Cross-cultural comparison of blog use for parent-teacher communication in elementary schools

Abstract

There are many factors that effect student learning and achievement. Factors such as socioeconomic status, class size, a child's learning style, and parental involvement all have influence on a student's achievement in school. In this study, we focus only on the factor of parental involvement as it relates to parent-teacher communication. Parent-teacher communication has traditionally been conducted through parent-teacher conferences, personal letters to parents, telephone calls home, etc. However, the growth of the Internet based communications such as e-mails and blogs have expanded the ways in which parent-teacher communication can occur. The objective of this study is to find out how blogs, a lightweight web 2.0 technology, are used to support communication between parents and teachers in different national culture settings. The findings of this interview study suggested that cultural values, privacy policies, teacher background and technology knowledge have influenced the use of blog in parent-teacher communication. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.