Áreas de proceso

Factors within the broader community, which is part of the third ecological layer, affected student engagement through home-school partnerships, youth gangs and socio-economic factors. Previous discussions (see Section 4.2) indicate the importance of reciprocal partnerships to obtain cultural knowledge about Pāsifika students, which influences student engagement. Participant perceptions of school-parent partnerships as a contributor to student engagement is discussed in the next section.

™ School-parent partnerships

The school made several attempts to establish school-parent partnerships in the school community. These included: Pāsifika events organised by the school, Parent Interviews, teacher-parent contact about their children’s learning, and parent support with homework. However, the results from the Parent Interviews indicated that sustainable school-parent partnerships required certain levels of reciprocity. For the parents, in the survey results (Appendix 27), it was important that the school considered and respected their opinions. They also valued reciprocal relationships with teachers, in which there were opportunities to discuss concerns about their children’s schooling.

However, sustaining these relationships presented some challenges. The parents, students and teachers described similar unforeseen circumstances that limited the parents’ involvement in school events. These included work commitments, not receiving school notices, working long hours, working double shifts, often working late and the size of the families. The size of the families made it difficult for parents to attend all school events, especially if their children were attending different schools. Parents supported their children’s schooling mainly through Parent Interviews and sports tournaments according to the majority of students. Parents considered one of their main contributions was to ensure their children had the resources they needed so they could optimise their learning experiences.

School notices and newsletters were intended to inform parents about events at their children’s school. In the interviews, two parents (n=6) said they were not always familiar with the content of school notices because these were either not brought home or too difficult to read. One parent (n=6) said her children read notices to her. However, in the survey, five (n=6) parents stated that the notices were easy to comprehend. The students and parents in the interviews reported that the newsletter did not always contain useful information. The school’s reliance on

the newsletter to communicate with parents undermined school- parent partnerships since students did not always deliver these to their parents. Subsequently, some parents missed out on important information and dates for events. This indicated that communicating with parents via newsletters could be a barrier rather than a facilitator to engagement as it was inaccessible. Homework was another potential way to create home-school partnerships. Although the survey results indicated that the school offered opportunities where parents could learn about learning, to better support their children with their schoolwork, some barriers existed that made this challenging. Parents interview responses referred to language barriers and with English as an additional language, described their difficulty in supporting their children with homework. Four of the parents (n=6) concurred that, “maths is very difficult” and “We need help so we can help our children.” For these reasons parents relied on older children to support their younger siblings with their homework. All parents held individual perceptions about homework. They said they helped, but that it was important to them that their children became independent. In the student interviews, 11% of the focus groups (n=16) said their parents helped them with their homework. The student surveys indicated 95% of males and 67% of female students received homework support from their parents. When teachers were surveyed about parent awareness of teacher expectations and reinforcing these expectations at home, 58% agreed that parents were aware. In response to whether parents supported their children with homework, 50% of the teachers said ‘Yes’, 17% responded, ‘No’ and 33%, ‘I don’t know’.

Despite the school’s open-door policy to creating school-parent partnerships, parents and teachers continue to rely on Parent Interviews to celebrate successes and discuss issues of concern. The interview results illustrated that very few teachers had regular contact with the parents, even though they believed that parental involvement contributed to greater academic outcomes.

One of the teachers stated that she tried to establish relationships by inviting parents to observe how she taught, but got no response. In the interviews, 7% of the students reported their parents talked to their teachers about their learning. The same percentage of students said their parents only communicated with their teachers when they were in trouble. In contrast, the survey results indicated 77% of the male and 83% of the female students agreed their parents talked to their teachers about their learning. Again, these show inconsistencies between student focus group interview responses and survey results. The positive student responses in interviews were consistently lower than those of individual responses in surveys.

In this instance, the lower responses related to how much homework support students received from parents and whether their parents talked to their teachers about their learning. Pressure from their peer group in the focus group, the students’ desire to impress their peers and their fear of negative comments appeared to be factors that influenced their focus group interview responses.

The interview and survey results illustrated that the school system excluded teacher aides from school-parent partnerships, even though they supported Pāsifika students who experienced behaviour and learning difficulties. They had no contact with the parents and did not attend Parent Interviews. According to the interview results, the teacher aides stated that attending parent evenings or Parent Interviews would serve no purpose as they shared information about the students with the teachers who then fed back to the parents. None of the teacher aides had knowledge about homework support from parents and the majority (68%) did not know about school events to promote school parent- partnerships.

Two of the parents (n=6) in the interviews said that more events at school would help them become more comfortable with the school environment. They made some suggestions in this regard. One example was that more tickets be made available for cultural nights. Another example was for the school to ask parents to help organise events such as bingo nights, trivia nights or an Amazing Race, music festivals, dance evenings and gala events. One of the parents said that she would like to contribute, but was waiting for someone from the school to approach her. The above contributions from parents suggested the need for the school to consider asking the parents what they would attend and involving them in the organisation of such events.

The principal’s interview response to school-parent partnerships (particularly with Pāsifika parents) had three layers. Firstly, the principal indicated that the deputy principals connected with families when they did home visits and gathered data about support the school could offer their children. He perceived this as an important step towards creating home-school partnerships. Secondly, he explained that they were trialling a “no timetable” approach to engaging parents in parent evenings because many parents held two jobs, which meant that they found it difficult to arrive on time for an interview. This arrangement was aimed at illustrating to parents that they “understood and were willing to facilitate their circumstances.” The principal lived locally and placed a high value on the respect of the parent community. He explained that living in the local community shaped his understanding of issues related to

“poorly heated houses, economic struggles and those parents who could not all turn up for school functions for reasons beyond their control.” Lastly, when referring to multi-ethnic representation on the Board of Trustees (BOT), the principal said three members represented the Pāsifika community in the school setting.

When interviewed about engaging Pāsifika parents, the RTLB participants said that some parents came to cultural nights, but more attended the Parent Interviews. Although it was difficult to engage Pāsifika and Māori parents, “teachers who rang parents got more parents coming to school.” Subsequently, they said, teachers needed to keep exploring creative ways to engage parents, and suggested that the school explore options such as the value of “food, informal chatting and contacting local churches” to engage parents.

The interview results indicated that the principal strongly encouraged extra- curricular student interests to provide students with a sense of pride, success and belonging. He explained the school won an “Auckland title at the J-Rock festival and was awarded Gold at the Visual Garden Show.” The RTLB, in their interviews, also identified extra-curricular activities such as sports (interschool competitions) as an opportunity to create belonging and enhance student engagement. Extra-curricular events, according to RTLB, provide a non- threatening environment, away from the stressors and demands of the classroom environment. Parents were motivated and keen to attend extra- curricular activities such as sports events, as previously discussed (see Section 4.3.3) because it provided a terrain where they could experience greater equity and it was non-threatening.

The RTLB interviews revealed that they perceived a “lot of fluidity between the different cultures.” As an example, they referred to Tongan students who had recently arrived from Tonga compared with Tongan students raised in New Zealand, and Tongan students raised by mixed couples (where in these families children can have biological parents who are fr om different ethnic backgrounds, for example, a Tongan father and European mother). The RTLB interviews identified the need for the school to shift beyond traditional forms of contact with parents and engage with those which directly connected them to the community. The RTLB members further referred to the following underpinning principles about students, and said teachers need to understand these when they engaged Pāsifika students in learning:

The student’s own opinion is not valued as the younger people of their communities,

Pushing their own agenda is not valued, Blowing their own horn is not valued, and Critiquing is not valued.

From a Pāsifika perspective, it is not that individual student’s opinions, agenda, questions, and critique are not valued, but rather that the Pāsifika values of communalism and collectivism are more valued. Within this framework, a Pāsifika child is not seen as an individual but representing the family as a group. Therefore, an individual only acts in ways that are acceptable within the group, which includes not asking questions because it is perceived as disrespectful. From the interview results, the RTLB considered that understanding these values was an area for further development for teachers.

School-parent partnerships are based on relationships of trust, respect, communication and mutual understanding. Although the data of this study showed that there were “pockets” of understanding of the ethnic diversities within the Pāsifika community, there were also some mismatches. These included the limited knowledge of the Pāsifika values of communalism and collectivism and the perception that Pāsifika students were expected to be more independent than other students of different ethnicity at the same age. Conversely, independence was something families celebrated because it contributed positively to their family units. Although there was some understanding of the complexities around parental involvement and school - parent partnerships, some teachers still believed that student success relied on the parents, and how involved they were in their child’s schooling.

™ Socio-economic factors

The principal referred to numerous socio-economic challenges that affected family and student engagement in schools. For example, families moved in together and lived in garages (in one instance three families lived in a standard three-bedroom house). Students left school prematurely and were unable to find work, which “further created socio-economic challenges for families.” In many other cases, young people enrolled in the Manukau Institute of Technology and moved to Australia following completion of their qualifications, which impacted on the family network of support. Overall, the principal believed that “engaging Pāsifika parents is difficult mostly for reasons beyond their control.”

The realities of the school’s location in a low socio-economic community also posed certain barriers to healthier food options. Parents were not always available to prepare school lunches for their children due to their demanding, long work hours. As a result, students were

responsible for preparing their own food or parents provided money that they could spend at the local dairy or school’s tuckshop. The students (11%) in the interviews said that items from the tuckshop at school were too expensive. The local dairies sold unhealthy lunchtime packs at very low prices, which further limited healthy food choices. The teachers’ survey results (Appendix 27), revealed that between three and thirty-two students per class brought junk food to school on a daily basis and, that between four and twenty students per class brought no morning tea or lunch to school. While the school offered breakfast to all students, only a small number (n=3) of students made use of this service (Appendix 26, Food at school) because students were too proud to accept help. As a result, staff said that they had to find creative, yet culturally appropriate ways to provide students with breakfast and lunch.

The principal’s response to the interview questions about what could be improved suggested that the schools near each other should work together to improve the engagement of Pāsifika parents in school related activities. For example, he proposed a crèche to look after young children while parents attended school events such as parent interviews. On a wider community level, he explained that previously (for five years) there had been a Pāsifika designated person among four schools in the area who acted as a spokesperson for the Pāsifika parents and supported them to attend Pāsifika specific meetings within the four local schools. However, this arrangement had now ceased.

Socio-economic factors can create barriers to parents’ and students’ engagement that are beyond the control of the families. These barriers, in some cases, can result in disengagement from education. Once disengaged from education, young people, in pursuit of acceptance and belonging, are at risk of joining youth gangs as discussed next.

™ Youth gangs

All the teacher aides (n=9), in the interviews, raised concerns about the exposure of young Pāsifika people to youth gangs. They explained that those joining youth gangs disengaged from school, thus defeating their parents’ purpose for immigrating to New Zealand, which was to give their children a better future.

The RTLB interviews revealed that students who did not feel accepted at school and home would seek acceptance elsewhere. One avenue of finding this sense of belonging, according to RTLB, related to having affiliations with youth gangs, as mentioned earlier by the teacher aides.

This linked to the RTLB’s view that Pāsifika values were associated with family and groups rather than individuals.

4.4 Summary

In this chapter, the results were related to research question one. Here, the participants’ perceptions of both proximal and distal factors that facilitated or created barriers to Pāsifika students’ engagement in learning were identified. The results indicated that perceptions of proximal factors affected student engagement in various ways. Students held various perceptions of teacher related factors (e.g., ethnicity) that created barriers to their engagement in learning. The results demonstrated that students sustained higher levels of engagement in learning when teaching and learning practices incorporated respectful relationships between teachers and students, and when the diversity that exists in student culture is acknowledged. To identify distal factors of engagement, participants highlighted what they liked least and most about the wider school environment. Distal factors also included the kind of support the school offered to students, an overview of curriculum outcomes and factors within the wider community in which Pāsifika students operate. From these results, students, parents and school staff prioritised various factors they perceived as significant for Pāsifika student engagement in learning. Facilitators include friendships, learning, curriculum support, the school‘s management of student behaviour, positive student outcomes, geographical advantages of the school and the opportunities for students to excel. Participants identified negative relationships, negative student behaviour, high student numbers per classroom and lack of resources in certain subject areas as some of the barriers to student engagement. In the wider community, parent partnerships, socio-economic factors and youth gangs were presented as factors that could be associated with student engagement.

In this chapter, perceptions of the enablers and barriers of Pāsifika student engagement in learning are highlighted as essential, yet also complex and multi- layered, especially when looking at them though an ecological lens. Chapter Five will continue to explore their influence by aligning participant perceptions with teaching and learning practices–in response to research question two.

CHAPTER 5

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS