Performing the norm in the Global North: migrant parents’ positions and participation within Icelandic schools

Abstract

Parental involvement, presented as a normative construct, is widely considered a key strategy important to educational inclusion and democratic citizenship. Yet, migrant parents continue to experience exclusion within national educational settings. This study focused on the positions and participation of fourteen immigrant and refugee parents within Icelandic schools. Findings suggest that, regardless of the kind or level of involvement practised, all the parents were affected by positional boundaries in relation to their parenting practices, whereby many struggled to become involved only to find their knowledge and experiences invalidated. Such internal exclusion occurs in sharp contrast to the inclusive and democratic citizenship ideals presented as part of Icelandic educational policy and works against parents’ hopes for inclusive futures. We suggest applying Arendt’s metaphor of visiting as a way to disrupt binary power dynamics and normative understandings of parent practices and to rethink the process of parental involvement and inclusion within education.

Keywords:

• Migrant parents
• parental involvement
• democratic and inclusive education
• visiting

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the parents who participated in this study for sharing their perspectives and experiences without whom we would not be able to think anew about involvement and inclusion within Icelandic schools. The authors also grateful to the two reviewers who took the time to read our work and provide constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is partly funded by the Icelandic Centre for Research, grant no. 206915-051 and by the Icelandic Gender Equality Fund.