Triunfos intermitentes (1991-2007)

This qualitative study took place from July 2013 to July 2014 at PES, a two way immersion (TWI) school in North Carolina. It is an intrinsic case study of the parent

language classes offered by the school to Spanish and English dominant parents with the goal of exploring the experiences of parents and the connections made between parents and with the school. In this chapter, I will describe the research methodology employed in this study. I begin with a discussion of qualitative inquiry and my choice of following case study

methodology. Next, I provide a brief overview of the study before describing the research design in detail, including the participant selection and general characteristics of the parents. I also include in this chapter substantial information about the parents’ motivations to enroll their children in the TWI school. This helped to describe the nature of parents’ participation and approach to the parent language classes and the school in general, which impacted the dynamics of the classes and parents’ cross-cultural interactions. The chapter continues with a description of the research sites, data sources, and data collection, and potential benefits of participation in the study. Following explanation of the data analysis, I share efforts made to ensure accuracy and credibility, choices that I made during writing, and limitations of the study. Since I was a critical piece of this research study as the researcher and also a main participant as English language instructor of the classes, I conclude by sharing my epistemological stance as a critical researcher and my positionality in the field.

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Qualitative Inquiry

I chose to follow qualitative research methodology for this study to offer a personal, nuanced understanding of the on-going and complex work building relationships among parents and with the school. The study aimed not only to describe from my vantage point but also offer an analysis of the observed world. As Denzin & Lincoln (2005) wrote, “…qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them” (p. 3). Qualitative research in general, unlike quantitative research, does not attempt to minimize the role of the researcher in selecting and interpreting data. Rather, it acknowledges the important role of the

researcher in the entire research process. In fact, Stake (1995) explained that “the persons most responsible for interpretations [must] be in the field, making observations, exercising subjective judgment, analysis and synthesizing, all the while realizing their own

consciousness” (p. 41).

There was an evolution in the research questions for the study. When the study began, the primary research question was: “How does participation in a parent language course impact parents’ involvement in the school and/or sense of connection and community among parents at the school? How is this manifested across ethnic/linguistic groups?” However, as the study developed and as conversations with parents and teachers began to take place, I realized that “parents’ involvement” in the school was an unreliable factor in determining to what extent parents felt connected to or excluded from the school. It was also based upon traditional notions of “parental involvement” in schools that I did not want to further propagate. Likewise, it was difficult to ascertain how “involved” parents were prior to the language classes and after the language classes. It was also unclear how “connected” parents

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really felt to other parents at the school. As I began meeting with parents outside of the language classes beginning in late November 2013, most parents reported that they did not feel very much connected to other parents at the school unless they had known parents from previous schools or through other connections unrelated to the schooling of their children. Therefore, efforts to measure whether parents’ involvement and feelings of connectedness went up or down, or stayed the same following parents’ participation in the language classes was of interest once the study began.

A more relevant research question emerged, which was to determine to what extent were connections and therefore understanding and knowledge made between parents and between home and school during the language classes. This research question directed my attention to exploring and describing ways in which parents were gaining new understanding and new knowledge about each other and about the school through their participation in the language classes.

Therefore the final three research questions that directed this study were:

1) To what extent were connections and therefore understanding and knowledge made between parents and between parents and school during the parent language classes? To what extent did connections between parents and with the school open third spaces, new alternative spaces, in the school?

2) What school-wide factors supported or did not support the parent language classes? 3) What are the implications for furthering schools’ efforts to build connections between

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Case Study Research

Case studies have long held a place in social science research as an effective way to better understand a “specific, complex, functioning thing” (Stake, 1995, p. 2). Case study methodology allows the researcher to develop a deep understanding of the case, its actors, and their interrelationships by relying upon multiple sources of data “ensuring that the issue is not explored through one lens, but rather a variety of lenses which allows for multiple facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood” (Baxter & Jack, 2008, p. 544). Therefore, this qualitative case study aimed toward understanding the complex

interrelationships between the parents, the school, and its community. By providing thick description (Geertz, 1973), I hope the reader will have enough information to vicariously experience the case and come to their own understanding. “Qualitative research tries to establish an empathetic understanding for the reader, through description, sometimes thick description, conveying to the reader what experience itself would convey” (Stake, 1995, p. 39).

This study is an intrinsic case study—a study undergone not to make generalizations to all other cases but to learn from this particular case at hand (Stake, 1995). Therefore, I investigated the activities and experience of actors in and around the parent classes at the school. I present the findings of this case in effort to elucidate as clearly as possible this particular set of events, experiences, and people. In all its particularity and all its

ordinariness, the case is of interest to us as parents, activists, scholars, members of the community, and educators to learn from the varied experiences of the people that come together at various meeting points during this study. The goal of the study is, therefore, to understand both the intricate parts and the whole of the case. And although this study does

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not aim to generalize findings to all TWI schools or all parent language classes, it does attempt to offer new insights through an in-depth analysis of this particular case and to illuminate some potential issues or possibilities in attempting to connect parents from diverse families to each other and to schools, particularly in TWI education.

While the parent education classes was my primary focus, I triangulated my findings with data from the larger school context in which the parent classes were embedded and included data from observations from classrooms and events sponsored by the school including Open House, Carnival, Hispanic Awareness Week, PTA meetings, Read-a-thon, and student award ceremonies (Stake, 2005; Yin, 2005). This is aligned with the definition of a case study provided by Yin (2005) as a study that “investigates a contemporary

phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between

phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p. 13). Therefore, while my focus was the language classes for the parents, the underlying context of the TWI school and its community were important parts of this investigation. One influences the other, and together they

ultimately affect the experience of students, their parents, and teachers at the school. As Valdés (2001) urged, “What happens in the schoolyard, in attendance offices, in PTA meetings, and at school board meetings directly reflects the beliefs and values of the community and its residents” (p. 31). I would add that the context must be included in the study because it also affects the learning environment and experiences for both the children and their parents at the school, and thus impacts parents’ connections to the school and connections to other parents which they bring with them to the parent language classes.

Still, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of my observations and perceptions about the school and language classes for parents. My viewpoint represents a

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very personalized experience at the school and while I attempted to strengthen the reliability of my observations by relying upon a diverse group of “insiders” with much more experience and varied points of contact with the school and school members, my unique perspective is largely shaped by my positionality and my personal interactions at the school. For that reason, I attempt to provide vivid and detailed descriptions of the interactions and original quotations from participants so that the reader can come to his/her own conclusions based upon the data collected (Merriam, 2009).

Overview of the Study

Data was collected over the course of the 2013-2014 school year simultaneously with my active involvement at the school. My entry into the school and parent language classes was facilitated by entering the school as a part of a research team including a professor and another graduate student. After a brief meeting in July with the principal prior to the start of the school year, in which I affirmed my interest in contributing to the parent language classes, a new initiative for the school that year, and my desire to also work with classroom teachers, the principal cleared the way for my presence in the school telling me that I had “full access” to visit any classroom in the school (July 26, 2013). As the school year began, my participation at the school can be better understood by describing the two avenues of my participation: 1) time spent in the kindergarten and fifth grade classrooms at PES; and 2) time spent in and planning for the parent language classes.

I begin by describing my participation in the classrooms at PES because it preceded the beginning of the language classes. The school year began in mid-August whereas the language classes did not begin until October. I also spent more time overall during the course of the school year in the classrooms because there were more opportunities to spend time in

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this part of the research site. I also found the activities of the classroom informative for understanding the overall school environment and classroom experiences, the school’s perspectives about parents and families and their role in children’s education, and the pressures faced by the teachers. Therefore, each week I spent time once or twice a week during the school day in the classrooms of a kindergarten and a fifth grade teacher. Typically I spent 1 ½ hours to 2 hours at a time in one classroom before moving to the other classroom. I alternated which classroom I visited first in order to observe different portions of the school day. At times I worked actively as a participant observer, interacting with the students, teaching a small group of students, or assisting the teacher in whatever way she needed. On a few occasions I accompanied the children to the cafeteria for lunch. Other times I sat and observed from the back of the room. On some days my visit corresponded with a grade level or whole school assembly or special event which I observed instead.

I built relationships with the two main focal teachers, Alma Morales, the kindergarten teacher, and Isabel García, the fifth grade teacher, by first volunteering in their classrooms. When I emailed several teachers from the school to approach them about my involvement in their classroom over the next year, both Señora (Sra.) Morales and Sra. García immediately responded affirmatively. I already had the opportunity to have worked with Sra. Morales over the past two years. And lacking an assistant for the better part of the school year, Sra. García was especially open to my participation in her classroom. While initially teachers did not seem to understand why I was in the school despite the fact that I explained that I was there to gain understanding about the experience of teachers, children, and parents when possible with the school, they utilized my availability to help by putting me to work running photocopies and creating materials for the classroom. As the school year progressed, there

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were opportunities for informal conversations as I helped out in the classroom that informed my understanding of the school and classroom context.

The second part of my participation at the school was during the Thursday evening parent language classes that lasted from 6:00-7:30 pm and the weekly meetings in which I met with the other language teacher and literacy coach at PES, Verónica Ramos, to make plans and materials for the classes.

After meeting with Verónica in September, it was decided that I would teach the English language classes, and she would teach the Spanish language classes. In retrospect this was an interesting decision given that the majority of her experience had been teaching English both to children and adults, whereas my experience had been teaching Spanish to high school and undergraduate college students. Verónica reasoned that this arrangement made the most sense since I was born in an English dominant family in the United States, and she was from a Spanish dominant family in Argentina. Therefore, my teaching the English classes and her teaching the Spanish classes followed the structure of the TWI classrooms at PES in which teachers from Spanish-speaking countries taught in Spanish and those from the United States typically taught in English (May 28, 2014).

The classes were held over three sessions: October 10-November 21; February 20- March 20; and April 17-May 15 with breaks between each session. The classes originated from requests from the school’s parents and were designed with the intention to teach conversational English and Spanish and to provide time in which parents in the two classes could build relationships during time each week to practice with speakers of the other

language during a joint conversation period. First, basic phrases and chunks of language were taught in the separate language classes with interactive pair and group activities to practice

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the phrases in a realistic context. Then, the joint conversation period culminated the activities by asking the parents from both classes to practice everything that they had learned earlier in the class with another parent or group of parents. A list of questions or potential script was provided to the parents to support their conversation.

Verónica and I typically met on Wednesdays each week during the fall semester and then on Thursdays during the spring semester to make plans for the language classes. During the first session of classes, we met and planned together in her office. Then, during the second and third sessions we brought our plans for our separate classes that we had written at home to share with each other. We offered suggestions on the lesson plans and tried to find ways in which the curriculum of each class could connect across language groups. We also discussed activities for the joint conversation time. Together, we prepared materials and organized for the next class. This was helpful because it also provided time to informally discuss developments in the classroom, insights, as well as, concerns. A frequent topic of conversation for us during this time was the dwindling number of parent participants in the classes and therefore, we also spent this time calling parents and preparing flyers and reminders to send home with their children.

Research Design

Data Collection

Data was collected from July of 2013 through July 2014. An extended time for data collection over the course of the year was necessary to foster relationships with parents and teachers and to gain needed understanding of the school climate and general experience of students and families that attended the school. Baxter and Jack (2008) recommended “a

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prolonged or intense exposure to the phenomenon under study within its context so that rapport with participants can be established and so that multiple perspectives can be collected and understood…” (p. 556).

It was important for me to spend the year in the research field site for many reasons including that the language class commitment to the parents was for the entire academic school year, and therefore I wanted to equally make the commitment to teaching the English language classes for the year. My teaching the language class was a way in which I could give back substantially to the school, its teachers, and its parents for allowing me entrance into their world. Another reason for my desire to spend an extended period of time in the field was to follow the advice of Stake (1995) to enter the field slowly, quietly acquainting myself with the many actors, contexts, and issues. Stake recommended a “quiet entry” (1995, p. 59) into the research site and to be as “unobtrusive as wallpaper” (1995, p. 59). I attempted to do this by entering the research site as a volunteer in various teachers’ classrooms and not making requests for an interview with teachers or parents until I knew them more personally. On one hand I felt more comfortable making this request after having “given” them

something first (my time, work in the classroom, teaching the language class). I also felt better situated to ask questions after developing familiarity with the school and its players. Most of the parents were very willing to do an interview when the time came. However, putting off interviews may have cost me the opportunity to learn about some of the parents that I found very interesting, because they ended up not returning to the later language classes, and I was unable to reconnect with several of them again.

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The data sources for this case study included: 1) language class observations of both the Spanish and English instruction time and the joint conversation period; 2) twenty-four parent semi-structured interviews with both Spanish-dominant and English-dominant parents who participated in the classes; 3) twenty-five total parent paper and pencil surveys; 4) document collection from the language classes; and 5) four semi-structured interviews with