Discouraging partnerships? Teachers’ perspectives on immigration-related barriers to family-school collaboration.

Abstract

This study investigates barriers to facilitating family-school partnerships with immigrant families as identified by teachers in an urban school district with high rates of immigration. Participants consisted of 18 elementary teachers who identified predominantly as Hispanic (38.9%) or non-Hispanic White (33.3%), were frequently bilingual (55.6%), and were mostly female (94.4%) with an average age of 36.5 years. Participants engaged in focus group interviews that were transcribed and open-coded. Barriers to engagement for immigrant families fell into 3 broad areas: language and culture, family resources, and families' undocumented status. Many teachers attributed the barriers preventing parental collaboration to school policies (94.4%) and ineffective communication strategies (83.3%). Teachers also identified barriers as emanating from the families themselves, including families not attending school functions (88.9%) and being unresponsive to school-initiated communication (72.2%). Teachers noted that many families lacked resources necessary for school engagement (88.9%) and were hesitant to become engaged with schools due to required screening procedures (55.6%). Overall, numerous barriers to effective family engagement were identified, several of which are directly related to immigration and residency status. Given the strong evidence suggesting that family engagement in education mediates risk for children of recent immigrants, strategies to foster meaningful engagement for all families are desperately needed (Naughton, 2004). Roles for school psychologists to facilitate effective family-school partnerships are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social Position or School Participation? Access and Mobilization of Social Capital in a School-Based Network

“…Experiences of racial hostility may complicate the efforts of African American parents and other parents of color to successfully engage educators (Cooper, 2007; Lareau & Horvat, 1999). Furthermore, schools that provide little or no access and support for speakers of languages other than English may prevent immigrant parents from formal participation (Garcia Coll et al, 2002; Soutullo et al, 2016; Turney & Kao, 2009).…”

Ethics, Equity, and Community Engagement: Urban School Administrators Rate Their Preparation Programs

“…A more recent challenge that often occurs with low-income, undocumented families comes from the fear of governmental reprisal when they contact schools (Soutullo, Smith-Bonahue, Sanders-Smith, & Navia, 2016). Given this, and combined with prevalent language barriers, some schools have been found to ignore such families, leaving them isolated from the benefits of being part of a school culture (Figueroa, 2017).…”

You Have to Start from Scratch and You Need Someone by Your Side”: Perspectives of Parents and Teachers on Immigrant Students’ Adaptation to School

“…Immigrant families with adolescents often face considerable challenges, because the complexities of this developmental stage are compounded by the immigration crisis. The pressures of immigration may affect family relations and increase conflict (Dwairy and Dor, ; Mirsky, ; Soutullo et al, ; Rasmussen et al, ) because of cultural gaps between generations regarding significant values and developmental goals. Cultural transition may challenge the image of an “adaptive adult” held by immigrant parents (Dabbagh et al, , Roer‐Stroer & Rosenthal, ).…”

“…Immigrant parents’ involvement in school is frequently misunderstood; they are characterized as uninvolved, problematic and lacking the basic competences needed to cooperate with the school staff (Dahlstedt, ; Durand and Perez, ). As immigrant parents’ attitudes toward school are largely shaped by the educational orientation in their country of origin, cultural differences between their attitudes toward child‐rearing, the learning process, and teachers’ roles and those of the teachers, may impede the interactions between immigrant parents and schools (Shor, ; Soutullo et al, , and create discontinuity between the home and school cultures (Sibley and Dearing, ). These discontinuities, which are commonly found in immigrant populations, may lead to immigrant parents’ low involvement in school, and impair immigrant students’ functioning in school (Chandler et al, ; Tagart, ).…”

“…Immigrant parents’ school involvement may also be impaired by long, rigid working hours, low socioeconomic status, and language difficulties (Durand and Perez, ; Sibley and Dearing, ; Soutullo et al, ). They may feel incompetent when interacting with both the teachers and their own children on school issues that are beyond their understanding.…”