An Investigation into Effective Ways to Involve Ethnic Minority Parents to Enhance the Chinese Learning of Their Children

Abstract

Parent involvement has been found to be vital to children’s school success, as such, it is important to find ways to engage parents in students’ learning activities, especially for those who came from culturally diverse background. This paper presents the concepts of parent involvement and uses a case as an exemplar to capture the facilitating factors for involving an ethnic minority (EM) parent for enhancing the Chinese learning of her child in the Hong Kong context. Qualitative results showed that successful factors for engaging EM parents include: having high learning motivation, good program elements (such as employing the pleasurable learning elements, being culturally sensitive), the establishment of a first language-like environment, and being empowered. Future directions for education and social service sectors for engaging EM parents are also discussed.