From Gratitude to Frustration: Two-Way Immersion Parents' Perceptions of School Supports During COVID-19

• In Event: Navigating Virtual Learning: Insight From Bilingual Teachers, Programs, and Parents

Abstract

As we respond to this year’s conference theme, we reflect on systems of bilingual instruction that continue to be unequal across the populations they serve. In this pandemic year, questions of “learning loss” texture stories of children’s education. However, less attention has focused on parents’ perspectives of their children’s distance learning. Drawing on survey and interview data from Brazilian and non-Brazilian families, this study examines parents’ perceptions of support provided to their families during the pandemic within a Two-Way Immersion Program in an elementary school. Mobilizing Yosso’s (2005) concept of cultural wealth, we found that parents experienced gratitude yet frustration with the program’s efforts to support their children’s learning, leading some parents to pull their children from the program altogether.

Authors

• Marisa Saris Segel, Boston College

• Eunhye Cho, Stonehill College

• Haylea Marie Hubacz, Boston College

• Gabrielle Oliveira, Harvard University