Ethnic Minority Parents' Involvement in Education: Exploring and Understanding Their Experiences

Lopez, Scribner and Mahitivanichcha (2001) discuss the limited volume of literature that directly addresses ethnic minority parents' involvement in their children's education and they call upon researchers to fill this gap in the literature. This study is one such positive step with its focus on exploring how ethnic minority parents of secondary school students in southern Ontario understand their involvement in their children's education. Participants in the study included three ethnic minority parents recruited from a local adult education centre, and my parents who, as ethnics minority parents, also faced challenges trying to support their children as we progressed through the Ontario educational system. Primary data were collected through in-depth, open-ended interviews approximately one hour in length. Each of the five participants was interviewed twice. Secondary data included Ontario Ministry of Education documents that addressed programs, policies, and supports for ethnic minority students in Ontario secondary schools. Fieldnotes and a research journal also provided secondary data. The findings highlight, among other things, the challenges the participants faced as ethnic minority parents with a deep desire to support their children's education, but often lacking the cultural capital valued in the Ontario school system to meet that goal. As well, I benefited greatly from this research learning about the various ways in which, in my future work as a teacher of ethnic minority students, I can integrate the knowledge, skills, and experiences of ethnic minorities into my practice to ensure that parents of the non-dominant culture have an opportunity to become highly involved in the education of their children.

Understanding the Cultural Health Beliefs in Diabetes Education Amongst the Aboriginal Population within a City in the Southern Region of Ontario

This study examined the cultural health beliefs in diabetes education amongst the Aboriginal population within a city in Southern Ontario. The purpose was to contribute to the development of a culturally relevant diabetes handbook as well as to delivery styles within current diabetes education programs. To this end, a focus group was conducted with Aboriginal men and women between the ages of 18-70 years with type 2 diabetes. Participants were recruited from 2 Aboriginal community centres and an Aboriginal health centre in a city in Southern Ontario. Themes were drawn from the analysis of the focus group transcripts and combined with the findings from the research literature. The major themes that merged were drawn from Eurocentric and Aboriginal theories. The results were a set of recommendations on the type of format for diabetes educational programs such as traditional group activities, variety of electronic format, and culture specific educational resources. The emergent results appear to provide some important insights into program planning for diabetes education centres within Aboriginal communities.

Examining the Nature of Published Research About Mentoring in Higher Education

The various forms of mentoring relationships in higher education have all proven to be valuable, offering numerous benefits to mentors and protégés. Research into mentoring provides critical insight into aspects of these relationships, which can be used to advance theoretical and practical understandings of the topic. However, little is known about the methodological characteristics of the mentoring research itself. Using descriptive quantitative content analysis, I examined five years of articles published in five scholarly journals to determine the prevalence of research about mentoring in higher education. Not surprisingly, the prevalence of these articles differed significantly among journals in higher education (1.07% to 3.13%) compared to the considerably higher prevalence rate of 53.15% for the mentoring journal, Mentoring & Tutoring [χ2 (4, N = 82) = 143.98, p < .01]. I also report findings related to the prevalence of different empirical research traditions, research designs, and data sources, as well as various populations, such as faculty members or graduate students who serve as mentors or protégés. Given the limited number of mentoring articles published in higher education journals, I was unable to compare methodological characteristics across journals. Implications for theory, research, and practice in the area of mentoring in higher education are also suggested. Understanding the methodological characteristics of the current literature allows researchers to tailor their current studies by either continuing with existing trends in methodological approaches or seeking opportunities to incorporate under-utilized research traditions, designs, or data sources, with the aim of continuing to improve mentoring knowledge and outcomes.

The perceptions of commune health workers about an education strategy received for counselling fathers about infant and breastfeeding involvement

Objective To evaluate the perceptions of healthcare workers in Vietnam about the efficacy of a continuing education strategy about father involvement and breastfeeding counselling. Design One group, post-test only, quasi-experimental design Method A questionnaire based on Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; Bandura, 2004) was disseminated to participants (N=28). This questionnaire measured self-efficacy, outcome expectations, socio-structural factors, goal setting and behaviour. Multiple regressions were analyzed predicting participants’ practice of client focused father involvement consulting. Results Bivariate correlations demonstrated the anticipated patterns of association between SCT-based constructs. Multiple regression analysis indicated that outcome expectations and barriers were significant predictors of client focused father involvement consulting. Conclusions Participants reported that the education increased their self-efficacy, outcome expectations and client focused father involvement consulting behaviour. Future education should be accessible, increase counselling confidence and address beliefs about the outcomes and challenges of father involvement consulting.