Confronting School: Immigrant Families,Hope, Education

While children remain at the center of families’ decisions to emigrate, the global contexts and technologies that allow diasporas to remain connected to their cultures have influenced families’ aspirations in relation to their children’s education. This article presents data from a qualitative study on how immigrant families negotiate the schooling of their children in Australia. Findings highlight there are incongruencies between immigrant parents’ understanding of education and what the Australian public school system offers. This clash is combined with parents’ determination to reinforce their culture at home, which is usually overridden by schools’ standardization of practices and values. The study suggests there is a need to better understand the range of experiences and expectations that immigrant families bring to schools for educational institutions to be more attuned with an increasingly diverse, mobile, and mediatically interconnected population.     

The Case of Three Karen Refugee Women and Their Children: Literacy Practices in a Family Literacy Context

The lack of research about the Karen, one of 135 ethnic groups from Myanmar limits literacy educators charged with educating this refugee population in public schools. In this case study the authors explore the literacy practices of Karen families when at school and in their homes and within an ESL family literacy program. The case of these refugee families and their experiences are analyzed within a sociocultural theoretical framework along with a focus on literacy adaptation through the lenses of cross-cultural studies, adult and language teachers involved in literacy practices, and literacy studies. Four core themes emerged from participant observation, including adult/parent learners’ engagement with memorization, parents’ literacy practices through reading texts aloud (recitation) to improve their speaking skills, and parents’ use of computers to engage with American media. The study offers important educational understandings of one of the world’s least known diaspora.     

New insights into family learning for refugees: bonding,bridging and building transcultural capital

For over 20 years, researchers and evaluators worldwide have criticised the traditional formula of family learning courses for their narrow vision, and have emphasised their potential to provide a bridge between home and school experiences, building on resources that parents already have, but which are unknown or unacknowledged. This article argues that research into family learning can usefully be linked to Bourdieu's theory of ‘symbolic capitals’ to acknowledge the stores of wealth that refugee families may possess, which can be activated in the new environment to create ‘transcultural capital’– a relatively new concept in the area of migration studies. Putnam's notions of bonding and bridging capital are also helpful in the design of family learning programmes to consider how best to stimulate social cohesion at the present time. An ethnographic study of a family learning course for refugee parents in two South London schools highlights the need for an understanding of the specific strengths and needs of refugee parents. However, this can only be achieved by taking time to find out about their existing networks, the experience that they bring with them, involving them in course design and delivery, and engaging in discussion about their plans for the future.     

Two daddy tigers and a baby tiger: promoting understandings about same gender parented families using picture books

There is a small body of work examining how picture books can be used with young children and their families to develop understandings of contemporary issues including diversity and practices towards inclusion. This article describes a study in one New Zealand kindergarten that explored teachers’ interpretations of children’s responses to a selection of picture books featuring same gender parented families. The research sought to go beyond traditional understandings of families and the dominant discourse of heteronormativity. Findings show that despite children reportedly being open to the possibilities of non-traditional families in their setting, and their play, teachers appeared hesitant to ask probing questions or fully engage with children’s thinking, or their own, to explore understandings in this area. Nevertheless, this research demonstrates that taking tentative steps towards making an alternative discourse available through the proactive use of curriculum resources does not have to be ‘difficult’ or ‘dangerous’. In inclusive educational settings, lesbian and gay headed families can be affirmed, and children can be supported to construct understandings about ‘family’ outside of normative boundaries.     

Building spaces of hope with refugee and migrant-background students

Within the Australian context, research into schooling experiences of refugee and migrant-background students has tended to focus on developing English language proficiency with little attention given to initiatives that contribute more broadly to students’ social and educational resources. Whilst not denying the significance of English language acquisition, this paper explores strategies, implemented at one school, designed to enhance social, cultural and educational outcomes for refugee and migrant-background students. We draw on a relational view of space informed by Foucault and Lefebvre, and Fraser’s theorisation of justice, to explore the school context, connections to students’ life-worlds, moving beyond trauma and teachers as knowledge producers. Findings suggest that contextualised forms of knowing and practices can work to build connections and educational resources for refugee and migrant-background students. Where human spatiality, including as this relates to schools, produces advantages and disadvantages, we conclude in arguing for further research that incorporates the perspectives and voices of refugee and migrant-background students and their teachers.     

Competing purposes of education: The case of underschooled immigrant students

Recent global events have led to a striking rise of displaced people and refugees worldwide. Every year, the United States resettles nearly 70,000 refugees, with a large minority resettling in one California school district. Approximately 3000 students from refugee families are enrolled in local schools, many of whom lack prior formal education in their home countries. Further compounding the challenge is the recent onset of rigorous local and state policies. While several studies exist on teachers’ sensemaking of educational policies more generally, no studies deal with the role of teachers in mediating the intersection of policy and underschooled immigrant students. Using a sensemaking perspective, this qualitative study explores how teachers conceptualize their role as mediators between policy and student needs. Analysis of district policy-related documents, classroom observations, and interviews with school and district staff revealed that teachers balanced multiple layers of factors in their sensemaking of broad-based district policy in the case of underschooled immigrant students. Though the district presented a unified policy message related to graduation requirements, participants articulated different purposes of school for underschooled immigrant students. These differing perceptions affected how teachers conceptualized their role. This study’s contributions to research and theory, as well as implications for policy, practice, and future research are also discussed.     

Strangers in the School: Facilitators and Barriers Regarding Refugee Parental Involvement

Parental involvement has been deemed one of today’s most important topics in educational spheres. Refugee parents face many challenges upon resettling in the US, impacting their engagement in the US educational system. This study explores Muslim refugee parents’ experiences with schools and the facilitators and barriers for their engagement. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 Muslim refugee parents from Syria and Iraq who resettled to the US. Facilitators of parental involvement included a welcoming and inclusive environment cultivated by educators who shared racial and ethnic similarities to refugee families. Barriers to their involvement included a lack of English language proficiency and discrimination and xenophobia instigated against their children, which caused parents to develop a level of distrust in the school staff. A major resource for educators, mental health specialists, and other stakeholders, this research augments understanding of the experiences of Muslim refugee parents and sheds light on the challenges, needs, and vulnerabilities of this understudied population.

     

视障儿童社会观点采择能力的发展

根据以往对普通儿童探讨的经验,把年龄、性别、是否独生子女、是否学生干部,父母的学历和职业作为人口统计学变量,选取认知观点和情感观点采择测验任务作为社会观点采择能力的测量工具,并与同龄的普通儿童进行对比,考察我校小学阶段179名视障儿童社会观点采择能力及其发展。结果显示:(1)视障儿童社会观点采择能力与普通组儿童存在显著差异,视障儿童得分明显低于普通组儿童;(2)通过相关分析,视障儿童的社会观点采择能力两个维度间具有显著相关;(3)视障儿童的社会观点采择能力在年级、视力、是否独生子女、是否学生干部和学生的来源上差异显著,但在性别、父母的文化程度和父母的职业上差异不显著。     

Is there any chance to get ahead? Education aspirations and expectations of migrant families in China

In China, there is a growing group of ‘migrant children’, who reside in the city but do not have full rights to access education. Many have been granted a chance to study in public schools after the policy change, but they continue to have lower educational outcomes than the local students. To understand the inequality, this paper examines the educational goals of migrant families in Beijing. Based on the field interviews, it shows that even migrant children who aspire to attain higher education are nonetheless ‘blocked’ by discriminatory examination laws and limited resources. Their subjective outlook is derived from objective conditions and concrete experiences. Their family of origin determines the types of resources available to them, and thus plays an important role in the formation and justification of their educational goals. A realistic assessment of their chances of achieving their aspirations leads them to have lower expectations.     

Kids,College, and Capital: Parental Financial Support and College Choice

Parents vary in both their willingness and ability to pay for their children’s college expenses, yet there is little research on how adolescents’ expectations of future financial support from parents affect their college enrollment decisions. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study, I fill this gap in the literature by examining the predictors of parents’ plans to pay for college and estimating the effect of having a parent that plans to pay for college on an adolescent’s probability of college attendance. The results suggest that after parents’ ability to pay is taken into account, social class remains a strong predictor of whether parents plan to pay for their children’s college education. Additionally, parent’s plans to pay for college have a measurable impact on children’s college enrollment as long as the child is aware of or agrees with the parent’s plans. Therefore, it is likely that socioeconomic differences in parents’ pledges of financial support to adolescents contribute to postsecondary stratification. The results from this study suggest that policymakers and researchers who are concerned about educational inequality should pay greater attention to the role of parental financial support in structuring children’s ability to access college.     

The mental health and psychological well-being of refugee children and young people: an exploration of risk,resilience and protective factors

This research investigates the perceptions of refugee children, refugee parents and school staff regarding the positive adaptation of refugee children in a new social context and the effects on mental health and psychological well-being. This included an exploration of resilience and the role of risk and protective factors. Few studies have focused on views from a resilience perspective, and these have tended to use quantitative rather than qualitative measures. This mixed methods piece of “real world” research adopted a “what’s working well” perspective and explored the important voices of these children, parents and school staff. Staff, parent and child responses were triangulated to provide a rich picture of the potential protective factors operating within the school and family environment. Implications for practice are discussed.     

北京市0～6岁残疾儿童家长教育需求研究

为了解北京市0~6岁残疾儿童家长教育需求的状况及其影响因素,本文采用问卷调查法对313名北京籍智力残疾、听力残疾、肢体残疾、精神残疾、多重残疾共5类残疾儿童家长进行问卷调查。结果发现:北京市0~6岁残疾儿童家长教育需求广泛而迫切,在各维度都呈现出高需求。其中,残疾儿童家长对法律政策需求、专业指导与专业合作需求显著高于其他教育需求。填表人身份、家长文化程度、家庭收入、儿童残疾程度和接受康复训练情况对家长教育需求有显著影响。建议尽快建立残疾儿童家庭服务支持体系,多形式、多渠道满足0~6岁残疾儿童家庭的需求,开展有效家长教育服务。     

Capital,habitus, and education in contemporary China: Understanding motivations of middle-class families in pursuing studying abroad in the United States

Abstract

The growing Chinese middle class and their accumulation of wealth and economic capital have seen an increasing number of Chinese students pursuing their education in the West. Due to this growing number, motivations behind their decision to study abroad warrant scholarly treatment. This article discusses the motives of Chinese middle-class families and their children in seeking studying abroad. The paper reports on a recent study of 166 students on American campuses from 2017 to 2018. It uses Bourdieusian concepts of capital, habitus, and the idea of social mobility and social reproduction, to understand Chinese middle-class families’ strategic decisions around studying overseas in relation to employability, labour market competitiveness, and family support. Studying abroad, therefore, is construed by Chinese middle class families as a way of pursuing and preserving their social status and social mobility.     

Heterogeneous middle-class and disparate educational advantage: parental investment in their children’s schooling in Dehradun,India

Abstract

The heterogeneity of the contemporary Indian middle-class has been discussed widely. However, the effect of its internal differences on the distribution of educational resources needs to be examined systematically. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with parents in 53 middle-class families in Dehradun, India, this paper explores three aspects of the home-school relationship: how socioeconomic transformations shape parents’ aspirations for their children’s future, educational decisions parents make to realise those aspirations, and mothers’ engagement in their children’s everyday schooling. The tripartite analysis reveals that despite sharing common educational goals and strategies with the population in general, middle-class families in India use their class privilege to gain valuable educational resources. The paper argues that the discrepancy in the mobilisation of accumulated resources in the heterogeneous middle-class results in disparate educational advantages across families. It critiques the binary construction of social classes when explaining the processes of social reproduction in contemporary Indian society.     

School Principals’ Influence on Trust: Perspectives of Mothers of Children with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

The authors employed a qualitative research design to explore issues of trust in family–professional relationships. They specifically focused on the nature of trust between mothers of children with disabilities and school principals. Analysis of the mothers’ responses to face-to-face interview questions yielded two primary categories related to their perspectives regarding principals: (a) personal and professional principal attributes and (b) principal actions within the education system, with students, and with students’ families. Subcategories were developed that further delineated the relationships participants had with the principals of their children's educational programs. The authors address implications for school leadership and the establishment of trustworthy family-professional relationships, especially as they impact the lives of students and families in need of special education support.     

Geographical mobility and children’s non-completion of upper secondary education in Finland and Germany: Do parental resources matter?

It is often assumed that families migrate to improve their economic and social prospects, and that these additional resources can benefit the whole family. However, existing research suggests that many children who have experienced (internal) migration underperform compared to their non-migrating peers in terms of different socioeconomic outcomes. In this article, we study the effects of geographical mobility on children’s non-completion of upper secondary education in Finland and Germany using Finnish register data and the German National Educational Panel Study. Our findings indicate that moving during childhood is associated with the risk of not attaining any secondary degree in both countries. In Finland, this is mostly explained by negative selection into moving (i.e. those who move are more likely to be disadvantaged). In Germany, however, an independent association between moving and educational attainment remains after taking into account various reasons why families move. Furthermore, for both Germany and Finland, any labour force status or earning gains parents make after a move do not seem to compensate for the negative influence of internal migration on children’s educational dropout. Overall, we conclude that geographically mobile children may be a vulnerable subgroup in the inter-generational transmission of inequality, therefore schools have an important role to play in integrating internal migrants—as well as international migrants—into the social networks of the schools they arrive in.     

Transitioning in elementary school: parent advocacy and teacher allyship

This paper examines how parent advocacy and teacher allyship played an important role in supporting six-year-old Violet Addley’s (a pseudonym) gender transition in elementary school. We first met the Addley family in the spring of 2015 when we interviewed them for a research study on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) families in Ontario schools. The goals of the study are to interview LGBTQ families about issues that come up at school, document how families have worked with schools to create safer and more respectful classrooms for their children, and share the families’ interviews with teachers and principals so they can begin to think about the ways they can best work with LGBTQ parents and their children. Our paper also discusses what a group of teachers learned about parent advocacy and teacher allyship from their engagement with the Addley family interviews.     

Family Activity Patterns as related to the symmetry in the division of labour in the family,children’s socialization to work and the significance of work to the parents

The paper is based on empirical material collected in connection with the research project ‘Way of life in the family parental awareness of parenthood, and children’s social development’. The sample consisted of 212 families with both parents and a six-year-old child. It was relatively homogeneous with regard to the educational background of the parents. Comparisons were made between groups of families which differed with regard to (1) symmetry in the division of labour, (2) socialization of children to work, and (3) the relative significance of work vs. family life to the parents. Symmetry in the division of labour was strongly reflected in the family time consumption patterns and their common interests. The parents active role as instigators of common activity was also related to both time consumption and interests. The particular characteristics of work-centred families were described. The wife’s employment status and the nature of her work was associated with the family was of life, while the husband’s work was less important in this respect. Interpretations were made in terms of the trend of changes in the division of labour in the family and children’s socialization to work.     

Parents,teachers and children’s school outcomes: a Taiwanese study

The study examined relationships among family social status, perceptions of family and school learning environments, and measures of children’s academic achievement, educational aspirations and self‐concept. Data were collected from 261 (128 boys, 133 girls) 11‐year‐old Taiwanese children. The findings from structural equation modelling suggest that: (a) family social status continues to have an unmediated association with children’s academic achievement, but its relationship to educational aspirations and self‐concept is mediated by children’s perceptions of their more immediate learning environments, and (b) after taking into account differences in parents’ aspirations and parental involvement, children’s perceptions of teachers have strong associations with self‐concept but are not related to differences in academic achievement and educational aspirations.