Latino American Perceptions of Parental Involvement in School

Parents play a very critical role in ensuring that their children pursue learning activities in schools with due regard to high standards of professionalism in education. Parental involvement has a positive impact on children's education. Moreover, the Latino parents often act as a link between teachers and students since they predominantly reinforce surplus learning instructions at home. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to gain an understanding of Latino parental involvement in their children's education in an early childhood center school in the Midwestern United States. A qualitative research approach was adopted to explore Latino parent's perceptions of why they are less likely to be involved in their children's school. Using a convenience and purposive sampling, the participants were seven bilingual Latino parents who had children to attend prekindergarten at an early childhood center school. The data collection for this study was a semi- structured 10 question interview protocol was used to interview the participants. The data analysis was conducted manually by the researcher to identify themes from the participant's responses. Four major themes emerged from the data analysis, which was (a) better education, (b) better life, (c) school participation,(d) speaking English well. Recommendation for future research included (a) identify new strategies for schools to promote Latino parental involvement, (b) increase and expand the sample size to validate the study, (c) include Latino parents who were either English speakers or non-English speakers. Nevertheless, further research is needed to strengthen the findings of this study. The study provided information to educators in early childhood a better understanding from the Latino parent's point of view, factors that contribute to a lack of Latino parental involvement in their children's education. This qualitative single case study focused only on Latino parent's perceptions of parental involvement in their children education.