Understanding teachers' perspectives of factors that influence parental involvement practices in special education in Barbados

Parental involvement has been defined in various ways by researchers and is reported to have many advantages for children's education. The research utilises a case study strategy to investigate teachers' perspectives of parental involvement at four case sites in Barbados. In-depth interviews were done with teachers and analysis utilised content analysis of transcripts and open and axial coding frameworks. Findings suggest that one needs to understand the layered realities that dictate and influence the nature and level of parental participation in children's education. In-school factors such as a lack of democratisation of parent consultation processes, discontinuation of programmes, how active Parent Teacher Associations were and out-of-school factors such as parents' levels of collaboration and coping influenced parental involvement at the case sites. More research is needed to understand how these factors shape and influence parental involvement in special education settings in Barbados.