Initiating a different story about immigrant Somali parents’ support of their primary school children’s education

Abstract

<span>The ability of parents to nurture and support their children during their primary school years is considered to be fundamental for the child’s development and learning. Teachers and educational psychologists assign great prominence to parental involvement as a tool to advance educational success for children, especially for those who are faced with disadvantages. In the past two decades, we have seen South African schools radically shifting from being racially and ethnically homogenous to becoming culturally, ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous. It is especially the schools in the lower socioeconomic areas that find themselves under tremendous pressure to serve their growing immigrant school population. Not enough is known about the cultural capital that lies embedded in these learners’ home contexts and the roles that their parents play in their education. In this manuscript, I investigate the potential intersectionality of school and home and critique the affiliation between teachers and immigrant parents as an important dimension of learning success in the primary school. I situate the discussion in a community school with a strong Somali immigrant population.</span>

Overrepresentation of immigrants in special education. A grounded theory study on the case of Austria

“…Feeling incompetent in terms of the school system of the host country or language can be factors that discourage families in terms of involvement. As also suggested by Daniels (2017), parents in this study considered their lack of information about schools or language as barriers to the academic achievement of their children. However, they engaged others to compensate for their deficiency.…”

Their capital has value, too: Exploring parental educational support in low-socioeconomic single-mother families

“…Educational research has often approached single-mother families from a deficit perspective, assuming that due to a lack of economic resources and poor education, these families are an educational disadvantage for children (Aragon, 2018;Baquendano-Lopez et al, 2013;Hampden-Thompson, 2009;Koh et al, 2017). Instead, our research builds on research that has highlighted the stories of marginalised parents who wanted to, and believed that they should, be involved in their children's educational journey (Camacho-Thompson et al, 2019;Daniels, 2017;Epstein, 2011;Hoover-Demsey et al, 2001;LeFevre & Shaw, 2012;Okeke, 2014).…”

“…As a result, the educational support experiences of parents from low-socioeconomic communities remain underreported, and knowledge about how these parents navigate and contribute to their children's educational success remains under explored. We argue that there are sociocultural differences in parents' educational support strategies, and that family structures impose differing challenges on parents' contributions (Camacho-Thompson et al, 2019;Daniels, 2017Daniels, , 2018Epstein, 2011;Hoover-Demsey et al, 2001;LeFevre & Shaw, 2005;Okeke, 2014). For our discussion, we limit our context to the single-mother family unit.…”

Australian Strategic Partnerships in Remote Education

“…In particular, involving parents and caregivers in student learning has a greater impact on improving student outcomes than socioeconomic status (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003;Goldman, 2005). Research into parental involvement into schooling also shows that educational interactions are most effective when voluntary (Fischer et al, 2019;Hill et al, 2018), when there is a clear understanding of the roles of parents and teachers in learning (Chai et al, 2020;Daniels, 2017) and where partnerships between parents and teachers have a deliberate focus on learning and wellbeing (Gascoigne, 2014). Recent studies on the role of parents/caregivers in student learning also emphasise that the role of the parent is not to replace the teacher, but rather to support the learning of the child, particularly in regard to supporting students with disabilities (Dunn et al, 2016) or those impacted by disadvantage (Farkas, 2018).…”