Eureka! Institutional Repository

The presence of children and parents of a different cultural background in the school area of kindergartens is a real challenge for nursery school teachers in the level of pedagogical practices in today’s society. Through this research, we are approaching the parental involvement of culturally different parents detecting the attitudes of nursery school teachers. The object of our research concerns the knowledge of teachers regarding intercultural education, the importance of parental involvement, the detection of the intercultural competencies of the teachers concerning their efforts for communication and cooperation with the parents and the existence of training on the field of intercultural education. The primary data were collected through a questionnaire with closed-type questions which the researcher sent to on duty nursery school teachers throughout the country. The results show that teachers are aware, to a great extent, of the importance of the involvement of the culturally different parents regarding the multilateral development of their children, their normal socialization and the attainment of a positive attitude towards school. In parallel, teachers estimate that they need a systematic and continuous training in their effort to handle the difficulties that stem from the multicultural structure of their classes as well as the level of interpersonal relationships of communication and cooperation with the children’s families. It seems that teachers apply practices when cooperating with culturally different parents to a satisfying, although not high, degree, whereas concerning communication, the results show an intercultural ability on their behalf of medium intensity..