Abstract
This paper reports on a university/school board collaborative outreach program hosted by a linguistically, culturally, and racially diverse elementary school in Toronto, Canada. The program facilitates a forum where the school’s families—in conversation with in-service and pre-service teachers , the school’s administration, a local university’s faculty of education and community agencies—discuss issues the families deem important to their experience of public schooling. In addition to a detailed program overview, I present two tiers of participant feedback on the program, the first-tier gleaned from parent surveys and the second tier derived from a series of interviews conducted by parent researchers. Based on a consideration of the qualitative data emerging from this feedback, I offer three readings of the program: the first reading tells a story of how the program is empowering parents and caregivers and bringing them closer to their children’s schooling; the second reading draws four implications that complicate the apparent successes of the program; and the third reading takes shape as a broader epistemic and ethical caution for action-oriented research of this sort.
This chapter has been updated from an original version appearing in the School Community Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1 as In(Formal) Conversation with Minority Parents and Communities of a Canadian Junior School: Findings and Cautions from the Field . It can be retrieved from http://www.schoolcommunitynetwork.org/SCJ.aspx and is reprinted here with permission.
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Notes
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The work of these parent-research teams, specifically as they investigated the issue of discipline, is elaborated in Ippolito (2010a).
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Appendix. Questionario de Preguntas (Interview Questions)
Appendix. Questionario de Preguntas (Interview Questions)
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1.
Siustedasistióal “Programa de Aprendizaje en Casa y Escuela,” podríadecir-nos cuantas veces tuvo la oportunidad de participar en el? (How many times did you attend the Learning in Schools and Homes program last year?)
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2.
Son sus hijos alumnos es esta escuela? Si es así, participaron ellos junto a usted en el programa? (Did your children attend this school last year? If so, did they attend the program with you?)
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3.
Que le animo a usted a participar en este programa? (Why did you attend the program?)
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4.
Podríadecirnoscualfueelpropósitodeesteprograma? (What did you think the purpose of this program was?)
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5.
Tuvo la oportunidad de aprender algo nuevo en este programa? (Did you learn anything from the program?)
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6.
Piensa usted que este programa le ayudo a ver como se desarrolla la edu-cación de sus hijos, y como se desenvuelve la escuela a que ellos asisten? (Did the program change anything about how you think about your children’s education or the school they attend?)
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7.
Piensa usted que la participación de los padres en el programa, pueda haber producido un efecto positivo entre ellos? (Did the program have any effect on your relationship with other parents in the school?)
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8.
Que piensa usted que se debería hacer o cambiar para mejorar el programa? (What could be done to improve the program?)
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9.
Desearía asistir a otras reuniones como estas posteriormente? Si o No? (Will you be attending the program this year? Why or why not?)
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10.
Hay algo mas que usted desearía agregar o preguntar? (Is there anything else we haven’t talked about that you would like to add?)
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Ippolito, J. (2018). Learning in Schools and Homes: Successes and Complications in Bringing Minority Parents into Conversation with Their Children’s School. In: Guo, Y. (eds) Home-School Relations. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0324-1_4
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