Browsing by Subject "maahanmuuttajavanhemmat"

Many researchers suggested that home-school collaboration has a positive impact on immigrant children's integration into new country. In this thesis conceptions and experiences of collaboration with immigrant parents were studied from classroom teacher's perspective following the Epstein's theory of educational responsibility. Epstein's framework of six types of involvement was used to define the quality of home-school partnership and the school's role in home-school collaboration. Eight first and second grade classroom teachers were interviewed based on the hypothesis that the parents and teachers collaborate most closely at that stage of children's education. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and the results were analysed using phenomenography method. The results indicate that the teachers see home-school collaboration as a target-oriented partnership based on equality, that relies on interaction with the parents, and that is coordinated by the teacher. The teachers understood that they educate a child beside parents but emphasized different educational responsibilities of school and parents. Their main expectations towards immigrant parents was support for both the child and the teacher and openness towards Finnish culture, while the main challenges were language barrier, religion, differences in cultural values and fear of Finnish culture. The teachers engaged in diverse types of home-school collaboration, but there were very few targeted directly at the immigrant parents.