Teachers’ Experiences with Spanish-Speaking, Bilingual Families in a Science Learning Context: Empowering Teachers through Home-School Partnerships

Abstract

Teacher-parent collaboration can play a critical role in promoting minoritized students’ post-secondary education attendance and academic success. Although teachers are tasked with initiating a trusting collaboration with parents, few research studies focus on teachers’ learning through working with diverse families. Informed by Nieto’s notion of highly qualified teachers, we offer insights into the lived experiences of secondary science teachers who engaged with Latino parents in their children’s science learning in the context of bilingual family science workshops. Analysis of in-depth interviews with four teachers and participant observation field notes from the workshops highlight the potential for designing new professional development opportunities to support secondary teachers in collaborating with parents from a wide range of cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds.