Dominican, Salvadoran, and Chinese Immigrant Parents’ Reasoning About School Readiness Skills

Abstract

Background. The importance of parental beliefs and practices related to children's school readiness skills is widely documented, but few studies explicitly focus on immigrant families. Further, no known studies have examined immigrant parents' beliefs about what skills children need to be successful in kindergarten.Objectives. The overarching aim of this mixed-methods study was to investigate the school readiness beliefs of parents who are identified as immigrants in the United States. We examined the skills they prioritized as well as parents' reasoning about their prioritization.Methods. Sixty-three immigrant parents from three different countries of origin-China, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador-completed a Q-sort and subsequent interview about their school readiness beliefs as well as a measure of acculturation.Results. Results indicated two school readiness belief profiles. Parents in the first profile primarily emphasized academic skills; parents in the second profile primarily emphasized learning-related skills. Parents' country of origin predicted their profile membership. Six themes emerged to explain parents' school readiness beliefs. Although parents in the two profiles prioritized different skills, parents' reasoning about the importance of select skills showed many similarities.Conclusions. Study findings provide a nuanced view of immigrant parents' school readiness beliefs, which is particularly useful for early childhood educators to consider as they develop culturally responsive family-school partnerships.

Chinese parents’ school-readiness beliefs and parenting styles: patterns and associated factors

“…Previous studies yielded mixed results in terms of the association between SES and parents’ school-readiness beliefs ( Piotrkowski et al, 2000 ; Kim et al, 2005 ; Barbarin et al, 2008 ; Puccioni, 2015 ; Slicker et al, 2021 ; Sawyer et al, 2022 ). Among these studies, the results of the present study confirm the research findings of two studies ( Kim et al, 2005 ; Slicker et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Such results are somewhat consistent with the mixed findings in previous variable-centered research exploring Chinese parents’ school-readiness beliefs, which showed that Chinese parents stress motivation and persistence ( Luo et al, 2013 ), or stress approaches to learning more than academic skills ( Zhang et al, 2008 ). In a recent person-centered study, Sawyer et al (2022) found that Chinese immigrant parents are more likely to attach great importance to learning-related skills, including approaches to learning and self-regulatory skills, rather than academic skills. Such findings support the patterns we identified in the two most prevalent subgroups in the present study.…”

“…Such findings support the patterns we identified in the two most prevalent subgroups in the present study. Such patterns could be associated with the Chinese cultural tradition, especially influenced by Confucian beliefs, which highlight the importance of knowledge acquisition, self-discipline, and the conformation to social norms ( Luo et al, 2013 ; Sawyer et al, 2022 ). Apart from the potential impact of country-specific cultural beliefs, the emphasis on social-emotional, approaches to learning and self-regulatory competence in lieu of academic skills could be a result of the Chinese Ministry of Education’s initiative to raise awareness and dispel the myth of school readiness for parents over the past decade.…”

“…Disparities between previous research findings and the results of the present study could be derived from differences in two areas. Firstly, previous studies investigated Chinese immigrant parents living in the US ( Sy and Schulenberg, 2005 ; Luo et al, 2013 ; Sawyer et al, 2022 ) or parents in other Chinese provinces ( Zhang et al, 2008 ) with relatively small sample sizes. The socioeconomic status of parents in the previous studies was relatively high.…”

“…The most common combination pattern was highlighting general knowledge, social competence or self-regulation, whereas one rare pattern placed a very high expectation on academic skills. Besides, some quantitative research reveals that among US immigrant parents from China, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, two profiles of parents’ school-readiness beliefs were found; the first emphasizes academic skills and the second emphasizes learning-related skills ( Sawyer et al, 2022 ). Kim et al (2005) identifies three subgroups of parents with a representative sample in the US by using cluster analysis, namely, typical, high standards and low academic emphasis groups.…”