Social media platforms’ influence on parent-teacher communication

Absztrakt (kivonat)

The thesis aims to explore how the role of social media has changed during the past years and is constantly changing in parent-teacher communication. In my thesis I revise the theoretical background and major research results concerning the influence of social media platforms on parent-teacher relationship based on the work of, amongst others, Epstein (1995), Hoover- Dempsey et al. (1995), as well as Loughran (2008). The essence of my thesis lies in the parent-teacher relationship in Hungary concerning the boundaries both parties perceive as acceptable. Until a few years ago parents and teachers were more likely to choose a personal meeting for the purpose of discussing student performance at school, rather than letting the other party into their private sphere in any way. However, partly as a result of the pandemic, recently parents and teachers tend to initiate the use of social media as a channel for reaching the other even if that means such personal information is shared about themselves that has been available only for friends so far. By creating parent-teacher chat groups on social media, a good wealth of information might support the teachers’ understanding of the students’ background that might either help or adversely affect the assessment of students’ performance. In view of all this, in my thesis I set out to examine parents and teachers’ perception of the involvement of social media in their communication. I also aim to answer the question of where the respective parties draw the boundaries in their communication, that is which topics they find suitable for social media communication. In order to obtain detailed information for my research which requires sensitive and complex behaviour, I chose to conduct personal interviews with teachers and questionnaire with parents as a method of my research. My goal is to understand the individual aspects and not generalization. It is commonly known that the presence online is not always positively judged and if social media platforms are investigated, students might fall victims of discrimination. Thus, the overall goal of the thesis is to draw researchers’ attention to the importance of investigating the influence of social media platforms on parent-teacher relationship with the help of which it will be possible for them to propose ideas that could be used effectively in home-school collaboration. In an attempt to support my hypothesis that social media has an increasing effect on parentteacher communication, and the COVID-19 pandemic also influenced their relationship, with the results of the deep interviews with teachers and the questionnaire with parents, I stated that both parents and teachers’ availability on social media platforms has resulted in more regular communication between parents and teachers, which has contributed to the efficient cooperation between the parties to support children’s development.