Parents’ perspective on multi-age teaching within a school development initiative (project «schools in alpine regions», St. Gall part)

Abstract

Parents are important partners in school development projects, in particular if the aim of the project is to save small schools from getting shut down by introducing multi-age classes and differentiated instruction in their children’s classes. On the basis of a questionnaire, 682 parents of 19 different school locations were asked what they thought about these reforms and this specific form of education.
The data was analysed by comparison of means, path and multilevel analysis. Results show that parents with lower children’s achievement expectation and with higher satisfaction concerning parent participation agree in general more with multi-age teaching and the development project itself. The relevance of the findings for the further development of rural-alpine schools is discussed.