How Do Immigrant Parents Construct and Mobilize Their Knowledge to Support Their Children’s Education?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Promoting Family, School, and Community Partnerships

Abstract

This study explores how immigrant parents construct and mobilize their knowledge through informal learning to support their children’s education. The study reveals that many participating immigrant parents learned the meaning of parental involvement primarily through trial and error. They learned Canadian curricula by using the Internet, passed on their first-language knowledge, instilled the best values of both Canadian and country-of-origin cultures, and learned how to advocate on behalf of their children, who were often marginalized at school. The results of this study illustrate the significance of the need to expand conventional models of parental involvement to recognize immigrant parent engagement and the need for teachers and school administrators to recognize and make use of parent knowledge.

Author

• Yan Guo, University of Calgary