Perceptions of Latino

Immigrant Parents
About the Special
Education Services
their Children Receive
CARLOS LAVIN
EDRS 810
Problem

 The Latino population in schools all over the United States

continues to grow, and as such, the special education Latino
population has grown as well. There have been several
studies showing that Latino immigrant parents of students
with disabilities, are often neglected in the decision-making
process in regards to services and accommodations for their
children.
Previous research and findings
(cont.)
 Hughes et al., (2002), interview parents and show most parents (75%) are satisfied with
the special education program their child is receiving.
 As with other parents, some believe that treating them as if they have no disability is the
way to go. Some recognize that it takes more of their time taking care of their child with
disabilities compared to their their children. (Hughes, et al., 2008)
 Salas (2004) mentions that although the parents in her study were interested in their
child’s education during IEP meetings their voices were silenced by ”overt and covert
messages that their voices were not valued” (Salas, 2004, p.181)
Previous research and findings
 Few sources available (Barrera, Vang, Liu, & Thurlow (2005). Most of the work
talks “about the immigrant and language minority parents and their children”
 Does not consider the “parents’ views on the nature of their children’s education
(Barrera et al.,2005, p.2)
 Bilingual Education would be welcomed and accepted by parents Barrera et al.,
2005).
 Teachers need to be more aware of cultural differences of their students (Barrera
et al., 2005).
 Small sample size not generalizable (Barrera et al., 2005)
 Ferlis & Sue (2016) express parental resistance to Pre-referral due to cultural
differences, and stigmatization of parent and child.
 Immigrant Latino Parents want their children to complete a college education
(Barrera et al., 2005; Coll et al., 2002).
Purpose
 The purpose of this focus group study, is to examine (a) the perception of
Latino immigrant parents on their children’s special education services, (b)
examine their own experiences (barriers, biases etc.) when dealing with
school personnel, and (c) listen for solutions on how to solve some of the
issues identified during the conversations.

 Latino is a ”catchall” term for any one from Latin America.

 Find themes or trends that can be transferrable to other groups.

 Help educators be more attuned to the needs of Latino families.

Research puzzles

 RQ1: What are the themes, topics or issues that

emerge constantly across all participants? What are
themes, topics or issues where there was division or
disagreement between the participants?

 RQ2: What kind of specialized services would their

children be receiving in their home country?
Research Puzzles (cont.)

 RQ3: What are parents’ perceptions of their own role in the

education of their children? Are they encountering any
barriers?

 RQ4: What is an effective way to involve parents in school

and classroom-based instructional issues?
Study design

 The study is designed as a Basic Interpretative Qualitative Research

study (Merriam, 2002), with participants attending one of 3 focus
groups. These focus groups will last from 1 and a half hours to 2
hours. The focus groups will be led by a bilingual member of the
research team as the moderator and a second member of the
research team, also fluent in Spanish, will participate as well.
 The data collection will result from a semi-structured protocol allowing
for themes to emerge while also looking to answer the research
questions.
Participants and trustworthiness
 Purposive and snowball sampling will be utilized
in order to find the participants.
 Thecriteria for selecting participants is (a) being
an immigrant from a Latin American Country, (b)
having a child who receives special education
services in his or her school (k-12).
 Participantsnames will be changed to ensure
participant confidentiality.
Participants and trustworthiness
 The focus group sessions will be transcribed, translated into English and back
translated into Spanish by a second person and checked by the primary
investigator in order to increase trustworthiness of the data. The research team
will initially code independently the first 30 minutes of the focus group interview
to establish coding conventions. Once the conventions are established, the
remaining transcripts will be coded individually by two team members to
ensure inter-coder reliability.
 After capturing the data, the research team will broadly analyze and the data
and present the participants with the findings in the form of a white paper,
inviting participants to comment on whether their opinions were adequately
interpreted.
 The data will be triangulated by using member checks to ensure the
participants agree with the findings, with current policy on immigration and
special education, and with the research on the topic for common trends that
may be generalizable.
Sources
 Aceves, T. C. (2014). Supporting Latino families in Special Education through
community agency-school partnerships. Multicultural Education, 21(4), 45–50.
 Barrera, M., Vang, H., Liu, K., & Thurlow, M. (2005). ELL parent perceptions on
instructional strategies for their children with disabilities (ELLs with Disabilities
Report 12). Minneapolis, MN: Univerisiy of Minnesota, National Center on
Educational Outcomes.
 Coll, C. G., Akiba, D., Palacios, N., Bailey, B., Silver, R., DiMartino, L., & Chin, C. (2002).
Parental involvement in children’s education: lessons from three immigrant groups.
Parenting, 2, 303–324.
 Ennis, S., Rios-Vargas, M., & Albert, N. (2011). The Hispanic population: 2010 (2010
Census Brief No. C2010BR–04) (p. 16).
 Ferlis, E., & Xu, Y. (2016). Prereferral process with Latino English language learners with
specific learning disabilities: Perceptions of English-as-a-second-language teachers.
International Journal of Multicultural Education, 18(3), 22–39.
 Hughes, M. T., Valle-Riestra, D. M., & Arguelles, M. E. (2002). Experiences of
Latino families with their child’s special education program. Multicultural
Perspectives, 4, 11–17.
 Hughes, M., Martinez Valle-Riestra, D., & Arguelles, M. (2008). The voice of
Latino families raising children with special needs. Journal of Latinos and
Education, 7, 241–257.
 Johnson, B., & Christensen, L. B. (2017). Educational research: quantitative,
qualitative, and mixed approaches (Sixth edition). Thousand Oaks, California:
SAGE Publications, Inc.
 Larios, R., & Zetlin, A. (2012). Parental involvement and participation of
monolingual and bilingual Latino families during individual education
program meetings. Journal of Education Research, 6, 279–298.
 McHatton, P. A. (2007). Listening and Learning from Mexican and Puerto Rican
single mothers of children with disabilities. Teacher Education & Special
Education, 30, 237–248.
 Merriam, S. B. (2002). Qualitative research in practice: examples for
discussion and analysis (1st ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
 Salas, L. (2004). Individualized educational plan (IEP) meetings and
Mexican American parents: Let’s talk about it. Journal of Latinos &
Education, 3, 181–192.
 Torres-Burgo, N., Reyes-Wasson, P., & Brusca-Vega, R. (1999).
Perceptions and needs of Hispanic and non-Hispanic parents of children
receiving learning disabilities services. Bilingual Research Journal, 23,
373–387.