Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The University of Chicago Press American Journal of Education
The University of Chicago Press American Journal of Education
The University of Chicago Press American Journal of Education
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l
CONCHA DELGADO-GAITAN
University of Catifornia, Davis
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Delgado-Gaitan
pronclency.
November 1991
21
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Involving Parents in Schools
ln soclety.
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Delgado-Gaitan
Carpinteria Community
November 1991 23
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Involving Parents in Schools
discourage students from dropping out, and medical services for low-
income families remain challenges for the entire community to solve.
Of the nearly 12,000 residents, whites represent 67 percent, Mexican
Americans 31 percent, Asians 1 percent, blacks .5 percent, and others,
including American Indians, .5 percent. The Latino population is
made up of mostly Mexican Americans, whose history in California
ranges from the time of Mexican rule (early eighteenth century) to
recent immigrants from Mexico. There also appear to be an increasing
number of immigrants from Central and South America. This Latino
population consists of English-only speakers, bilingual speakers, and
limited-English speakers. The majority of this group (70 percent) is
English speaking and has lived in the community for three or more
generations. Although the census refers to this population as "Hispanic,"
the participants identify themselves as "Mexican," "Mexican American,"
and/or "Latino."
Census data about Carpinteria revealed that the Mexican population
was overrepresented in the fields of farming, fishing, and the resort
industry as compared to their Anglo counterparts. Approximately 48
percent of the bilingual and Spanish-only sector are employed in service
jobs or as laborers. They are largely the immigrant Mexican group.
Some people, however, work out of town in Santa Barbara or Ventura.
Schooling in Carpinteria
prlnclpa .
The Carpinteria school district has six schools: four elementary, one
junior high, and a high school. Each school deals with specific re-
quirements from the following state and federal program funds: Chapter
I, Economic Impact Aid (EIA), State Preschool, School Improvement
Program, Special Education, and Migrant Education.
Research Procedures
In spite of the fact that the school district had instituted a bilingual
program, the schools had problems involving the Latino parents in
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Delgado-Gaitan
Parent Involvement
November 1991 25
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Delgado-Gaitan
Preschool Program
November 1991 27
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Delgazlo-Gaitan
Marta's family and the father, quite sober, was watching television
with the children.
Marta's story depicts the extent to which Mrs. Baca was committed
to the total development of the children in her preschool. Profound
change such as occurred in the family with the alcoholic father can
take a great deal of time and is not always immediately evident. Families
acculturate to new beliefs and values at a pace commensurate with
the complex factors that affect their lives. Cultural change, while in-
evitable, often requires intervention and motivation such as this pre-
school teacher provided. Mrs. Baca addressed the family's emotional
and psychological needs by showing them how adult behavior affects
children. She also emphasized the importance of parents' caring not
just for the children's physical needs but also their learning in school
as a way of enhancing children's self-image.
Overall, the preschool teacher worked toward making the parents
coteachers. The family's native language was used to educate parents
about the school curriculum, and natural home activities were used
to teach children cognitive concepts. The teacher also utilized the
family's foods, recreation, parental history, and occupations to shape
her classroom curriculum so that the children would value their lan-
guage, culture, and heritage. Mrs. Baca's approach to involving the
families of Spanish-speaking students differed from the way in which
the other major state-funded program involved parents.
Migrant Program
November 1991 29
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Delgado-Gaitan
November 1991 31
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Delgado-Gaitan
social environment and the conditions under which they can operate
as a fundamental basis for change. As a result of their active participation
in the various settings, a small parent-group met and shared their
experiences. They recognized that they needed training in ways to
communicate with the school as well as strategies to help their children
with homework. This collective realization brought a small group of
parents together to organize COPLA, an acronym for Comite de Padres
Latinos, or "Committee for Latin Parents." In Spanish the acronym
means a couplet in a poem. The group's purpose was to understand
the school system and their rights and responsibilities as parents. In
Carpinteria, four strong advocates reached out to assist this group of
parents to build awareness, although they did not work together as a
team. All four held different positions in the school district. Two were
teachers, one a special project director, and the fourth a Migrant
Education Coordinator (Cummins 1986; Delgado-Gaitan 1990).
A key goal of the COPLA organization has been for parents to
learn from each other ways to help their children progress through
school and to become a support system for each other. In addition
to organizing conferenre workshops, parents shared their experience,
which led to improved educational conditions for their children.
An illustration of this process was observed at an elementary school
parent meeting held for the purpose of organizing the Spanish-
speaking parents. The District COPLA members were speaking to
the local parents about their rights and responsibilities in getting
involved in their children's education. Bilingual teachers and the
principal also attended the meeting.
During the course of the meeting, one of the parents raised her
hand and directed her questions to the COPLA parents: "I have a
problem with my son who is in the fifth grade and is far behind in
English. What do you suggest that I do?" A parent in the COPLA
leadership group responded, "I understand what you're saying because
I have a son in the junior high school and they tell me that he has
lots of problems with English. I think you need to talk to the teachers
and insist that they tell you how they teach English. You also need to
talk to the principal because they're in charge of ordering materials
for the teachers." A teacher stood up and addressed the parent's concern
about her child not knowing English. She spoke to the multitude of
reasons why some children have difficulty in learning English. She
assured the parents that English was taught every day in the bilingual
classroom and that recently they had ordered some materials for in-
struction in their English as a Second Language (ESL) Program for
the school so that all the bilingual teachers could coordinate the ESL
program.
November 1991 33
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Delgado-Gaitan
November 1991
35
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Delgado-Gaitan
meeting taken from my field notes illustrates how parents held to their
purpose and established a position of power with the principal.
November 1991 37
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Involving Parents in Schools
The power relations during the Maple School meeting revealed the
differences in goals for parent involvement in the schools. Parents
seized the moment when they made their goals known to the principal
and rather forcefully made known their purpose as an organization.
The steps that led to the parents' empowerment in this meeting had
been articulated as explicit goals for COPLA since the inception of
the group. That is, parents intended to have COPLA be a support
organization for parents where they would learn from each other and
collectively deal with the schools to advocate for their children's ed-
ucation. This strong sense of commitment to the purpose of the group
made it possible for them to seize the moment. A strength of COPLA
is the good judgment they have exercised when dealing with school
personnel. Parents seem to know what is appropriate to accomplish
their goals. In some instances, compromise is necessary, and in other
cases, forceful confrontation is more effective. By stating that they did
not want to be relegated to fund-raisers, parents were not being obstinate.
They were not refusing to cooperate with the school; rather, they
wanted their purpose and objectives to be heard by the principal
before being assigned to work on her needs. In fact, COPLA had been
instrumental in fund-raising activities in at least two other schools.
The principal, however, operated according to the needs of the
school as she perceived them. The absence of awareness about what
was necessary to involve Spanish-speaking parents in the school sep-
arated the administration from the parents. This evidenced what
LeCompte and Bennett (1988) concluded: parents are not the problem,
nor should they be blamed for not participating; rather, the problem
is structural. However, the realization of the distance between what
the parents needed and what the administration wanted helped to
confirm the parents' commitment to their COPLA organization.
At the end of the first year, the parents who participated on the
district-level committee evaluated their activities as largely successful.
They believed that they had accomplished most of their goals, in spite
of some miscommunication within the group and between the parents
and the school. The issue of miscommunication was analyzed as a
problem of not centralizing and systematizing their communication
for the group and during the meeting. They then planned to devise
a system for centralizing their communication by having a parent who
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Delgado-Gaitan
November 1991 39
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Delgaclo-Gaitan
November 1991 41
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Conclusion
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Delgado-Gaitan
recognized and addressed the need of the parents for developing their
skills in order to participate in their children's schooling.
The empowerment process does not necessarily ameliorate conflict
between the family and the school. In fact, in some cases, the conflict
may appear to intensify as a result of the availability of more information
in the hands of parents who once felt isolated from the school. Feelings
of isolation, friction, and rigidity pose the need to organize. This new
social framework involves aware parents who are committed to engaging
and interacting with the school in dealing with issues about their
children's education.
It may be unrealistic to expect that all of these activities involving
parents will arise from the intrinsic motivation of school personnel.
It is realistic, however, to establish structural means that support school
efforts for involving parents in their children's education beyond a
superficial level. Teachers need release time to meet with parents when
it is convenient for both. Principals need adequate funding to hire
personnel who speak the language of the major language groups in
the community. Schools must invest in a complete parent education
program, from preschool to high school. Only with a total commitment
of policies and funding, and well-developed plans from the state,
county, district, and the local school, may educators expect those who
have little comprehension of the school system to be active in the
schools. Short of this, we can only look forward to continual conflict
with parents who feel that their only recourse is to act against the
school that they view as an authoritarian agent, rather than work
cooperatively with it.
The relationship between institutional and personal transformation
is complex. In Carpinteria, parent participation affected institutional
arrangements and enhanced personal feelings of competence, which
in turn encouraged institutions and developed an awareness that resulted
in increased participation. The ability of participants to influence the
allocation of resources from power settings determined the extent of
people's potential to develop, as noted partially in Bronfenbrenner's
hypothesis.
Conventional school activities that have been institutionalized to
involve parents in limited ways tend to relegate all the power to the
institution and have usually ignored the needs of groups, particularly
those with a different language who are unfamiliar with the school's
expectations.
In this study, the nonconventional activities validated the families'
social and cultural experience, which allowed them to feel a part of
their children's schooling, and thus achieved a better balance of power
and cooperation between home and school. The involvement created
November 1991 43
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Notes
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Delgado-Gaitan
the United States. This has certainly been the case up until recently, when
other immigrants have arrived from different Spanish-speaking countries.
The more inclusive term "Latino" is used in this article to refer to Mexican
Americans and Central and South Americans in Carpinteria. Although the
leadership in the delineated parent groups has been Mexican American, these
parents have used the term Latino to refer generically to all parents, including
the recent Central and South American immigrants, whom they consider to
have unity with respect to the issues of parent involvement in the schools.
References
November 1991 45
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