Today, schools provide different ways of co-operation between home and school. Home-school co-operation has a crucial role in giving equal opportunities to immigrant pupils and native Finnish pupils. Hence it is important to diversify and develop the co-operation. In the development process it is good to listen to the immigrant parents’ and teachers’ opinions.

The purpose of the study is to develop new active interactions between immigrant homes and schools. These interactions will support immigrant pupils in the learning process, help build their multicultural identity and ease the integration into the Finnish society. The study focuses on the following questions: What kind of support do immigrant homes need for active co-operation with schools? What kind of support do teachers need for active co-operation with immigrant homes? What are the ways of interaction that support the learning of immigrant pupils? This study is a part of the research and development project carried out in collaboration with the School Centre of the city of Turku and the Unit for Evaluation and Development of Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Turku. The project was launched in 2008 and will continue until 2011.

The study takes place in one of the pilot schools in the project. In the school, the percentage of immigrant pupils was 25 41 in September 2008. Ten immigrant parents and ten teachers were interviewed in the spring 2009. Four of the teachers were immigrants and six were native Finns. The parents represented the following language groups: Albanian, Arabian, Dari, Estonian, Kurd and Russian.

Based on the interviews, best practices and previous studies the teaching staff and some immigrant parents planned and started four interventions to build active interactions between immigrant homes and schools in autumn 2009. These interventions were: 1. monthly meetings with a parent, a teacher and a health official, 2. meetings twice a month with a parent and a teacher, 3. an open-door event and 4. a booklet of basic information of the Finnish education system.

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