What Matters Most to Parents? A Mixed-Method Approach to Parent Involvement in Rural Central California

• In Event: 44.032 - Bridging Home, Community, and School: Approaches to Family Engagement in Mexican-Origin, Immigrant, Rural Communities

Abstract

This study on parental involvement among Mexican origin parents in California’s San Joaquin Valley seeks to understand what matters most to farmworking parents pertaining to their child’s education. The geographical isolation, income and wealth gap, ingrained poverty, limited school and community resources, lower educational attainment, among other factors, are pressing challenges and disadvantages to children, families, and school districts in rural communities (Bauch, 2001). For immigrant farmworking families, where average total individual incomes range between $15,000- $17,499 (Farmworker Justice, 2014) and the average education level is of 8th grade (National Center for Farmworker Health, 2012), accessing higher education increased the the possibility of upward social mobility for their children and, perhaps, a challenge to social inequity and exclusion for immigrant non-dominant families of California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Utilizing Epstein, et al.’s (1997) model of parental involvement this study surveyed a total of 150 San Joaquin Valley Mexican-origin immigrant parents, with children in elementary and middle school grades, about their perceptions and participation at-school and at-home to support their child’s education. The results shed light on the ways in which school sanctioned forms of parental involvement reflect direct and indirect parental practices supporting their child’s education as well as the limitations of traditional forms of involvement to address parent’s goals, preocupaciones (worries/concerns) and hopes for their child’s success.

This study extends the conversation in 1) conceptualization of parent involvement-family engagement, 2) measurement and applicability of models of parental participation, and 3) proposes a socio-historical contextualization of Mexican-origin immigrant parents in geographically isolated rural contexts and efforts toward educational equity. Similarly, these results support and hope to provide a common understanding of what are the educational needs and goals of parents, schools and communities and the ways in which policy can be reflective of them.

Author

• Araceli Gonzalez, University of California - Davis