Although complex reasons exist for the poor state of education in socio-economically challenged communities in South Africa, improving parental support to learners is one approach to buffer contextual adversities. Yet, historically, collaboration between school and parent has been problematic. We hypothesized that a participatory action research approach might be useful to develop positive relations between teachers and parents. We report on the benefits of a PAR project undertaken by seven community parents and five teachers to enhance learner support in a primary school situated in a low-income area. Thematic analysis of focus group interviews with participants, triangulated by transcriptions of a final project workshop, revealed that participation in the PAR process enabled i) the development of contextually relevant content for an educational programme; ii) change in the assumptions of parents and teachers about their respective roles in supporting the child; iii) the personal/technical skills development of participants; and iv) positive outcomes beyond the project. The insights gain from this study highlight the benefits of PAR to enable schools to harness the wealth of knowledge and skills that exist in their community to enhance learner support and improve the quality of teaching and learning.

尽管南非社会经济困难社区教育状况不佳的原因很复杂，但改善父母对学习者的支持是缓冲环境逆境的一种方法。然而，从历史上看，学校和家长之间的合作一直存在问题。我们假设参与式行动研究方法可能有助于发展教师和家长之间的积极关系。我们报告了由 7 位社区家长和 5 位教师为加强低收入地区小学的学生支持而开展的 PAR 项目的收益。与参与者的焦点小组访谈的主题分析，通过最终项目研讨会的转录进行三角测量，揭示参与 PAR 过程使 i) 为教育计划开发上下文相关的内容；ii) 家长和老师对各自在支持孩子方面的角色的假设发生了变化；iii) 参与者的个人/技术技能发展；iv) 项目之外的积极成果。从这项研究中获得的见解突出了 PAR 的好处，它使学校能够利用其社区中存在的丰富知识和技能来增强对学习者的支持并提高教学质量。