Curriculum orientations and their role in parental involvement among immigrant parents

Abstract

The current study is based on interviews with 19 immigrant parents from Eastern European countries, whose children attend elementary schools in the province of Ontario, Canada. It uses the concept of curriculum orientations (academic rationalism, social efficiency, humanism and social reconstruction) to explore the connections between parental satisfaction with school and their involvement in children's education. I found that interviewed parents were split between supporters of academic rationalism and the blend of social efficiency and humanism. Parents who adopted social efficiency and humanism were satisfied with their children's education and followed normative school‐based involvement. Parents who preferred academic rationalism were not happy with their children's school and expected more emphasis on academic development. They were mostly active at home and faced difficulty communicating with teachers. Mismatch in curriculum orientations of immigrant parents and host country teachers results in additional barriers to their parental involvement and might shape such involvement in profound ways.

The Influence of Parental Involvement on Parent Satisfaction: The Moderating Effect of Parental Educational Level and the Number of Children

“…According to the results of the above analysis, the more involved parents are in their children’s online learning, the more satisfied they will be with online education. Previous studies had the same view ( Khajehpour and Ghazvini, 2011 ; Antony-Newman, 2019 ). On the one hand, the lower the degree of parental involvement, the less understanding of online learning.…”

Japanese elementary teachers’ experiences during online professional development regarding involvement of immigrant parents in physical education

“…Several studies that investigated parental involvement of immigrant parents in Western countries (e.g. USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Cyprus) found that many elementary teachers struggle to overcome pragmatic, psychological, and cultural barriers (Antony-Newman, 2020; Hajisoteriou and Angelides, 2016; Koyama and Bakuza, 2017; Lin and Averill, 2022). For example, in some core subjects (e.g.…”