Starting the Discussion with your Community
In order to better understand and serve their communities teachers need to develop strong relationships with parents, especially those of disadvantaged groups. Just as teachers have to make students understand that equality doesn’t mean equity, this may apply to parents as well (Clayton, 1996, p. 107). Parents’ opinion of integration can be as diverse as anyone else’s. My experience is that a solid foundation for working with parents is built when parents see that a teacher works in the best interest of the students in his or her charge.
Of course, despite best intentions teachers are not necessarily perfect in working with parents. Clayton’s Your land, my land: Children in the process of acculturation notes that while most teachers are welcoming and work hard they are also susceptible to taking certain things for granted with parents. Clayton’s article follows several immigrant students in their acculturation process. For the most part, teachers and school staff were often presented as being very helpful with the teachers stating their strategies to making sure the students were integrated; however, despite their best efforts Clayton finds examples of areas that needed improvement. One parent confesses that they received an overload of information at the beginning of the year with dozens of letters and forms that they could not keep up with and ultimately ignored but then not receiving feedback or any communication from the teachers (1996, p. 59). Another parent expresses their child’s frustration of academic difficulty because expectations are not communicated clearly (1996, p. 98). In all of these situations, teachers believe that they were doing their best to integrate their students. And maybe they were when considering time restraints and resources; however, what is clear is that there is room for improvement. If we teachers are really looking to improve our classrooms we have to be willing to identify these areas that need improvement.
Clayton’s book highlighted examples of parents that were in favor of integration. This is not always the case. Some parents may completely reject their child’s attempts at adopting mainstream cultural practices and values. Shariff’s “Ethnic identity and parenting stress in South Asian families: Implications for culturally sensitive counselling.” looks at the different challenges faced by school counsellors in their care of students of South Asian families. While Shariff is careful to stress that no group is homogeneous there are certain traits that many South Asians share. She points out that although South Asians have different religions and language, they do share a similar culture based on the importance of family and a collectivist attitude (2009, p. 36). This contrasts to the Western curriculum that often emphasizes the ideal of separation from parents and family, individuation and the development of an independent, autonomous self (Tsang et al, 2003, p. 362).In the case of these families, some parents may see their child’s preference for their host culture as a sign of poor parenting and consequently leads to lots of stress and conflict in the home (2009, p. 38). This may mean that the students may engage in the compartmentalization of self, acting differently at school and at home (2009, p. 38). Shariff mentions that rigid gender roles in these more traditional communities usually means that there is considerably more pressure on girls to reject adopting host culture values (2009, p. 39). It is important for educators to be aware and sensitive to these issues. Families from these more conservative backgrounds while respectful of school officials prefer to keep family matters private and are often very reluctant to seek out counseling as well as suspicious of interference from educators (Shariff, 2009, p. 36).
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, other parents may seek complete assimilation. Berger and Epps relate examples of some First Nations parents who seek this type of integration as a “relief from their oppressor” (2006, p. 12). These parents figure that if their children are to be successful in the world they must adapt to the mainstream culture fully and abandon their own culture. Other First Nations parents want schools to teach their children non-Native ways. These parents want to preserve their culture but by stressing First Nations cultural practices at home (2006, p. 13).
This range of attitudes among First Nations parents reflects Guardado’s findings with attitudes among members of ethnic communities. In his qualitative study, Guardado found that while some parents wanted their children to only learn the host culture language, many participants also equated L1 language loss with cultural identity loss (2010, p. 331). They did not want their children to lose their cultural heritage and first language (2010, p. 341). For these families, multiculturalism and multilingualism is an important bridge for family unity and maintaining cultural identities and as a starting point to learn other languages (2010, p. 331). My own parents wanted my school experience to be a place where I learned English and Canadian value; whereas at home, they spoke to me in Italian and developed a more collectivitist understanding of the world based on our Mediterranean culture.
Finally, Ghosh & Abdi (2013) point out that some parents seem completely absent from the lives of their children. Teachers’ attempts to contact parents to address problems with integration are ignored or dismissed. These situations can be frustrating for teachers, but Ghosh & Abdi caution against jumping to conclusions about the parents and their respective cultures pointing out that communities have diverse ways of dealing with situations (p. 123).
Parents adopt these different views of integration because they believe they are doing the right thing for their child. Nakagawa & Thompson’s National Film Board of Canada film “Between: Living in the hyphen” explores biracial individuals’ experience of having more than one cultural identification in the classroom. Many of the participants related how their parents were oblivious to the difficulties that these individuals had in negotiating their identities as students. This often occurred because the participants were reluctant to share racist or discriminatory experiences with their parents. When the issues of racism and discrimination did come up, the participants pointed out that often their parents didn’t necessarily know how to equip their kids. Many of the participants wished they had spoken to their parents or that they were able to give them strategies to deal with the questions and being constantly called to account for their differences (Nakagawa, Thompson & NFB, 2005).
As in with the interaction with students, self-reflection needs to be an important aspect of a school’s relationship with the parents of their students. As Steinbach points out despite mounting attempts to create closer ties to the different communities including several policy documents in Quebec in the 1990s there is still room for improvement to create a truly inclusive school environment (Steinbach, 2010, p. 544).
Of course, despite best intentions teachers are not necessarily perfect in working with parents. Clayton’s Your land, my land: Children in the process of acculturation notes that while most teachers are welcoming and work hard they are also susceptible to taking certain things for granted with parents. Clayton’s article follows several immigrant students in their acculturation process. For the most part, teachers and school staff were often presented as being very helpful with the teachers stating their strategies to making sure the students were integrated; however, despite their best efforts Clayton finds examples of areas that needed improvement. One parent confesses that they received an overload of information at the beginning of the year with dozens of letters and forms that they could not keep up with and ultimately ignored but then not receiving feedback or any communication from the teachers (1996, p. 59). Another parent expresses their child’s frustration of academic difficulty because expectations are not communicated clearly (1996, p. 98). In all of these situations, teachers believe that they were doing their best to integrate their students. And maybe they were when considering time restraints and resources; however, what is clear is that there is room for improvement. If we teachers are really looking to improve our classrooms we have to be willing to identify these areas that need improvement.
Clayton’s book highlighted examples of parents that were in favor of integration. This is not always the case. Some parents may completely reject their child’s attempts at adopting mainstream cultural practices and values. Shariff’s “Ethnic identity and parenting stress in South Asian families: Implications for culturally sensitive counselling.” looks at the different challenges faced by school counsellors in their care of students of South Asian families. While Shariff is careful to stress that no group is homogeneous there are certain traits that many South Asians share. She points out that although South Asians have different religions and language, they do share a similar culture based on the importance of family and a collectivist attitude (2009, p. 36). This contrasts to the Western curriculum that often emphasizes the ideal of separation from parents and family, individuation and the development of an independent, autonomous self (Tsang et al, 2003, p. 362).In the case of these families, some parents may see their child’s preference for their host culture as a sign of poor parenting and consequently leads to lots of stress and conflict in the home (2009, p. 38). This may mean that the students may engage in the compartmentalization of self, acting differently at school and at home (2009, p. 38). Shariff mentions that rigid gender roles in these more traditional communities usually means that there is considerably more pressure on girls to reject adopting host culture values (2009, p. 39). It is important for educators to be aware and sensitive to these issues. Families from these more conservative backgrounds while respectful of school officials prefer to keep family matters private and are often very reluctant to seek out counseling as well as suspicious of interference from educators (Shariff, 2009, p. 36).
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, other parents may seek complete assimilation. Berger and Epps relate examples of some First Nations parents who seek this type of integration as a “relief from their oppressor” (2006, p. 12). These parents figure that if their children are to be successful in the world they must adapt to the mainstream culture fully and abandon their own culture. Other First Nations parents want schools to teach their children non-Native ways. These parents want to preserve their culture but by stressing First Nations cultural practices at home (2006, p. 13).
This range of attitudes among First Nations parents reflects Guardado’s findings with attitudes among members of ethnic communities. In his qualitative study, Guardado found that while some parents wanted their children to only learn the host culture language, many participants also equated L1 language loss with cultural identity loss (2010, p. 331). They did not want their children to lose their cultural heritage and first language (2010, p. 341). For these families, multiculturalism and multilingualism is an important bridge for family unity and maintaining cultural identities and as a starting point to learn other languages (2010, p. 331). My own parents wanted my school experience to be a place where I learned English and Canadian value; whereas at home, they spoke to me in Italian and developed a more collectivitist understanding of the world based on our Mediterranean culture.
Finally, Ghosh & Abdi (2013) point out that some parents seem completely absent from the lives of their children. Teachers’ attempts to contact parents to address problems with integration are ignored or dismissed. These situations can be frustrating for teachers, but Ghosh & Abdi caution against jumping to conclusions about the parents and their respective cultures pointing out that communities have diverse ways of dealing with situations (p. 123).
Parents adopt these different views of integration because they believe they are doing the right thing for their child. Nakagawa & Thompson’s National Film Board of Canada film “Between: Living in the hyphen” explores biracial individuals’ experience of having more than one cultural identification in the classroom. Many of the participants related how their parents were oblivious to the difficulties that these individuals had in negotiating their identities as students. This often occurred because the participants were reluctant to share racist or discriminatory experiences with their parents. When the issues of racism and discrimination did come up, the participants pointed out that often their parents didn’t necessarily know how to equip their kids. Many of the participants wished they had spoken to their parents or that they were able to give them strategies to deal with the questions and being constantly called to account for their differences (Nakagawa, Thompson & NFB, 2005).
As in with the interaction with students, self-reflection needs to be an important aspect of a school’s relationship with the parents of their students. As Steinbach points out despite mounting attempts to create closer ties to the different communities including several policy documents in Quebec in the 1990s there is still room for improvement to create a truly inclusive school environment (Steinbach, 2010, p. 544).