Family Involvement in Schools with a High Presence of Immigrant and Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Students

This work seeks to examine the perception of families about their involvement in schools with a high presence of immigrant students and limited economic resources. Strategies that facilitate participation, obstacles and proposals to promote it are examined. The research was carried out in two schools in the province of Gipuzkoa through 18 semi-structured interviews and two focus-groups with mothers and fathers, which were analyzed by means of content analysis. The results show that families have the perception of having a good personal relationship with teachers, but that participation in the center is low, especially on the part of immigrant families. The families identified strategies to facilitate participation (transmission of information between mothers, existence of spaces for dialogue...), obstacles (insufficient command of the language, financial difficulties, ignorance of the functioning of the representative bodies...) and ways of addressing these and other difficulties. It is concluded that the initiatives carried out to facilitate involvement depend on the willingness of some peoplem and are not systematized. By listening to the families and taking on board the aspects influencing the aspects that have emerged in our research could contribute to increasing the participation of all types of families in the center, and particularly those who are disadvantaged. This would involve a greater level of effort when compared to schools with less diversity.