Family Involvement and Immigrant Parents: Perceptions of Indian mothers in Vienna

Abstract

This study was conducted in Austria with Indian immigrant mothers to understand their perceptions and experiences about family involvement in education. Family involvement in education can promote a wide range of benefits for all, and especially for immigrant children. The qualitativeinterpretative research methodology was adopted, and ten mothers participated in the research through semi-structured interviews. The constant-comparative data analysis policy made it possible to adapt the following interviews based on the emerging domains. The data analysis yielded four domains, including the meaning of family involvement, barriers to family involvement, the support systems for family involvement, and being involved as an immigrant parent. The findings showed that the cultural capital of parents has a significant impact on the understandings of family involvement for immigrant parents.On the other hand, the support that the families get is limited to the support provided by teachers. However, this type of support is understood as encouragement and is highly appreciated by parents. Lastly, being an immigrant adds up to the challenges due to a lack of knowledge about the culture of school-parent communication even after long years of being a resident in the country.