International relocatee parents’ perspectives on parental involvement practices utilized in their children in early learning and development.

• In Event: Poster Group 9
  In Poster Session: International relocatee parents’ perspectives on parental involvement practices utilized in their children in early learning and development.

Proposal

Children benefit from strong home–school relationships. Yet, parents who are immigrants and refugees are expected to follow frameworks for school involvement that are incongruent with their cultural backgrounds and experiences. Given the dramatic increase in the number of immigrant families and children living in the United States (the population has grown more than ten-fold since 1980, reaching 45.3 million in 2021 (Migration Policy Institute, 2021)), it is particularly important to gain a better understanding of immigrant parents’ perceptions and beliefs related to parental involvement in education in early years. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative multi-case study is to understand immigrant parental involvement practices used to support their young children’s early learning and development.
The study used the umbrella term “international relocatee” (Miller Marsh & Raimbekova 2021) instead of “immigrant” to refer to the study participants, who are foreign-born nationals and came to the U.S. for various reasons and hold various immigration statuses.
For families with young children who have recently immigrated to the United States, preschool is often the first context in which they encounter differences between the culture of home and the culture of their new country (Miller Marsh & Raimbekova, 2021; Tobin et al., 2013; 2016). When international relocatee parents enroll their children in preschool, they are often not totally aware of the new school’s culture, educational expectations, and prevailing norms (Ma et al., 2016; Tobin, 2016). As a result, international relocatee parents struggle to understand the expectations the school has for them and the goals the school has for their children’s education. They also question “to whom they can express their own questions and concerns” (Tobin, 2016, p.10).

To better understand these nuances, we conducted a multi-case study involving thirteen international relocatee parents representing countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Albania, whose children ages 3 to 5 years old are enrolled in the Early Education Center (EEC), a university laboratory school located on the campus of Midwestern University.

Data in this study was gathered utilizing a demographic questionnaire, researcher’s journal, semi-structured, face-to-face, and focus group interviews. Collected data were analyzed using inductive content analysis to identify patterns, categories, and themes (Patton, 2015.)

The findings show that the international parents of this study were highly engaged in their young children’s development and that they relied on their “cultural knowledge” to understand and enact their family involvement practices. Moreover, as parents engaged with their children and their children’s schools and communities, their cultural, educational, and life experiences expanded, creating an additive effect to their existing parental involvement frameworks.

The findings of this study add to the debate among schools, communities, and policy makers about what it means to be an involved parent in the U.S. mainstream school system. This is one of the few studies to explore the cross-cultural differences amongst the international parents in relation to their perspectives on early schooling and home-school relations.

Authors

• Lolagul Raimbekova, Kent State University

• Ilfa Zhulamanova, Wilmington College