In the U.S. the population continues to diversify as refugees find residence within its borders. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Refugee Resettlement Statistics (2012) of those refugees fourteen thousand and twenty identified themselves as Karen refugees from Burma. In the context of education, teachers are confronted with the language development of English Language Learners (ELLs). At the researchers school site the ELLs population include; immigrants, refugees, and Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE). Although it is known that refugee students have limited formal education, which creates difficulty for them to access content and develop their English language proficiency (Decapua, Smathers, & Tang, 2009), there was a paucity of data of the cultural differences of Karen refugees’ parents experiences with formal education systems compared to those of other refugees. The researcher conducted an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) case study grounded in sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) with the aim to analyze the personal experience of Karen refugee women who relocated to an urban city located in the northeastern United States as parents of students in the U.S. public school system. After the conclusion of the study following dominant themes arose: family, limited formal education, communication and cultural representation. One major implication constituted the need for inclusion of families’ and students’ cultural knowledge into school systems and curriculum. Considering the cultural gap, it is important that teacher training programs and administrators prepare teachers with strategies for incorporating culturally responsive teaching practices into their pedagogy. Another implication of the study was communication between multilingual refugee families and American schools. Institutions working with refugee communities should prioritize interpreting and translation.

The purpose of this study was to examine involvement of African refugee parents in the education of their elementary school children. The setting of the study was Northern and Southern Texas. African refugee parents and their children's teachers completed written surveys and also participated in interviews. In the study's mixed-method design, quantitative measures provided data about parent involvement at home, parent involvement at school, frequency of parent-teacher contact, quality of parent-teacher relationship, parent endorsement of children's schools, and barriers to parent involvement. Qualitative data from the open-ended questions provided data on barriers and strategies to improve involvement. Sixty-one African refugee parents responded to the survey and also participated in an in-depth face-to-face or telephone interview. Twenty teacher participants responded to an online survey. Quantitative data gathered from the parent and teacher surveys were analyzed using frequency distributions and analyses of variance. Qualitative data were analyzed by summarizing and sorting information into different categories using Weft QDA, an open-source qualitative analysis software. From these data, I identified barriers to African refugee parent involvement in their children's schools, as well as challenges that teachers face as they try to involve African refugee parents. Results of analyses of variance revealed statistically significant differences in parent involvement between African refugee parents with limited English proficiency and those with high English proficiency. A key finding of the research was that, whereas the overall level of parent involvement for African refugee parents was low, a major barrier to involvement was language. Teachers and parents cited enrolment in English as a second language programs as the best strategy to enhance parent involvement of African refugees. Additionally, parents who reported higher education levels were more involved in their children's education both at home and at school. All groups of African refugee parents reported high endorsement of their children's school. Strategies suggested to improve involvement include the use of interpreters and parent education on importance of involvement.