How parents explain academic failure

Abstract

This study examines the factors to which parents attribute failure. The sample consists of 13 parents, all living at Hal-Minsi, whose children experience or have experienced failure in school examinations. Almost all the parents came from a low socio-economic background. The qualitative research method used is Grounded Theory and the data collection method used is semi-structured, focused interviews. Parents' internal attributions consist of: (a) pupil actions such as untidy handwriting and truancy, and (b) internal characteristics, mostly demotivation, lack of ability, the child's character, and a low self-esteem. External attributions comprise: (a) the parents themselves, involving unfavourable home-conditions, and parental attitudes of lack of encouragement and build up of pressure; (b) the teachers, in this case, their personal problems, their attitudes of lack of acceptance, lack of care and lack of encouragement, and their actions towards pupils and parents, such as hitting and insulting pupils and lack of parent-teacher collaboration; ( c) the educational system, both at a school level through the quest for prestige, lack of discipline, and the headteacher's lack of acceptance, and on the national level through examinations, streaming, increase in syllabus content, pupil to teacher ratio, and the lack of help by the Department of Education; and ( d) other external factors, such as bullying, other parents' interference, the town culture, and luck. The study draws on Weiner's attribution theory and Bourdieu' s cultural capital theory, with its concepts of symbolic violence, cultural capital, habitus, and social and cultural reproduction, to explain why parents attribute failure to such factors.