The involvement of parents from India in their children's U.S. education

This study examined how immigrant Indian parents in Southern California are currently involved in their children's education at school and at home. Furthermore, the study proposed to identify ways in which educators, school officials, and policy makers might better meet the needs of immigrant Indian parents and increase their participation at school.The researcher utilized a mixed-method approach for the research design. The research was descriptive and qualitative. The variables included (a) parents who were born in India and immigrated to the United States and (b) had at least one child in kindergarten through 12th grade in high school. The researcher used purposeful sampling to select 30 participants for a semi-structured long interview from a population of 100 parents.The findings revealed that Indian parents immigrated to United States for better educational opportunities and strongly emphasized the importance of education. Furthermore, the findings revealed that the respondents' level of involvement at the school site varied by type of involvement. All parents attended parent-teacher conferences, back-to-school nights, open houses, activities, and functions exclusively connected to their children's education. In contrast, no parent participated in governance or decision-making committees.The study further investigated how Indian immigrant parents were involved in their children's education at home. All parents in the study demonstrated significant involvement in their children's education at home. Findings illustrated that mothers had the primary responsibility of supporting their children in education while fathers provided tutoring in math and the physical sciences.Lastly, the study sought parent recommendations to increase parent involvement. Parents suggested that school leaders schedule meetings in the evenings, provide parent-child workshops, implement cultural diversity days, and have middle and high school staff create a welcoming environment. The findings of this study suggested the following conclusions (a) Indian parents highly value education and transmit their values to their children (b) parents view communication between home and school as a pertinent factor to student success (c) from their cultural background, parents perceive governance to be the responsibility of the district, and (d) efforts to recruit recent Indian immigrant parents to participate in school decision-making committees have not been successful.