“If they made it, why not me?” increasing educational expectations of Roma and Moroccan immigrant families in Spain through family education

ABSTRACT

In Europe, Roma and immigrant students continue to experience great inequities, as they face the probabilities of educational failure, segregation, and early school leaving. Previous research has shed light on the multiple factors that perpetuate this situation. However, the role played by family involvement and family educational expectations have been considered to a lesser extent. This research delves into how Family Education programmes provided by eight Spanish schools are playing a central role in increasing Roma and Moroccan families’ expectations of their children’s education. Based on the communicative methodology, this study was conducted in schools located in five Spanish regions. The schools serve minority students from low-socioeconomic status (SES) families and provide Family Education programmes in their own facilities. We applied a convergent mixed methods design, implementing qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques (semistructured interviews, communicative focus groups, communicative daily life stories, and questionnaires). The sample included Roma and Moroccan family members with low SES and teachers involved in Family Education. The results suggest that Family Education is increasing minority families’ educational expectations of their children’s education. Three elements have been identified as facilitators: 1) the co-creation of a high expectations climate in the schools; 2) the improvement of family members’ academic skills; and 3) the generation of new role models.

KEYWORDS:

• Family Education
• family educational expectations
• Roma students
• migrant students
• successful educational actions
• minority families

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use both terms throughout the article since, in Spain, the word used by the Roma community to designate themselves is “Gitano” (m), "Gitana" (f.), and "Gitanos" (pl.). However, following the guidelines provided by the Council of Europe (2012), we also include the term “Roma”.

2 The project of the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission Workaló aimed to define innovative strategies for social and economic development oriented towards social cohesion, considering that the Roma community has a lot to contribute to reinforcing social cohesion in Europe (Girbés-Peco et al., 2021).

3 In addition to Spanish, official language throughout the country, six of the seventeen autonomous communities have other languages as co-official (e.g., Catalan, Basque, Galician and Aranese). Bilingualism is a common practice in schools in most of these regions.

 

Additional information

Funding

Spanish Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research Plan (2014-2016) [grant no EDU2013-47731-R].