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Why can’t immigrant parents and their children’s teachers talk to each other?

Why can’t immigrant parents and their children’s teachers talk to each other?. CIDEC Seminar Jan. 30, 2013. What is the problem?. Canada received 52,868 immigrants children of 0-14 years in 2011 ( cic.gc.ca , 2013)

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Why can’t immigrant parents and their children’s teachers talk to each other?

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  1. Why can’t immigrant parents and their children’s teachers talk to each other? CIDEC Seminar Jan. 30, 2013

  2. What is the problem? • Canada received 52,868 immigrants children of 0-14 years in 2011 (cic.gc.ca, 2013) • Immigrant children fail, drop-out, are suspended, streamed into non-academic courses, and diagnosed with learning disabilities in disproportionate numbers (Anisef et al, 2008; Glick & Hohmann-Marriott, 2007)

  3. What do we already know? • Parent-teacher relationships make a crucial difference to children’s academic and social integration in schools (e.g. Englund et. al 2004; Lawson, 2003) • Racial, cultural and socio-economic differences between teachers and parents are a factor in this relationship (e.g. Dei, 2006; Turney & Kao, 2009)

  4. What are the demographics? • Most teachers in North America are White, middle-class women who have not had sustained close contact with immigrant families, or sufficient preparation for working with them (Bernhard, 2010; Graue, 2005) • Recent immigrants to Canada have come mostly from former European colonies (Statistics Canada, 2010)

  5. What did we try to find out? • Why and how do these differences shape this relationship? • What do immigrant parents and their children’s teachers think about each other? • What do they expect from each other? • How do they communicate? • What may help to improve their relationships?

  6. What theoretical frameworks did we draw upon? • Socio-cultural theories: • Historical, socio-political, cultural contexts are important in learning & teaching (Lim & Renshaw, 2001; Suárez-Orozco, 2001) • Post-colonial perspectives: • Legacies of colonialism continue to shape relations between nation-states • Colonizers and the colonized have internalized images of themselves and the Other (Hage, 2000; Porter, 2009)

  7. Frameworks… • Communities of practice • Norms about academic and social conduct in Canadian schools shaped by Anglo-American traditions. Immigrants are often unaware of these norms. (Crozier, 2000) • Ethic of care • A relationship rather than a role • A substantial knowledge of the other (Noddings, 2002, 2005)

  8. How did we conduct the inquiry? • A qualitative approach to elicit perceptions, expectations, and communication patterns • University & school board ethics approvals • Five schools (two secondary and three elementary) in high immigration neighbourhoods • 29 teachers (including some administrators / ESL teachers) • Six groups of parents (32) who spoke Arabic, Creole, Mandarin, Russian, Somali, and Urdu

  9. Loosely structured interview guide • Video-taped focus group sessions in first languages conducted by bi-lingual graduate students / community-based researchers • Transcribed and translated by the above • Analytical codes guided by questions, web diagrams, hierarchical categorization & memos

  10. Teachers’ views about immigrant parents • Acknowledgment of limited contact but tendency to generalize: • “It’s a guessing game because you patch it together” • “And just speaking with some parents, I know about the community” • General comments about immigrant parents • Work for long hours in low-income, low-status jobs • Live in cramped apartments • Very ambitious for their children • Always respectful in their interactions with teachers

  11. Perceptions about specific groups • Mandarin: Overly ambitious, hard working, children didn’t know how to share materials or teachers’ attention • Urdu: Conservative, from war-torn rural environments, oppressive gender relations • Somali: refugees, academically poorly prepared • Creole: Split families, harsh discipline, high drop-out rate

  12. Immigrant parents’ views about teachers • Acknowledgment of individual acts of sensitivity & generosity but also readily generalized • Have low expectations of immigrant children • Prejudiced against them because of race, ethnicity, religion, and presumed low educational and socio-economic status

  13. Immigrant parents’ views • “…the person is respected because you know the rules, culture and habits, and you have more resources …if a person does not speak the language or does not understand the system, and is Black, the children and their parents will not be respected in the school” • “I just want to tell the teachers here, please don’t look down on our culture. Don’t look at someone wearing a veil and degrade her. Learn more. We are people who have an excellent history..”

  14. Teachers’ perceptions about location of expertise • Teachers: • “We are in a position to decide by, sort of, controlling the flow of information” • “[They] ask us to do what in our perception is their job around parenting” • “They want their children to be successful…they just don’t know how to do it.” • “They need to protect themselves, or they want to pretend or show you that they know, okay, they are not from nowhere, they have a background, they just need reassurance…”

  15. Parents’ perceptions about location of expertise • “But teachers at school must have a role, not only to teacher subjects.. That students don’t raise their voice, don’t take things that don’t belong to them, teach them some morals and manners” • “[Because of ‘the magic teacher’] all of a sudden her English improved a lot and she became much more eloquent. • “We had such trust in the system, trust in teachers, trust in people who take the child and are responsible for his future…”

  16. In summary … • Teachers see immigrant parents through lens of deficits • Immigrant parents show high levels of dependency on teachers

  17. Differences in beliefs and practices acknowledged but no expectation of reciprocal accommodation or negotiation • Asymmetrical relations due to historical and current imbalances in power and privilege, as well as institutional cultures

  18. Why should teachers care? • Professional ethic of care – moral ideal of self as a teacher “As teacher, I am, first, one-caring” (Noddings, 2005, p.176)

  19. What can teachers do? • Acknowledge : • Power differential due to historical and current socio-cultural, economic and political locations • Few implicitly shared bodies of knowledge • Question assumptions about individual, group, and universal characteristics of immigrant parents • Learn the details about a small number of immigrant families at a time (see Ali, Corson & Frankel, 2008)

  20. How can teachers do this? • In formal settings: • Jointly identify, examine, and challenge assumptions about each other, locating these in historical and current power imbalances • Build consensus about content and forms of communication that are both desirable and feasible

  21. In informal settings: • Listen to each other’s life stories • Engage in joint activities the teacher is not necessarily the expert (e.g. sports, arts and crafts, languages, cooking etc.)

  22. Acknowledgments • Thanks to Antoinette Gagné for her leadership of the project from which the data were collected, her graduate students for their contributions to the data-collection and analysis, and Canadian Heritage for funding the project.

  23. Ali, M. A. (2008). Loss of parenting self-efficacy among immigrant parents. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9(2), 148-160. • Ali, M. A., Corson, P. & Frankel, E. (2009). Listening to families: Reframing services. Toronto: Chestnut Publishers • Anisef, P., Brown, R., Phythian, K., Sweet, R. & Walters, D. (2008). Early school leaving among immigrants in Toronto Secondary Schools. CERIS Working Paper Series 67. Retrived on Feb.2, 2011 from http://ceris.metropolis.net/Virtual%20Library/WKPP%20List/WKPP2008/CWP67.pdf • Anisef P., Brown, R., Sweet, R. & Walters, D. (2010). Educational pathways and academic performance of youth of immigrant origin in Toronto. CERIS Working Paper Series No.82. Retrieved on Feb.3, 2011 from http://ceris.metropolis.net/research-policy/CWP82_Anisef_Brown_Sweet.pdf • Bernhard, J. K. (2010). From theory to practice: Engaging immigrant parents in their children’s education. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 56 (3), 319-334 • Bernhard, J.K., Lefebvre, M.L., Kilbride, K.M., Chud, G., & Lange, R. (1998). Troubled relationships in early childhood education: Parent-teacher interactions in ethnoculturally diverse settings. Early Education and Development, 9(1), 5–28.

  24. Crozier, G. (2000). Parents and schools: Partners or protagonists? Staffordshire, UK: Trentham Books Ltd. • Dei, G. (2006). Anti-colonialism and education. Toronto: Sense Publishers • Englund, M. M., Luckner, A. E., Whaley, G. and Egeland, B. (2004), Children's achievement in early elementary school: Longitudinal effects of parental involvement, expectations, and quality of assistance. Journal of Educational Psychology,96(4), 723-730 • Glick, J. E. and Hohmann-Marriott, B. (2007). Academic Performance of Young Children in Immigrant Families: The Significance of Race, Ethnicity, and National Origins. International Migration Review, 41: 371–402. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2007.00072.x • Graue, E. (2005) Theorizing and describing preservice teachers’ images of families and schooling. Teachers College Record. Retrieved on Dec.4, 2010 from http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=11693 • Greenfield, P.M., Quiroz, B. & Raeff, C. (2000). Cross-cultural harmony and conflict in the social construction of the child. In S. Harkness, C.M. Super and C. Raeff (Eds.) New directions for child and adolescent development. (pp. 93-108) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass • Hage, G. (2000). White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society. New York: Routledge • Kao, G. (2004). Social capital and its relevance to minority and immigrant populations. Sociology of Education 77, 172-183 • Kao, G. & Tienda, M. (2005). Optimism and achievement: The educational performance of immigrant youth.. In M. Suarez-Orozco & C. Suarez-Orozco (Eds.) The new immigration: An interdisciplinary reader, (pp. 331-344) New York: Brunner-Routledge

  25. Lawson, M. A. (2003). School-Family relations in context: Parent and teacher perceptions of parent involvement. Urban Education, 38(1), 77-133. • Lightfoot, S. L. (2003) The essential conversation: What teachers and parents can learn from each other. New York: Random House • Lim, L., and Renshaw, P. (2001). The relevance of sociocultural theory to culturally diverse partnerships and communities. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 10(1), 9-21 • Noddings, N. (2002) Educating moral people: a caring alternative to character education. New York: Teachers College Press • Noddings, N. (2005). Identifiying and responding to needs in education. Cambridge Journal of Education35(2), 147-159 • Porter, A. (2009) Introduction. In A. Porter (Ed.) The Oxford history of the British Empire: The nineteenth century. Oxford: Oxford University Press • Statistics Canada (2006). Study: Projections of the diversity of the Canadian Population. Retrieved on August 23, 2010 from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100309/dq100309a-eng.htm • Suarez-Orozco, M. (2001). Globalization, immigration and education: The research agenda. Harvard Educational Review. 71(3), 345-365 • Seidl, B. L. & Friend, G. (2002). Leaving authority at the door: Equal status, community-based experiences and the preparation of teachers for diverse classrooms. Teaching and Teacher Education18, 421-433 • Turney, K. & Kao, G. (2009). Barriers to school involvement: Are immigrant parents disadvantaged? The Journal of Educational Research, 102(4), 257-271

  26. Contact Information Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali Ryerson University maali@ryerson.ca For a slightly different version of this work check out Ali, M. (2012) The shadow of colonialism on relations between immigrant parents and their children’s teachers. Alberta Journal of Education 53 (2) 198-215

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