“What’s Going to Happen to Us?” Cultivating Partnerships with Immigrant Families in an Adverse Political Climate

Abstract

With the increasing numbers of immigrant and refugee students across the US K–12 system, the xenophobia of the current political climate, and the effects of COVID-19 on the immigrant community, it is critical to examine schools that serve immigrant students and their families. Drawing on case studies of two public high schools that exclusively serve immigrant students, authors Adriana Villavicencio, Chandler Patton Miranda, Jia-Lin Liu, and Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng examine how educators frame the current political context and how this frame informs their collective approach to engaging with and supporting families. The study finds that these schools shifted norms of parental engagement by proactively forging relationships with families, cultivating alliances with community partners, and mediating within families around challenges related to work and higher education to benefit the communities they serve. In so doing, these school actors have shifted the norms of parental engagement to center the perspectives, voices, and experiences of immigrant families.

Migrant parents at high school: Exploring new opportunities for involvement

“…In line with this doxic understanding of parent role at high school, all three schools provided limited opportunities and had no expectation for parental involvement in positive or neutral cooperation. There were also no systematic guidelines for moderating conflicts between parents and children, and unplanned contact or access to community networks was rarely provided by the schools, unlike the findings reported by Villavicencio et al (2021). Schools did not invite parents to discuss curriculum or the students' home culture values, dreams, and educational plans, although at Park, they could be present at some of such discussions between teacher and student.…”

“…The practices that high schools initiate, based on Epstein's model, may take the form of organizing school meetings and activities, communicating with parents, and inviting them to volunteer at school and participate in school decision-making (Epstein et al, 2019). A case study involving two U.S. schools conducted by Villavicencio et al (2021) adds several new age-appropriate contextualized forms of at-school parental involvement. These include mediating between families and students in conflict situations, being open for unplanned conversations, making home visits, and building legal, educational, and emotional support networks for migrant parents.…”

Teachers’ Perceptions of Immigrant Students and Families: A Qualitative Study

“…However, the educational reality is different, and cultural diversity intervention by the school and by the teachers themselves only consists of simple folkloric activities, cultural gastronomy days, and little else. In this way, teachers play a passive role in the management of cultural diversity [30].…”

“…They base this on the fact that they do not participate as much as autochthonous families, do not provide academic support or motivation, and do not understand the language of the host society, or have poor command of it [28,29]. To these criticisms, others are added, such as the cultural clash between the school models existing in the home and host country, distrust towards new and unknown education, or them being prevented from continuous school participation due to work insecurity or changes of residence [30].…”