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Abstract

The purpose of this three-stage qualitative phenomenology case study was to characterize Somali refugee parents’ understanding of their role in school-parent relationships and investigate the impact of a research-based parent involvement intervention model adapted for use with this study. Research questions included: 1) What are Somali refugee parents’ understanding, perceptions, and expectations of school parent involvement; and 2) Did the adapted training intervention, designed to enhance school-parent relationships and parent engagement behaviors among Somali refugee parents, succeed? Following an initial interview stage, Epstein’s School-Family-Community Partnership Model (2019) was adapted and used to design a training intervention that was delivered as a component of the district’s Community School model. The pre-training interview identified that none of twelve parents in the study had attended school in their home country or the United States. The Somali refugee parents reported that their lack of English skills caused difficulty for them to understand school policies, their child’s school progress, and teacher expectations. Coded and themed results from post-training interviews revealed the parent involvement training interventions had resulted in both increased parent engagement knowledge and behaviors. The study verified parent engagement barriers for Faribault Public Schools’ Somali parents, and the engagement trainings provided the study sample group with focused, evidenced-based knowledge, skills, and recommended actions. Recommendations for practice include aligning school-parent involvement activities with a comprehensive, structured approach such as the Epstein model and the thorough identification of parent engagement barriers for the targeted subpopulation.

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