The Influence of Ethnic Match on Latino School-Based Family Engagement

Abstract

Research has shown that the school-based engagement of Latino families is lower compared with other racial and ethnic groups. One possible barrier to school-based engagement of this heterogeneous group of families might be the lack of cultural match between families and schools. Addressing this under-researched area, the current study examined ethnic match between Latino caregivers and teachers at seven Head Start centers in a large urban area in the Northeast. Participants were 294 Latino caregivers with children enrolled in Head Start programs and 37 Head Start teachers. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), findings indicated that ethnic match (defined by whether a caregiver and the Head Start teacher both identified as Latino) was significantly associated with teacher-rated family engagement. Having a Latino teacher explained a significant amount of the variance in school-based family engagement, beyond that accounted for by caregiver and teacher education. Implications for Head Start’s recruitment and training of teachers are discussed.

Keywords

family engagement culture ethnicity Head Start cultural competence

School-based family engagement and strong home-school connections are protective factors for ethnic minority and low-income students (Jeynes, 2003, 2005, 2007). When families engage with their children’s school (e.g., visiting the school, communicating with teachers, volunteering at school events), their children tend to make academic gains—a finding that has been replicated across numerous studies (Fan & Chen, 2001; Hill & Tyson, 2009). A variety of factors contribute to school-based engagement. Dauber and Epstein (1993), as well as Grolnick, Benjet, Kurowski, and Apostoleris (1997), found that a difficult school context, poor teacher-caregiver relationships, and lack of social support predicted less caregiver engagement in school. More recently, Overstreet, Devine, Bevans, and Efreom (2005) demonstrated that consistent caregiver employment, higher educational aspirations, and perceptions of school personnel as “receptive” predicted higher rates of engagement. Furthermore, when caregivers report that teachers value their engagement and that their school is welcoming to them, they are likely to be involved in activities at the school (Anderson & Minke, 2007; Walker, Ice, Hoover-Dempsey, & Sandler, 2011). Among caregivers of Head Start students, satisfaction with school contact has been shown to predict family engagement in Head Start centers above and beyond demographic correlates of engagement (McWayne, Campos, & Owsianik, 2008). McWayne and colleagues (2008) found that some predictive variables of school-based family engagement were school related (e.g., satisfaction with school contact) and some factors were related to caregivers (e.g., primary home language, gender of parent and child, parent level of education, marital status). Their study, however, did not closely consider issues of ethnicity between caregivers and teachers. In fact, a vast majority of research neglects to consider whether the ethnicity of the caregivers and the ethnicity of the teachers matter for school-based family engagement. The present study aims to contribute new knowledge on this under examined topic. With a sample of low-income Latino families, the study examines the degree to which ethnic match between teachers and caregivers relates to caregivers’ overall school-based engagement.

Compared with caregivers from other ethnic groups, Latino caregivers show the least school-based engagement (Cooper, Crosnoe, Suizzo, & Pituch, 2010). Many factors have been identified including financial constraints, a lack of social capital, and language ability (Pyle, Bates, Grief, & Furlong, 2005; Wong & Hughes, 2006). Caregivers who do not speak English, or who report having a more “Latino” cultural orientation rate themselves as less engaged in school-based activities, which is corroborated by teacher-reported engagement (Ryan, Casas, Kelly-Vance, Ryalls, & Nero, 2010; Wong & Hughes, 2006). Some research suggests that the lack of Latino school-based family engagement is rooted not just in language or economic factors, but also in cultural differences (Ryan et al., 2010). Educational institutions may minimize the impact of cultural differences between Latino parents and themselves by engaging in community outreach and fostering greater cultural sensitivity among staff (Ramirez, 2003).

Ethnic Match

Researchers have emphasized the importance of prioritizing language and cultural values when working with Latino populations (Hill & Torres, 2010). This may be more likely to occur when teachers and caregivers are similar with regard to their culture. Gloria and Robinson-Kurpius (1996) define “cultural match” as the congruence between one’s cultural values and the cultural values held by prominent others in the environment. Alternatively, Constantino, Malgady, and Primavera (2009) argue “cultural match” occurs when the gap between the cultural competence of the practitioner and the cultural needs and values of the client is minimized. Using slightly different nomenclature, the current study examines “ethnic match” between caregivers and teachers. Ethnicity is a multi-faced construct that is characterized by a group identity based on a geographical region, physical appearance, and cultural traditions (Morning, 2008). As opposed to culture, it is more clearly associated with race in the U.S. enumeration of the term based on census data; however, among the Latino population it still incorporates the importance of a shared common language (Morning, 2008). In this study, ethnic match will be conceptualized in three ways to reflect this complexity: (a) match in language use at home and school, (b) match in terms of immigration status (e.g., age at arrival in the United States), and (c) match in terms of self-identification as Latino/a.

Caregiver and teacher ethnic match might increase the caregiver’s comfort level in the school setting, resulting in more frequent engagement in school-based activities. Being of the same ethnicity as those whom you teach may also influence teacher perspectives as well. Latino educators have reported success within Latino communities based on their understanding of the community and context where they work, as well as their ability to speak both English and Spanish (Irizarry & Raible, 2011). Plata (2011) described cultural schemata that teachers use to address and assess students from culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse populations, asserting that those who have limited cross-cultural knowledge are more likely to believe that they possess superior cultural values and beliefs than their students. Taken together, the few studies examining teacher and student cultural match (and mismatch) suggest that congruence between families and teachers may facilitate school-based engagement.

The present study examined whether the ethnic match between caregiver and teacher was associated with caregivers’ levels of engagement at school. To isolate the effects of ethnic match on school-based engagement, several covariates needed to be accounted for in analyses. Previous studies have demonstrated that teachers with more formal education rate family engagement differently than those with less education (Garinger & McBride, 1995; McBride & Lin, 1996). In addition, prior research has shown more educated and higher income caregivers tend to demonstrate more school-based engagement (Lee & Bowen, 2006). Taking this into consideration, all analyses accounted for caregiver and teacher education. As such, the following research question guided the present study: Does teacher and caregiver higher ethnic match (measured by congruent generational status, ethnic identification, and language use at home and school) predict higher school-based family engagement ratings by teachers, compared with lower ethnic match between teachers and caregivers, when controlling for teacher and caregiver education? It was anticipated that Latino caregivers would be more highly involved in school-based activities at their child’s Head Start program if caregivers and teachers were ethnically matched.

Method

Participants

Participants in the present study included caregivers and teachers who were drawn from seven urban Head Start centers. Centers were selected based on the high enrollment of Latino children (at least 65%) as well as representation of subgroups of Latino populations throughout a large Northeastern city. In total, 294 Latino primary caregiver participants, whose children were served in 38 classrooms throughout the 7 centers, and all lead teachers of those classrooms agreed to be involved in the study.

Procedure

Interested families from Head Start centers signed consent forms for themselves and their child. Caregivers completed surveys. As compensation for their time, families were provided with a US$20 gift card. Overall, 65% or more of the eligible Latino caregivers with children enrolled in each center participated in the current study. Questionnaires were completed in English or Spanish, and bilingual researchers assisted caregivers in completing questionnaires and answering questions as necessary. Teachers also completed questionnaires with items asking them about each of the consented caregivers of students in their classroom. Teachers received a US$20 gift card per family to be used to purchase classroom supplies.

Measures

Caregiver and teacher characteristics

Information about caregiver demographics was collected via a questionnaire and included: primary caregivers’ age, level of education, primary language spoken in the home, country of origin, and number of years in the United States. In addition, teachers filled out a similar questionnaire regarding their background, including education level, years of teaching experience, ethnicity, number of years in the United States, and classroom characteristics (e.g., language spoken in the classroom).

Ethnic match

To determine the ethnic match between teachers and caregivers, demographic data were utilized, including (a) immigration status (e.g., age of entry into the United States); (b) self-identification as Latino, regardless of country of origin; and (c) language (spoken in the home or in the classroom). This particular form of measuring teacher language use was chosen because it represented whether teachers were able to communicate with parents in Spanish, although it was unable to determine frequency of Spanish use in the classroom. Ethnic match was measured using three separate variables, which were each coded dichotomously (match = 1, mismatch = 0). Specifically, when caregivers and a teacher both entered the United States or were born and raised in the United States as children or young adolescents (younger than age 16) or entered the United States both as older adolescents or adults (older than age 16), they matched on immigration status (1). Immigration status mismatch (0) suggests that a caregiver who entered the United States in their older years, for instance, would have a very different experience acculturating to the United States than a teacher who was born in the United States or entered the United States as a child or young adolescent. When a caregiver and teacher both self-identified as Latino (they checked this ethnic category on the survey), they were consider a Latino match (1). Finally, when caregiver report indicated that they spoke Spanish in the home and teacher report indicated that they spoke Spanish in the classroom, it was considered language match (1). Given a lack of research on how to measure ethnic match with an early childhood sample, our goal was to identify which of the three match variables were most predictive of family school-based engagement, and was, thus, the most appropriate to include in the final, parsimonious statistical models.

School-based family engagement

Each teacher responded to a 4-item Likert-type scale regarding each family’s level of school-based engagement (e.g., 1 = Not at all to 4 = Greatly) in the following four areas: school-based academic activities, school-based social activities, involvement in academic projects and homework at home, and initiation of contact about their child’s academic progress. The mean of the items were utilized as a composite score of family engagement. The measure was developed for this study as a way to determine teachers’ perceptions of family engagement levels. In this sample, the mean rating of family engagement had adequate reliability (α = .79). The scale has evidence of validity given its correlation with the dimensions of the Parental Engagement of Families From Latino Backgrounds (PEFL) measure, a recently established measure of Latino family engagement (see McWayne & Melzi, 2014; McWayne, Melzi, Schick, Kennedy, & Mundt, 2013).

Data Analytic Plan

Due to the presence of nesting within the sample, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was required to examine the relations among teacher and caregiver variables while accounting for the grouping of caregivers in teachers’ classrooms (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). Given the small sample of centers (n = 7), and thus a lack of statistical power, a three-level analysis was not possible. Instead, HLM analyses were conducted using a two-level model (teachers at Level 2 and caregivers at Level 1).

HLM models were examined to determine the proportion of variance accounted for by classrooms/teachers (Level 2) and caregivers (Level 1). A preliminary examination of the unconditional model in HLM was conducted at the outset (Model 1). The unconditional model was a two-level model with only teacher ratings of family engagement as the outcome variable without predictors or controls at either level. From this model, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated, or the proportion of between-teacher variance (i.e., $σ_{u 0}^{2}$ ) to the total variance (i.e., $σ_{u 0}^{2}$ + $σ_{u}^{2}$ ). Next, a series of conditional models were run. Model 2 included two covariates (teacher formal education and caregiver formal education representing slight variability in socioeconomic status [SES], given that all families met eligibility requirements for Head Start and thus were low-income). Model 3 tested the link between ethnic match and teacher report of family engagement.

In addition, the unconditional model and the conditional models were compared to determine the proportion of variance that was explained, which provides a measure of effect size. The analyses utilized fixed effects for Level 1 predictors. It was anticipated that the relationship between ethnic match (Level 1) and family engagement would not vary by classroom given no prior theory or research to support such variation. The final model predicting teacher-reported family engagement is as follows:

Level 1 model : Family Engagement = β_{0 j} + β_{1 j} (Caregiver Education) + β_{2 j} (Latino Matc h_{ij})

Level 2 model : β_{0 j} = γ_{00} + γ_{01} \times (Teacher Education level) + u_{0 j}

Results

Measuring Ethnic Match

Preliminary testing determined the best variables to measure ethnic match. Initial analyses showed that immigration match (similarity in immigration status) and language match were not significant predictors of family engagement. In contrast, Latino match was a significant predictor of family engagement. Therefore, for the sake of parsimony, Latino match was kept in the final models and the other two ethnic match variables were removed.

Descriptive Statistics of Family Engagement

On average, teachers per center rated caregivers as somewhat engaged in their child’s schooling (M = 2.35, SD = .82). Overall, the aggregated means indicate some variability by center (range = 2.00-3.07, SD = .37). Descriptive statistics for caregiver and teacher characteristics are presented in Table 1. With respect to match, 51% of caregivers spoke the same language at home as the language spoken in their child’s classroom. Forty-five percent of caregivers reported arriving in the United States within a similar time in their development as their child’s teacher reported arriving in the country. The caregiver sample was 100% Latino; however, not all of the teachers who taught the families were Latino. Sixty-five percent of teachers identified as Latino, which means 65% of caregivers matched on ethnicity with their teachers.

Table 1.

Ethnic Match, Caregiver Characteristics, and Teacher Characteristics (N = 294).

Variable	Frequency	%
Ethnic match between teacher and caregiver
Language match	149	51
Immigration match	131	45
Latino match	191	65
Caregiver characteristics
Caregiver education
Less than elementary school	31	10
Less than high school	130	44
High school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma (GED)	64	22
More than high school	69	24
Teacher characteristics
Teacher education
Some college, or 2-year college degree	3	8
Bachelor’s degree	18	49
Post-college graduate or professional degree	16	43

Note. Language match = When caregivers spoke the same language at home that teachers spoke in class; Immigration match = When teachers and caregivers were born in the United States or immigrated before the age of 16 or if they immigrated after the age of 16; Latino match = When teachers identified as Latino or not.

Pearson correlations among the variables of interest are presented in Table 2. Teachers who had attained more education were more likely to report caregivers as having greater engagement (r = .15; p< .05) and more likely to speak the same language as the families they served (r = .15; p< .01). Caregivers who had attained more education were more likely to be rated by their teachers as being more engaged (r = .21; p< .01). Finally, teachers with more education were less likely to be Latino than teachers with less education (r = −.20; p< .01).

Table 2.

Intercorrelations Among Caregiver and Teacher Variables.

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Family engagement	—
2. Language match	.15*	—
3. Immigration match	.02	−.09	—
4. Latino match	.23**	.36**	−.42	—
5. Teacher education	.15*	.15**	−.04	−.20**	—
6. Caregiver education	.21**	.10	.12*	−.02	.10	—

p< .05. **p< .01.

Predicting Family Engagement

To account for the nesting in the sample, HLM was conducted using the outcome variable of teachers’ report of families’ engagement in school (see Table 3). In the unconditional model, between-teacher variation in ratings of family engagement accounted for 25% of the total variance in family engagement (ICC = .25; see Table 3, Model 1). In other words, teacher ratings of family engagement varied considerably among teachers. In Model 2, teacher education and caregiver education were entered as covariates. Together, they accounted for 4% of the variance in family engagement in the various classrooms. Caregiver education, but not teacher education, was significantly related to family engagement (β_1j = .42, p≤ .01; γ₀₁ = .12, p = .33, respectively). Compared with caregivers with less formal education, more educated caregivers were more likely to be rated as more engaged by their child’s teacher.

Table 3.

HLM Analysis With Teacher-Reported Family Engagement as the Level-1 Outcome.

Measure	Model 1 estimate (SE)	Model 2 estimate (SE)	Model 3 estimate (SE)
Teacher-level predictors
Teacher education γ₀₁		.12 (.12)	.18 (.12)
Caregiver-level predictors^a
Latino match β_2j			.38* (.16)
Caregiver education β_1j		.42** (.15)	.44** (.05)
Random effects
Teacher level σ²	.25***	.21***	.18***
Caregiver level σ²	.41	.41	.42
Reduced variance between teachers	—	4%	7%
Reduced variance within classrooms	—	0%	1%

Caregivers nested in teachers’ classrooms.

p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

In the final model, Model 3, Latino match was added as a predictor of family engagement. Ethnic match was significantly related to family engagement (β_3j = .38, p = .03) and accounted for an additional 3% of the between-teacher variance in teachers’ ratings of family engagement when taking into account teacher education and caregiver education. When Latino families had a Latino teacher, they tended to be seen by the teacher as more engaged.

Discussion

Findings from the current study contribute to an understanding of teacher and caregiver ethnic match as it relates to teacher ratings of family engagement. The first noteworthy finding was that teacher report of family engagement varied a great deal across classrooms (i.e., 25% of the variance in family engagement was between teachers). Second, ethnic match was positively and significantly related to family engagement in their children’s schooling as rated by teachers, above and beyond the associations of caregiver and teacher education. When the child’s teacher was Latino (a type of ethnic match), significant, albeit modest, variance in family engagement (by classroom) was explained.

Latino Match and Family Engagement

The HLM analysis indicated a significant positive relationship between teacher ratings of family engagement and their Latino match with those caregivers. A number of ideas can be generated about the significant relation between ethnic match and family engagement. Latino teachers may be better at engaging Latino families than other teachers. Latino teachers may also tend to view more activities of Latino parents as “engagement” than their non-Latino counterparts. Moreover, it may be the case that Latino teachers have more flexible expectations related to caregivers with a similar background while non-Latino teachers have higher expectations (i.e., non-Latino teachers are more likely to have a negative perspective of Latino family engagement and thus expect more).

One way of understanding these findings is to consider teachers’ personal cultural schemata and how this might influence their approach to parents (Plata, 2011). Some teachers may have limited knowledge of other cultures and thus view and/or rate family engagement behaviors differently across groups. Furthermore, Latino teachers may feel more efficacious serving Latino families due to their greater proficiency in Spanish and a better understanding of the context in which families live (Irizarry & Raible, 2011). In other words, teachers’ cultural competence as a result of being Latino may help them facilitate family engagement in their children’s schooling. Moreover, Latino teachers who possess greater cultural competence may develop greater rapport and comfort among families. Teachers and caregivers may view each other as part of the same in-group because of their identification as Latino, and thus lead to more comfort and less perceived prejudice/discrimination and marginalization (Martinez, DeGarmo, & Eddy, 2004).

Another plausible explanation relates to the nature of the family engagement measure. Specifically, it sought ratings of teachers’ perceptions of family behavior and this inevitably left much room for interpretation. For instance, some teachers may have viewed school-based family engagement as solely comprised of helping with educational activities in the classroom, while other teachers may have viewed it as a wider range of activities in the classroom (e.g., helping clean up, preparing food, and attending class meetings). To some teachers, assistance in cleaning and maintaining the classroom could be viewed as a form of engagement, despite it not being direct engagement in educational activities. Future studies could examine whether engagement gets defined by varying activities, depending on the cultural lens of the teacher. In addition, further studies should build on the recent work of McWayne and colleagues (2013) to clarify the specific in-school activities Latino caregivers endorse as key to their school engagement (e.g., school communication, learning, and using the school system, and their physical presence for school activities).

In addition, the correlational analysis revealed that teacher education was significantly and negatively related to Latino match; however, teacher education was also significantly and positively correlated to family engagement. In other words, Latino teachers were less likely to have higher levels of formal education. In addition, those with more education were more likely to rate caregivers as highly engaged. This suggests it would serve Head Start to promote the education of their Latino teachers. Already, Head Start offers loan forgiveness and other programs that assist teachers in obtaining additional education. Further efforts should be made to develop structures within programs with a high concentration of Latino children to educate and promote Latino teachers in order to have more highly educated, culturally competent, Latino teachers to help engage the Latino families of the community.

Limitations and Future Research

Limitations of the study include the small sample of centers used for the analysis. With only seven centers contributing to the study, it was not possible to run a three-level HLM model to test between-center differences. Descriptive statistics indicated that family engagement had a fairly wide range of variability across centers. Future research might identify center characteristics that could help explain why some centers are more successful at engaging families than others. In addition, despite a reduction in variance in our HLM model when including ethnic match and teacher and caregiver education, a majority of the variance in teacher report of family engagement remained unexplained. This suggests that there are predictors of teacher-rated engagement that this study did not measure that could help explain why some caregivers were rated by teachers as more engaged than others. In sum, additional research is needed to understand why teachers rate family engagement differently across Head Start classrooms and centers.

Summary and Implications

Family engagement appears to be a crucial mechanism by which low-income ethnic minority parents may improve the academic achievement of their children (Jeynes, 2003, 2005, 2007). Recent longitudinal studies have demonstrated how family engagement, and resulting student motivation, in preschool and Head Start can account for over 50% of the variance in academic achievement by the 6th grade (Hayakawa, Englund, Warner-Richter, & Reynolds, 2013). This emphasizes the value of developing a better understanding of how to engage families in early childhood education. Moreover, research has focused on home-based engagement among Latinos (e.g., Cooper et al., 2010), while the studies that have examined school-based engagement highlight how Latinos are less engaged in school without explaining why this occurs. The current study hoped to identify mechanisms that might influence school-based family engagement for Latino families. Findings provided some evidence that the ethnic match between a teacher and caregiver relates to how teachers rate families’ engagement in their child’s education. This finding provides an area of further study regarding how and why teachers view certain engagement patterns differently and why ethnic identification should play a role in this process. With regard to ethnic match, it should be stressed that Head Start and public schools in general should do more to develop a pipeline of Latino teachers who serve the growing Latino population. Moreover, as Head Start continues efforts to promote higher education levels of their staff, they might also include training teachers in how to facilitate Latino family engagement in school through increased cultural competence. This is especially imperative given the shifting demographics of our nation.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by an NICHD R03 grant (5R03HD50363-2) and by an Administration for Children and Families (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) Head Start—University English Language Learners Partnership Grant (90YR0063). Both grants were awarded to the third and fourth authors.

Author Biographies

Kevin Mundt, PsyD, is a recent graduate of Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. He currently works for Rutgers University Behavioral Healthcare as a Mental Health Clinician at one of their school-based programs. His research interests include paths to parent engagement, improving cultural sensitivity in schools, and developing community-based mental health programs.

Anne Gregory, associate professor (PhD University of California, Berkeley), is in the Department of Applied Psychology at Rutgers University. Her research has focused on the persistent trend that African American adolescents are issued school suspension and expulsion at higher rates than adolescents from other groups. Through program development, implementation, and evaluation, she aims to address this trend by strengthening characteristics of teachers, classrooms, and schools associated with the successful schooling of African American students. Her research interests also include bullying, teacher-student relationships, and teacher professional development. She has recently served on the Discipline Disparities Collaborative funded by Atlantic Philanthropies which convened lawyers, researchers, advocates, and youth leaders to address gaps in our knowledge about discipline disparities, identify promising policy reform, and synthesize what schools can do to change patterns in school discipline.

Gigliana Melzi (PhD Boston University) is an associate professor of applied psychology and the director of undergraduate studies in applied psychology at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, & Human Development. Her research has examined the language development and literacy experiences of Spanish-speaking children within and outside of the United States. In one line of work, she has investigated through qualitative methodologies the daily literacy activities of immigrant parents and their impact on children’s school performance. In a second line of research, she has conducted studies on various discourse and linguistic features of Spanish-speaking mother-child dyads from non-immigrant and immigrant Latin American families across various socioeconomic groups. In a more recent line of work, she has examined the unique ways Latino parents support their preschoolers learning, developing a culturally relevant multidimensional measure of family engagement for Spanish- and English-speaking Latino families, and ways that teachers can build on those practices in preschoool classrooms.

Christine M. McWayne, PhD, is an associate professor and director of Early Childhood Education in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. She earned her doctorate in school, community, and clinical-child psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. Her work has focused primarily on two areas: (a) the interplay of contextual factors in the home, school, and neighborhood and low-income children’s early development of social and academic competencies; and (b) the advancement of a partnership-based research approach for informing systems-level interventions to improve developmental outcomes for urban, low-income children. A major part of her program of research has been focused on understanding positive parenting and family engagement within socioculturally diverse groups and from an emic perspective.

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