ABSTRACT

“Parent involvement”, valued by the field of early childhood education, is shown to contribute to the growth and development of children. However, what has in fact, been “valued” are engagement practices based on normalized white middle class cultural patterns. The current understandings of and expectations for “parent involvement” do not take into account the cultural patterns of Latino families as they determine and support the developmental and academic goals for their children. The findings of this study on the family engagement practices of Mexican immigrant families indicate that when research is grounded in a sociocultural framework, Latino families in a Head Start program fully engaged in their children’s development and early education. Moreover, they did so by relying on their cultural values of: respeto, convivencia, confianza, and comunicación. The findings presented in this paper, a.) elucidate family engagement as a cultural practice, and b.) offer insights into how teacher preparation programs can support preservice teachers’ awareness and understanding of diverse cultural patterns to strengthen the family-community-school relationship.

摘要

幼儿教育领域重视的“家长参与”被证明有助于儿童的成长和发展。然而，事实上，被“重视”的是基于规范化的白人中产阶级文化模式的参与实践。当前对“父母参与”的理解和期望并未考虑拉丁裔家庭的文化模式，因为他们决定并支持孩子的发展和学业目标。这项关于墨西哥移民家庭家庭参与实践的研究结果表明，当研究以社会文化框架为基础时，启蒙计划中的拉丁裔家庭会充分参与其子女的发展和早期教育。此外，他们依靠以下文化价值观做到这一点：respeto、convivencia、confianza和comunicación。本文提出的发现，a.) 阐明作为一种文化实践的家庭参与，以及 b.) 提供有关教师准备计划如何支持职前教师对不同文化模式的认识和理解以加强家庭-社区-学校关系的见解.