Community-School Relationships: A Case Study of Latino Student - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Untangling Competing Forces in Family- Community-School Relationships: A Case Study of Latino Student College Access

Aliah Carolan-Silva, Ph.D., Visiting Research Fellow Robert Reyes Ph.D., Research Director Ruben P. Viramontez Anguiano Ph.D., Visiting Research Fellow Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning Goshen College

Research Questions

• How do families, schools and communities

support college access for Latino youth? What are the barriers each faces in supporting college access?

• How does the socio-economic context

influence families, school and community in their interactions with each other and in their ability to share responsibility for college access?

Theoretical Framework

Family-School-Community Relationships

• Epstein (1995): home, community, school as three spheres of student’s lives
• Support of student development and achievement depends on connection

between spheres

• Socio-cultural processes and structures mediate ways families and communities

participate and share responsibility (Auerbach 2007; Lareau 2000)

• Connections depend on high levels of trust, equal voice in decision-making,

shared expectations and shared understandings of the problems and solutions (Bryk and Schneider 2002, Dodd and Konzal 2002, Oakes et al. 2000)

Stages of College Preparation and Access

• Pre-disposition, Search and Choice
• Process begins as early as middle school and continues through the end of 12th

grade

• Requires access to diverse information and knowledge
• Much of process assumed to be responsibility of families

Methodology

Case Study Approach

• Draws on data from several larger studies of

college access for Latino students in Northern Indiana

• Focus groups with high school students and

parents in four communities

• Interviews with teachers and administrators
• Interviews with 20 college bound Latino youth
• Interviews with 40 Latino families
• Document Analysis: Newspaper articles, policy

documents

• Observations of school and community events

Demographics: Elkhart County U.S. Census 2000-2010

ELKHART COUNTY 197,559 2000-2010 increase: 14,766 2000-2010 percent increase 8.1% Cedartown 31,719 White 21,140 Minorities 10,579

• -Hispanics (8,903)

% Minorities 33.3%

• -% Hispanics (28.0%)

School Snapshot: Minority Student Population 1990-2010

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%

Minority Students as % of Total Student Body

Indiana State Average Cedartown Community Schools

Source: Indiana Accountability System for Academic Progress (ASAP)

School Snapshot: English as a New Language (ENL) Population 1991-2008

0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% 35.00% 40.00%

Limited English Students as % of Student Body Indiana Limited English Students as % of Student Body Cedartown Community Schools

Source: Indiana Accountability System for Academic Progress (ASAP)

Findings: Family, School and Community Support for Latino Student College Access Family Schools Community

College Access

Family

Forms of Participation

• Conversations over Economic

Reality.

• Encourage children to seek

resources from other sources.

• Emphasize the importance of

children’s bilingual and bicultural development

• Help children to find balance

between family and school responsibilities

Barriers to Participation

• Work schedules and participation

in school activities

• Feeling unwelcomed and

intimidated by traditional school events.

• Feelings of Discrimination.
• Majority of parents have not

completed high school or have knowledge of the system.

• Unsure of where to find support .

School

Sources of Support for College Access

• English as a New Language

(ENL) coordinator supports Latino students and parents

• Individual teachers provide

additional support for “high potential” students

• Latino students in higher

tracks immersed in culture

• f college expectations
• School provides access to

translators and has translators available at school events

Barriers to Support

• Focus on responding to socio-

economic issues rather than culture/race/ethnicity

• Focus on language as barrier for

Latinos families and students

• Unrealistic expectations for

parental support

• Educational policy labels school as

failing as a result of increase in ENL students

• School policy makes it difficult for

children from Spanish-speaking homes to become college bound

Community

Sources of Support for College Access

• Emerging Latino community

groups have organized culturally- relevant college nights at High School and Middle School

• Many churches support immigrant

rights and provide resources to Latino families

Barriers to Support

• Tensions in larger community over

changes in school- fueled by “failing” school label

• Debates about immigration create

difficult environment for undocumented families to seek assistance

• Outside of individual churches, no

centralized location that serves the Latino community

Gaps in Support for Students

• Individual students piece together resources

from multiple sources

• Students as main cultural broker for their

families

• Students rely on peers (particularly in higher

tracks) for information and support

• Documented students in higher tracks receive

more support from school

• Students with college potential in regular

tracks and undocumented students struggle significantly more with process

• Students attend colleges below their potential

Conclusion

• Tensions over immigration combined with socio-

economic decline impede the relationship between schools and Latino families

• Attention to relationship between public definition
• f educational problems and community climate
• Definition of problem as language and poverty

ignores cultural barriers in the school and community to family participation and college access

• Latino college events demonstrate potential for

school-community-family partnerships when culture is considered

References

Auerbach, S. (2002). "Why Do They Give the Good Classes to Some and Not to Others?" Latino Parent Narratives

• f Struggle in a College Access Program.” Teachers College Record 104 (7), p. 1369-1392.

Bryk, A. and B. Schneider. Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002. Cabrera, A. F. & La Nasa, S. M. (2000). “Understanding the College Choice of Disadvantaged Students.” New Directions for Institutional Research. Number 107. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Dodd, A.W. and J.L. Konzal. How Communities Build Stronger Schools: Stories, Strategies, and Promising Practices for Educating Every Child. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002. Epstein, J. (1995) “School/Family/Community Partnerships: Caring for the Children We Share.” Phi Delta Kappan 76, 701-712. Hoover-Dempsey, K. & H. Sandler (1997) “Why Do Parents Become Involved in Their Children’s Education?” Review of Educational Research 67 (1), 3-42. Lareau, A. (2000). Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary School. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Information on Public Schools and School Districts in the United States, National Center for Education Statistics, Retrieved May 2010 from http://www.nces.ed.gov/ccd/. Oakes, J., K.H. Quartz, S. Ryan and M. Lipton. Becoming Good American Schools: The Struggle for Civic Virtue in Education Reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000.