As of 2015, surveys have determined that there has been a marked increase in the number of parents of children ages 6-18 who hold a Bachelor’s Degree over the past 30 years in the United States. But when you compare figures between Latinos, White, and Black families the numbers don’t favor Latinos. In fact, despite the increases, Latino parents are still trailing behind the other demographics in terms of academic achievement from the time between the years 1974-2015. These unfortunate figures point to a lack of parental involvement in the education of Latino students as well, and when we consider the numbers it’s not as difficult to understand why there is a such a significant disconnect.

We know that Hispanic parents want more education for their children than what they have. Studies have shown that Hispanic parents who have the opportunity to overcome barriers to involvement often make the most of their circumstances and encourage their children to succeed. But when we view the statistics of Hispanic parents against Black or White parents in terms of their own education, we can identify how these barriers are established. Consider the percentage of children between the ages of 6-18 whose mothers did not complete high school and we find that the percentage has dropped from 61.8% to 34.3% in a span of over three decades. Compare that to a difference of 57.6% to 9% for Black mothers and 27.1% to 5% for Whites. While there has been dramatic improvement, 34.3% is still a staggering number. For children of the same age whose mothers held a Bachelor’s Degree or higher the percentage rose from 3.5% to 14.1% for Hispanics in the past three decades versus 3.6%-22.4% for Blacks and 9.3%-43% for Whites. The change over time is much less and yet the disparities are still quite large.

This could explain why so many parents are reluctant to get involved with their child’s eduaction, whether it’s reading to them or visiting the school. Many Hispanic parents, particularly coming from rural backgrounds, have displayed self-esteem issues, language barrier problems, and culture shock when they try to engage with their child’s educators and school administration. Many Hispanic cultures also point to the teacher as having the final say on a child’s educational path so parents are reluctant to get involved for fear of overstepping perceived boundaries. All of these barriers must be lowered for there to be successful parental engagement for Hispanic students and the role of the teacher must extend to eliminating these obstacles.

The Latino Family Literacy Project are experts in working with parents of diverse backgrounds and can train your staff to work specifically with parental engagement at your school.  If you’re interested in finding more information about this program, plan to attend a workshop. They offer both online webinar training and in person workshops.

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