Contribution
Description: Intercultural communication and cooperation between migrant parents and teachers in elementary schools - the topic of both the paper and the doctoral thesis - is a neglected field in educational research, particularly in Germany (Lanfranchi, 2000; Saad & Leumer, 1997), although, in education theory, cooperation between teachers and parents is regarded as a central element contributing to school achievement (Helmke & Weinert, 1997). Against this background, it is aimed, in a first step, to analyze the political framework defining the role and the influence conceded to parents with regard to the school career of their children in two different education systems. In a second step, it is aimed to examine the experiences of teachers and migrant parents, here, Italian parents, with regard to the applied strategies of cooperation, interactions and intercultural communication in elementary schools - i.e. the central research questions refer to two levels: the level of education policy and the level of school practice.
Methodology: The methodological approach of the doctoral thesis is based on qualitative research methods (Lamnek, 2005). On the level of education policy, dossiers and recommendations published by the respective departments of education (Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, 2005; Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2005) will be analyzed by means of content analysis, while on the level of school practice, semi-structured interviews will be applied to interview teachers and parents - additionally, the daily life in selected elementary schools will be observed by participant observation, if possible. Combined with the method of an international and intercultural comparison (Allemann-Ghionda, 2004), the choice of methods permits, on the one hand, to seize the role and the influence conceded to (migrant) parents in both education systems with respect to the political context, perspectives and pedagogical traditions, and, on the other hand, to reveal differences and similarities concerning the strategies of cooperation applied in selected German and French elementary schools. With regard to the micro-level, the chosen qualitative methods allow a deepened analysis of the experiences made by the Italian parents and the teachers while interacting and communicating with each other (Allemann-Ghionda, 2005). Due to the lack of research concerning the topic of the dissertation, this analysis will have an explorative character.
Conclusions: With regard to the outcomes of this project, it is expected to reveal continuities and discontinuities between political recommendations and their realization in school life, and, to gather deepened insights of interactions and intercultural communication between teachers and Italian parents on the micro-level. In this way, the doctoral thesis contributes, in an international context, to (qualitative) research with regard to intercultural cooperation and communication between teachers and (Italian) migrant parents in elementary schools.
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