Understanding the Perspectives, Challenges, and Needs of Foreign-Born/Immigrant Parents: Using CBPR to Identify Culture-Informed Strategies to Promote High School Student Success

Background and Purpose
There are disparities in academic success between foreign-born and US-born high school students. These disparities expand with continued poor academic performance or school drop-out, resulting in fewer post-high school opportunities, lower income, fewer resources to address health and mental health challenges. With approximately 20% of those attending US schools being foreign-born, this disparity is a significant issue to address.

Protective factors facilitating academic successes include parental involvement: parental familiarity with supportive academic supports, positive working relationships with teachers. Risk factors include parents’ incomplete understanding of the US educational system and expectations for parental involvement. Parents’ perceptions of school personnel’s attitudes regarding authorized/unauthorized documentation status can be a barrier to school involvement. Without a clear understanding of the needs of this foreign-born student population, in-school and community-based programs cannot successfully offer needed services.

Methods
Research aims were to: (1)understand the perspectives, concerns, and needs of foreign-born parents regarding how they can support academic success for their adolescents attending high school, (2)describe parents’ familiarity with educational expectations and school services/supports, (3)learn what factors can be barriers or facilitators to positive working relationships with teachers, school counselors and other school personnel, (4)identify collaborative efforts among parents and teachers to support academic success and post high school transition.

A Community-Based Participation Research model was employed, using a ‘co-learning’ approach, shifting expertise to a shared position. The study was conducted at a public high school in a large northeastern urban city where all students are foreign-born, English language learners.

Participants [n=24] were foreign-born parents of students from this high school. Multiple recruitment strategies were employed: brief study description at evening parent meetings or connections with teachers/school counselors, flyers posted in school, follow-up emails. Focus groups or face-to-face interviews were conducted. Transcriptions were coded thematically using NVivo; analyses were informed by grounded theory principles.

Results
While language was an issue in working with the school, more important was culture. Teachers and school personnel needed a clearer understanding of students’/parents’ culture, their immigrant experience and challenges adjusting to the US. Parent needs included assistance in understanding the US educational system and what a parent’s role is. Communication with school can be difficult due to language and time availability to meet with teachers. However, those who attended evening parent meetings appreciated school efforts to reach out.

Parents underscored the importance of self-advocacy and connections with other foreign-born parents. There was also interest in establishing closer relationships with immigrant community organizations. These social interactions were linked with the alleviation of student isolation and successful academic, developmental, and acculturative transitions.

Conclusions & Implications
Findings underscore the importance of an integrated understanding (parent and school personnel) about student and parent needs that can be translated into ‘scaffolding’ to support foreign-born students’ success and positive transitions post high school.   Implications highlight the role that school social workers can have in addressing these issues. Additional research is needed to understand further roles that parents can have in supporting their student’s academic success and positive transitions into adulthood in the US.