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L105 Goldenberg, C. N. & Gallimore, R. (1995). Immigrant Latino parents' values and beliefs about their children's education: Continuities and discontinuities across cultures and generations. In P. Pintrich & M. Maehr (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement ,Vol. 9., 183-227.
Over the past quarter-century, psychodynamic approaches to motivation and behavior have given way to cognitive perspectives (e.g., Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Bandura, 1986; Deci, 1975; Stipek,1993; Weiner, 1980). "The study of needs and drives," Anderman and Maehr (1994) note, "became . . . the study of perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs (p. 290)." We think it particularly apt, then, to examine the thoughts and beliefs (including values) of Latino immigrant parents and other U.S. culture groups who experience difficulties with schooling. In the most general terms, a study of "perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs" of Latino and other culture groups helps understand the bases for their actions. Introducing concepts of culture and cultural schema into motivation theory is a recognition that motivation is not solely a property of the individual. The beliefs and values that motivate action do not arise in a cultural and historical vacuum. Why the families in our studies behave as they do is traceable, in part, to cultural models they brought with them from their homelands. These models continue to serve as important adaptive resources in a new place. But they also undergo change in response to changed circumstances, as we saw from parents who express a commitment to helping their children achieve higher levels of formal schooling than their parents allowed them to achieve. D'Andrade (1992) puts it this way: ". . .to understand people one needs to understand what leads them to act as they do, and to understand what leads them to act as they do one needs to know their goals, and to understand their goals one must understand their overall interpretive system. . . ., which is provided by their culture (D'Andrade, 1992, p. 31)." Our own motivation for studying the values, beliefs, and actions of the Latino parents had a more pragmatic aim, although we think the results are relevant to theory as well. We sought to discover whether beliefs and values underpinning family actions provide a foundation for productive school-home collaborations that could help students succeed in school. We believe such a foundation has been uncovered, at least in the elementary school years (although it might exist in high schools as well; Lucas, Henze, & Donato, 1990). In the case the of immigrant Latino families, this foundation consists of parents' deep and abiding belief in the value of formal schooling for children's social and economic mobility, parents' willingness to take an active role in their child's school achievement, and parents' responsiveness when teachers suggest they do so. Parents' conception of educación, which emphasizes good and respectful behavior, and staying on the right path--being "well-educated"(bien educado) as well as well-schooled--also provides part of this foundation, although it is of a different order. Teachers with whom we have worked often comment (sometimes disparagingly) that Latino parents appear more interested in their children's comportment than their cognitive achievement. Our interviews reveal that this might well be true, but one of the reasons is that parents see good and proper behavior as the basis for academic and cognitive advance. Thus parents' emphasis on comportment and the schools' (at least overt) emphasis on academic learning complement, rather than conflict with, each other. In contrast, parents' de-emphasis of pre-school academic learning opportunities in the home (both because literacy is not a fundamental activity for most families' economic activities and because parents emphasize morals and comportment in their socialization practices) translates into a relative scarcity of text-based literacy experiences for these children before they begin school. This leads to a fundamental discontinuity between schools and immigrant Latino homes, since when children begin school, even kindergarten, one of the main items on the agenda is to begin promoting literacy skills. Although literacy is not absent--families write and receive letters; ads, printed matter, and environmental print are often present; parents and older siblings do read, particularly if they are in school--the relatively little emphasis on literacy, or "emergent literacy," during the preschool years put Latino youngsters at risk for underachievement. However, as soon as children begin school, and learning literacy becomes an important goal, we see parents playing a more active role in helping children academically, particularly if parents receive encouragement and assistance from children's teachers. The Latino parents' cultural models or schemas related to schooling and achievement thus present a mixed picture. On the one hand, values and practices exist that are at least complementary and at best fully compatible (even congruent) with school values. On the other hand, there are clear differences. In much of the current literature, there is a tendency for observers to feature the differences as the principal issue and to take one of three positions: Some argue success in U.S. schools will come only as immigrant families leave behind their "different" values that were adaptive in more traditional, non-technological contexts and adopt those of the academic occupational model. Others argue that for these children to succeed, schools must accommodate to differences in values, learning styles, and children's home experiences. Yet others contend that differences in U.S. opportunity structures mean that Latinos and other disenfranchised groups will inevitably devalue formal schooling as an avenue for social and economic mobility. Our findings suggest a different interpretation. To the extent that the cultural schema we have described have motivational force, that is, they function as goals and instigate action (D'Andrade, 1992), there are commonalities that the Latino families and the schools share, which provide avenues for home-school collaboration. We cannot generalize to other groups, but we hypothesize that significant commonalities exist between the schools and those for whom the schools have not worked well. Our examples and analyses raise an intriguing possibility: Is accommodating to culturally different children mainly a matter of making fundamental changes in teaching, staffing, or curriculum? Or can we also accommodate to culturally different children by recognizing similarities and consistencies, as well as differences and discontinuities, across cultures? We suggest that cultural accommodation cuts both ways--making changes if needed but recognizing similarities when they exist. Ignoring one over the other is not in the best interest of children or families. As we confront the challenges posed by this most recent wave of immigrants to the United States, educators must be aware of discontinuities that must be skillfully and sensitively handled. But they must be equally sensitive to what the families, children, teachers, and administrators share.
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