Parental Responsibilization: Involving “Immigrant Parents” in Swedish Schools

Mångfaldens möten: Interkulturalitet, utbildning och lärande

“…Vårdnadshavares engagemang i elevers skolgång har långa anor i Sverige, och har också visat sig ha en positiv effekt på elevernas kunskapsresultat (Kim, 2022;Wilder, 2014). Vårdnadshavare till nyanlända elever möter dock ofta en för dem obekant skolmiljö, i vilken det kan vara svårt att navigera, särskilt om de själva håller på att lära sig det nya språket (Anthony-Newman, 2019; Dahlstedt, 2018). Att engagera sig och att dela med sig av sina kunskaper kan då upplevas som utmanande för vissa (jfr.…”

Educational Policies on Family–School Relations

“…Thus, local school boards have made little progress in improving parent participation (Kristoffersson et al, 2013). With the rapid growth of immigrant students in the country over the last decade (EUROSTAT, 2016), a number of research studies of Swedish schools have also documented that stereotypical representations of immigrant parents are quite normalized among many school leaders and teachers in Sweden (Gruber, 2007;Mulinari, 2007;Dahlstedt, 2018). For example.…”

“…For example. Dahlstedt (2018) found that immigrant parents were not viewed as proficient to help their children in their school work due to their perceived limitations regarding knowledge of the Swedish language, culture, and school system and their lack of presence in school. Dahlstedt claimed that deficit perspectives about immigrant parents are partly the consequence of partnership policies that take place on the school's terms rather than those of the parents.…”

“…These limited forms of partnership might serve to even further alienate low income and ethnic and linguistic minority families and might result in mutual distrust between home and school (Evans, 2018). Researchers in the United States (e.g., Baquedano-Lopez et al, 2013;Adair, 2013), Canada (e.g., Guo, 2012), Australia (e.g., Lea et al, 2011), and Sweden (e.g., Dahlstedt, 2018) have well documented how ethnic and linguistic minority families were seen to be shaped, taught, changed, acculturated or reconfigured to be considered successful in education, since these families' strategies stood outside of the traditional involvement models.…”