Abstract
Numerous studies have compared parents’ and teachers’ beliefs about school readiness. However, no known research has explicitly examined the alignment of school readiness skills between immigrant parents and early childhood teachers. As such, the current study examined differences in prioritized school readiness skills between Latine and Chinese immigrant parents and preschool and kindergarten teachers. Participants were 45 Latine parents, 23 Chinese parents, 52 preschool teachers, and 23 kindergarten teachers. Participants completed a Q-sort task in which they ranked the importance of 36 school readiness skills that represented six school readiness domains. One-way ANOVAs were conducted to examine alignment between teachers and parents based on parents’ ethnicity and when parents immigrated. Results revealed strong alignment of school readiness beliefs between and among parents and early childhood teachers. Overall, most parents and teachers prioritized social-emotional and language skills and placed less priority on motor/self-help and academic skills. Although the general pattern of beliefs was typically consistent across groups, there were some statistically significant differences between parents and teachers for four of the six school readiness domains. This fairly strong alignment is promising in regard to shared home-school values. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.
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Sawyer, B., Shera, S., Cai, Y. et al. School Readiness Beliefs: Comparing Priorities of Early Childhood Teachers and Immigrant Latine and Chinese Parents. Early Childhood Educ J (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01617-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01617-1