the participation of immigrant students’ families in educational institutions

Abstract

The phenomena of immigration and interculturalism have taken on tremendous importance in Spain, not only because of their dimensions, but also because of the variety of countries from which the immigrants come, and the complexity of current migratory situations. The essence of the group’s work was to study the schools’ response to this situation that has almost been thrown upon
them, and to look into the families’ participation in those schools. This article describes the process of an ethnographical research study that was carried out during two school years in six institutions in Malaga (Spain) on the participation of immigrant students’ families in schools. The research project was carried out with the selected centres (4 Primary and 2 Secondary schools) involving interviews, observations, discussion groups, and the documents related to the work topic in question were analysed. The main results were developed, both those related to the process and to the focal point of study, emphasising the good practices that are being implemented at the centres, and which may serve as a reference in other school contexts. The research reports have been returned to the centres to be discussed with the participants. The general conclusions are raised here, which have been taken from the six centres in which the study was carried out. Consequently, there are some questions that refer to all the centres, and others that are particular to one or some of them.