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School Access and Participation: Family Engagement Practices in the New Latino Diaspora

Education and Urban Society

Published online on

Abstract

This article describes how schools shape family engagement practices in the context of the New Latino Diaspora. Building on critical scholarship that has called for more culturally appropriate definitions of family engagement, this study seeks to develop a theoretical understanding of how school practices influence immigrant families’ access to and participation in schools with little tradition of serving immigrant communities. Drawing on a statewide survey of practice in schools serving the New Latino Diaspora in Wisconsin, analysis includes descriptive statistics and textual analysis of survey comments from school principals and teachers working with immigrant students. Findings illustrate how considerable efforts to ensure access to Spanish-speaking families through interpretation and translation fall short of increasing family participation in key aspects of schooling. Given the influx of immigrants to new destinations across the United States, this work offers important insight into how schools receive newcomers in these contexts and identifies implications for research and practice.