Building on the Hopes and Dreams of Latino Families with Young Children: Findings from Family Member Focus Groups

Abstract

In the past, Latino families were often regarded as being uninvolved in their child's education, particularly within the parent involvement literature. More recently, authors are encouraging educational professionals to look at a family's ''funds of knowledge'' to encourage their involvement. This expression takes into account the knowledge a teacher can gain from a family and child, including awareness of culture, familial background, and other contributions the family can add to the child's education. This article reviews findings from the analyses of focus groups conducted with Latino family members who have a child(ren) enrolled at a Head Start Center. Findings indicate that Latino families openly communicated strengths, interests, aspirations and learning opportunities for their child and family yet often faced barriers in conveying these to teachers and other staff in their child's life. Implications for using inquiry-based approaches to bridge this gap in family-school communication are discussed.

Focus Group Interviews in Child, Youth, and Parent Research: An Integrative Literature Review

“…Parents of school-age children should be able to attend a focus group while school is in session, but if the focus group is held after school, the children should be supervised, for example, by their teachers (Baker-Henningham, 2011;Gregg, Rugg, & Stoneman, 2012). Parent and child focus groups could also be planned in parallel (Sommer et al, 2017).…”

Countering educational inequities in refugee and immigrant communities: Family navigational strategies in educational settings

“…Cultural differences further complicate and reinforce negative stereotypes as immigrant and refugee families may have mismatched expectations of what parent and teacher roles should be in schools (Isik‐Ercan, 2012). Refugee and immigrant parents can find it difficult to share their knowledge and to connect with teachers and staff (Gregg et al., 2012; Isik‐Ercan, 2010, Reynolds & Bacon, 2018), which is important for establishing relationships of trust and a sense of belonging that can help strengthen family‐school partnerships (Georgis et al., 2014; Puig Erwin et al., 2015).…”

Supporting preschool dual language learners: parents’ and teachers’ beliefs about language development and collaboration

“…Language is a commonly cited barrier by parents and teachers of DLLs to developing relationships (Gillanders, McKinney, & Ritchie, 2012;Good et al, 2010;Greenberg, 2012;Gregg, Rugg, & Stoneman, 2012;Hardin et al, 2009). However, parents indicate that access to a trusted Spanish-speaking teacher or administrator (or even a trusted family member who can interpret) is a solution to this problem.…”