TEACHER-PARENT RELATIONSHIPS, FORMS OF COMMUNICATION AND FACTORS THAT AFFECT THEM

Most parents want to be more involved in education, however, in practice, it can be challenging to achieve an effective relationship and communication between the parents and the teachers. The aim of this study is to find out whether selected demographic factors influence teachers' views of the teacher-parent relationship and which the preferred ways of teacher-parent communication are. In this study, we processed data collected in a sample of 139 teachers of Hungarian ethnic schools (i.e. Slovak teachers working in Hungary). According to the findings hereof, teachers from urban areas perceived their relationships with the parents to be more positive than the teachers from rural areas. As gender differences, we found that female teachers preferred messages and telephone calls. As far as age differences are concerned, we found that older teachers preferred individual meetings with parents and open days. We also found that urban teachers preferred messages more than their rural colleagues. The contribution of this study lies in the fact that it provides a better understanding of the different aspects of the teacher-parent relationships and communication.