This study examined Latino parents perceptions of the nature, purposes, and consequences of their involvement (or lack thereof) in elementary and middle schools and in their childrens education. Parents also provided their conceptualization education as well as the positive and negative factors perceived to affect their involvement: aspects of parents own situation and institutional/contextual factors.
This study focused on the views and experiences of parents of the two major Latino groups of Chelsea (Puerto Ricans and Central Americans) with children in different grades in the four regular elementary schools and the two regular middle schools of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Thirteen families were interviewed, including nine couples, three single mothers, and a grandmother. The selection of the participants was guided by my prior involvement in the community and by advice elicited from key members of the Chelsea community. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data collected.
All parents participating in the study conceptualized education as an integrated process that includes both learning at school (formal education) and learning at home (personal education). They emphasized home/personal education and approached parental involvement in light of this conception of education at home. The majority of parents referred to a cultural clash when describing parents and teachers roles. Roles that are exercised around two domains, parents domain (based on traditional Latino value systems) that for most of the parents has not influence over schooling, and teachers domain (based on the United States value system) that is viewed by the majority of the parents as exercising the major influence in the formal education of their children and parents actions in relation to their involvement in school-related activities.
Although this emphasis on home education, the interviewees mentioned different forms of involvement in school-related activities, particularly in those related to their childrens education, though none of the parents reported attending, let alone actively participating in, formal school organizational meetings, such parent teacher organization (PTO) or the district-level school board. Most of the parents expressed their lack of interest and some were skeptical about whether such involvement was worthwhile, since it was unlikely that any changes would happen in relation to school policy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-05142005-205210 |
| Date | 19 May 2005 |
| Creators | Cordova, Victor R |
| Contributors | Billie DeWalt, Noreen Garman, Mark Ginsburg, John Weidman II |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-05142005-205210/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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