Teacher Leadership for Immigrant and Refugee Family Engagement: Supports and Challenges

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Activism and Teacher Leadership for Immigrant Families and Communities

Abstract

Schools often experience challenges connecting with and supporting families of children who are immigrants and refugees (Boals, Castro, & Willner, 2018; Jiménez-Castellanos & García, 2017). We collaborated with culture/language brokers to support teachers in developing understanding of immigrant and refugee experiences in schools and to facilitate teachers’ interactions with these families. The culture/language brokers and teachers worked together with families to co-create family engagement projects in their schools. Findings suggest the collaborative engagement projects offered an opportunity for dialogue across linguistic and cultural differences amongst school stakeholders, but the ultimate success of the projects was a function of the extent to which the school and school district leadership was willing to transform approaches to family engagement.

Authors

• Brooke E. Kandel-Cisco, Butler University

• Kathryn A. Brooks, Butler University

• Catherine Bhathena