Cultural Misperceptions and Goals for Samoan Children’s Education in Hawai’i: Voices from School, Home, and Community

Abstract

Research lauds the benefits of parent involvement in the schools, yet many schools and communities have not achieved desired levels of involvement. Underlying expectations and methods soliciting parent involvement may be rooted in cultural misperceptions. This study, based on Epstein's (1987) Overlapping Spheres of Influence model, explored the ways and extent that community members, school staff, and Samoan families interact Marianna F. Valdez is a Ph.D. Candidate in Community and Cultural Psychology. She completed her M.A. degree at the University of Hawaii and B.A. degree at Tulane University. Her research interests involve the development, implementation, and evaluation of culturally appropriate community programs, especially related to the public school setting. She is most interested in understanding and representing emic perspectives to drive action research, informed by culturalist approaches and mixed methods.Peter W. Dowrick is Professor of Disability Studies and affiliate graduate faculty in Psychology at the University of Hawaii. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Auckland, ATCL at Trinity College London, M.Sc. at the University of Auckland, and B.Sc. at the Victoria University of Wellington. He has wide experience working with people marginalized by culture, disability, mental health, and other considerations. His consultation on prevention and intervention extends to 31 states and 21 countries. His overarching contribution has been in the concepts of feedforward and creating futures, applied in situations of personal safety, serious mental illness, social behavior, sports and recreation, daily living, literacy, academic skills, health, housing, management, and jobs, among others.Ashley E. Maynard is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hawaii. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. at the University of California, Los Angeles, and B.A. at the University of Virginia. She studies the interrelationships of culture, contexts of child development, and healthy cognitive and social development of children. Based on a socio-cultural paradigm, the theoretical question that lies at the heart of her research program is the ways in which a variety of culturally based activity settings influence adaptive pathways of development for children and families. She teaches courses in Developmental Psychology and Culture and Human Development. 67 0042-0972/07/0300-0067/0 Ó 2007 Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, LLCregarding a public middle school. Qualitative research methods (interviews and observations) involved parents, teachers, administrators, and community agency members and officials in participatory action research. Findings displayed a base of cultural differences regarding parent involvement: Samoan parents were expected to participate in school events and assist children with homework, yet Samoan culture has historically divided the parents' responsibilities from the teachers' responsibilities. Parents identified their responsibil...

Bridging the Community-School Divide: 10 Years of School Community Councils in Hawaii

“…Studies in low-income and diverse schools find that teachers or teachers and parents vary in their perspectives and practices of family engagement (Maielua, 2011;Sakai, 2015). Valdez, Dowrick, and Maynard (2007) found that there were cultural differences in the perceived roles of teachers and parents with Samoan families. Samoan parents expected their role to be focused more on disciplining and providing attendance and resource support instead of academic support, which teachers could interpret as lower family engagement.…”

Sāsā: More Than Just a Dance

“…Thus, it is at the meso level that sāsā plays an important role in helping children to make connections between home, school, and culture. This connection is important because historically there has been a recognised disconnect between Pasifi ka families and the school (Valdez et al 2007 ). Part of the disconnect can be attributed to Sāmoan traditional perspectives of schooling.…”

“…Part of the disconnect can be attributed to Sāmoan traditional perspectives of schooling. Valdez et al ( 2007 ) claim that Sāmoan parents have historically separated academic matters that are perceived to be the responsibility of schools from spiritual and cultural matters that are considered to be the responsibility of families. On the other hand, schools in New Zealand, have tended to be very monolingual and monocultural European.…”

Toward a Decolonial Parenting Science Through Centering Majority World Parenting: A Commentary on “Parenting Culture(s): Ideal-Parent Beliefs Across 37 Countries”

“…Although such a method may not have been feasible to implement in Lin et al's (2022) study given that parents across 37 countries may have multiple different perspectives about what to study and how to study, future parenting research should consider involving parents and other caregivers during earlier phases of the research process. For example, researchers have engaged parents in participatory action research that led to generating knowledge with beneficial outcomes for children in educational and health care contexts (Shen et al, 2016;Valdez et al, 2007). Calls for decolonizing research methodology in social sciences suggest such participatory methods (Kia-Keating & Juang, 2022), using indigenous ways of knowledge construction including ways of observing, interacting and conversing, and understanding experiences (Moreno Sandoval et al, 2016) and adapting methods such as narrative inquiry, critical ethnography, and grounded theory (Bermudez et al, 2016), for example, by ensuring that language used in interviews aligns with and affirms the experiences of community members (Ndimande, 2012).…”