University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Fall November 2014 TEACHERS TALK: A CASE STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING ACROSS CULTURES WITH IMMIGRANT CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES Anne Lundberg University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons Recommended Citation Lundberg, Anne, "TEACHERS TALK: A CASE STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING ACROSS CULTURES WITH IMMIGRANT CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 244. https://doi.org/10.7275/6005302.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/244 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TEACHERS TALK: A CASE STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING ACROSS CULTURES WITH IMMIGRANT CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES A Dissertation Presented By ANNE LUNDBERG Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION September 2014 College of Education © Copyright by Anne Lundberg 2014 All Rights Reserved TEACHERS TALK: A CASE STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING ACROSS CULTURES WITH IMMIGRANT CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES A Dissertation Presented By ANNE LUNDBERG Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________________ Claire E. Hamilton, Chair ________________________________________ Grace Craig, Member ________________________________________ Leda Cooks, Member ____________________________________ Christine B. McCormick, Dean College of Education DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my family. Peter Scott, my loving partner and hard working yoke-mate in this life. With out his unending support — intellectual, physical, and emotional — I would never have finished. Peter has been there every step of the way and more. The support and sacrifices that Peter and my three daughters — Ella Simone, Zoe Rose, and Diana Maria — have made during my time as a student have been enormous. Words cannot say how much I value what you have given to me. I know it has been a long journey to finish, thank you for being there for me. I love you each. I think of two sayings I have heard about love: Work is love made visible. Justice is what love looks like in public. Your love in my life has made it possible for me to work well in the world. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first acknowledgement goes to the teacher-participants in this study. Without them, there would be nothing to report or to share, and I so appreciate their willingness to be engaged with my work. Their honest and reflective voices will always remain in my mind’s eye. The level of commitment in their work to all in their classrooms, schools, and community was remarkable to witness. My second acknowledgement is to my committee members — Claire, Grace, and Leda—who stayed with me through this process and its long overdue conclusion. Again, without them guiding me through the multifaceted process that research entails, I would not have been able to complete this work. Specifically, I thank Claire, who became my chairperson without even having met or known me as a student. Her clear, direct, and professional feedback and recommendations helped forge this document. My third acknowledgement goes to the many teachers I have had during my time as a graduate student, whether as instructors, counselors, and those who served in specific roles and/or critical times. My life—personal and professional—has been enriched through their work, conversations, and persistent pushing of my development: Sonia Nieto, Janine Roberts, Sally Habana-Hafner, Alexandrina Deschamps, Irv Seidman, Kevin Nugent and Gretchen Rossman. Through the interdisciplinary worldview that each of these people hold, I have grown in my ability to work with my head, heart, and hands. My last acknowledgement is this to thank specific people who have supported me on a practical level to succeed: The McNairs who bought me a new MacBook that made this research possible and has seen me through to the very end; and Ella and Jake who provided me with a writer’s retreat in Montague this winter in their lovely home. v ABSTRACT TEACHERS TALK: A CASE STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING ACROSS CULTURES WITH IMMIGRANT CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES SEPTEMBER 2014 ANNE LUNDBERG, B.S., CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK M.S., BANK STREET COLLEGE OF EDUCATION ED.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Claire E. Hamilton One of the persistent challenges confronting our society is how to reduce inequities in educational and life chances of students from different socioeconomic, ethnic, language, and racial backgrounds. One of the most important factors in a child’s success in school is the degree to which their families are actively involved in their education. These two facts framed this research work. The current large-scale immigration occurring in the U.S.A. is an important social development because children of immigrants currently make up 20% of all youth in the U.S.A.; first and second generation immigrant children are the most rapidly growing segment of our child population. Public schools are where immigrant children and families come into consistent contact with their new culture. The context for obstacles facing immigrant families are often clustered on language and culture, with particular impact on communication. Classroom teachers’ roles and perspectives are key to understanding how communication works in cross-cultural learning environments. vi Using a phenomenological in-depth interviewing methodology, I interviewed five experienced teachers working in large urban public elementary schools where classrooms contained more than 50% immigrants. Elementary level was selected for three reasons: (1) K-3 teachers engage most with families; (2) family life-cycle with young children finds parents more involved with their children’s school; and (3) children under ten-years express more home-culture than school-culture. Each participant was interviewed three times for approximately 90-120 minutes. I open-coded salient themes from transcriptions that cut across my teacher-participants’ contexts: self, classroom, and community. A descriptive case study, the research was guided by two broad questions: (1) How do teachers think about culture, in their own lives and in the life of their classrooms, and how does their theoretical conceptualization of culture relate to their understanding of immigrant families? (2) What intercultural communication skills or tools do teachers have in their repertoire, and how do they use these to inform their inclusion of immigrant families? I discuss how the constitutive elements of my participants’ experience in their cross cultural work can be incorporated into the development and implementation of skills in culturally responsive teaching and in educating the whole child. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….. v ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….. vi LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………… xi LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………….. xii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO MY STUDY: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF TEACHING IMMIGANT CHILDREN AND WORKING WITH THEIR FAMILIES……………………………............. 1 Family Involvement in Schools……………………………………………. 1 Conceptual Framework……………………………………………………. 8 Purpose of my Study………………………………………………………. 15 The Research Questions…………………………………………………..... 18 Significance of this Study…………………………………………….......... 20 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE RELEVANT TO THE EXPERIENCES OF TEACHERS WORKING ACROSS CULTURES EVERY DAY………… 29 Understanding the Barriers to Family Involvement……………………….. 29 Characteristics of Involvement and Participation: Empowerment And Deficit Models ……………………………………………….. 30 Theories of Collaboration and Partnership: Capital and Overlapping Spheres of Influence……………………………………………….. 33 Individual Obstacles: Language, Culture, and Communication…… 39 Immigrant Families………………………………………………………… 44 Myth of Minority Parents’ Lack of Involvement………………….. 46 Children of Immigration in School………………………………… 48 School and Parent Relations……………………………………….. 49 Culture and Communication……………………………………….. ……... 51 The Individualism/ Collectivism Continuum……………………..... 53 Building on Previous Research…………………………………………...... 56 viii 3. RESEARCH DESIGN: DESCRIPTIVE CASE STUDY………………………. 57 Overall Approach and Rational…………………………………………..... 57 Case Study Method Used………………………………………………….. 62 Relation Between Design and Methods…………………………………… 65 Ensuring Trustworthiness………………………………………………….. 68 Limitations…………………………………………………………………. 71 4. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………… 74 Introduction………………………………………………………………… 74 Interviewing Technique …………………………………………………… 77 Phenomenological In-Depth Interviewing…………………………………. 80 Participants: Working with Classroom Teachers………………………….. 82 Making Contact…………………………………………………...... 83 Settings…………………………………………………………….. 86 Participant Selection……………………………………………….. 87 Participants Included in Data……………………………………..... 89 Data Collection and Management…………………………………………. 91 The Three-Interview Structure……………………………………… 91 Handling the Interview Material…………………………………… 95 Research Memos and Critical Readers………………………………