects on children's

education. It emphasis sharing traditionalist roles in the family, father keeping mostly an economic role

and a title rather honorific, ‘head of the family’.

An approach to education and parental participation, empowerment and engagement in raising

children, involves the reinstatement of the community social fabric broken wires. The potentially

involvement identified in people statements and beliefs requires a conversion into concrete action that

supposes the activation of traditional family and community actors, non-functional or dysfunctional at the

moment. Reconfiguring the role of fathers is the result of an intelligent and depth effort aiming to

develop/train parenting skills in relation to the socio-economic facts, first. Related to the social

development paradigm, increasing the education system socio-performance necessarily requires social

capital reinforcement and actions on a socio-economic level.

Our findings validates a harsh ‘diagnoses’ arising from the previous researches and interventions:

‘The villages in Moldova experience (...) the consequences of the phenomenon of disintegrated family.

Formally, it exists, but actually not as the traditional perception of this social institution: communication,

relationships, living together. This situation generates the diminishing premises of educational effects to

develop the personality. It disappears the formative influence of a significant educational factor, which

results in increased negative effects on the evolution of humans as a social being. In fact, is lacking the

parents modeling effect’ (Dandara, 2014).

Despite this pessimistic conclusion, our operations ran in the Republic of Moldova lead to

favorable premises to reset or reinforce the community bonds. The local identity building and re-build

exercises reveal some social relations (created in the experimental context) can be replicated in real

contexts as the starting point of a successful regeneration of the community social tissue process.

Secondly, we can assert all participants in the activities (parents, students, and educational staff) can also

become catalysts of such a social changing process.

Acknowledgements

The authors express a deep consideration for Soros Foundation Moldova and particularly to Mrs. Ana Corețchi (The Soros Foundation Moldova Education Reform Project director). Thanks to their support and funding we could ran our research and social development activities in Republic of Moldova during the last 3 years on behalf of CATALACTICA Association for Socio-Economic Development and Promotion.

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