Urban schools and immigrant families: Gougeon reinterpreted

Abstract

In his article Urban Schools and Immigrant Families, Thomas D. Gougeon describes the perceptions of 27 ESL teachers toward their students, the students' parents, and the school system that brings them all together. The article represents preliminary work in a massive study of the relations between urban schools in Alberta and immigrant families in which Gougeon plans to interview "a total of 200 K-12 teachers, 40 support staff, 15 administrators, 30 students, and 60 parents" (Gougeon, 1993, pp. 251-252). His ultimate goal is to propose "a theory of communication" (p. 252) followed by the development of a survey instrument for nationwide use. However, exactly how the content of this work might contribute to these two goals is not stated. Furthermore, there are fundamental flaws and biases in his research design. Gougeon begins his study with the assumption that "truly effective communication between staff and teachers of high school students and parents is a rare occurrence" (p. 252). The research strives to provide "a summary of school system strategies to communicate with immigrant parents" (p. 252). What is troubling in his framing of the problem is that immigrant parents are treated as a passive, problematic party. They are underrepresented in the overall research program (60 parents versus 255 school personnel) and are not represented at all in the present study. In other words, from the outset they are perceived to be responsible for increasing the risk of school dropouts/delinquents but are marginalized in the information-gathering and strategy-building process. Gougeon describes his method as using "structured, open-ended interview questions" (p. 254). Unfortunately, he does not provide a copy of the interview protocol, nor does he include a copy of the written statement of the study's