Immigrant Parents from Kosovo on Helping Their Children with Schoolwork

Lea Cahunek and Irena Lesar

Summary:  Parental involvement in their children’s education is an important factor in learning and social development and is widely recognised as a principle of effective educational practice. However, little research has focused on the involvement of immigrant parents in supporting their children with schoolwork, particularly in the context of the linguistic, social, and cultural circumstances of immigration. This paper examines parents who have immigrated from Kosovo (N = 246) with children attending Slovenian primary schools, analysing the frequency and methods of their assistance with schoolwork. The data analysis shows that in immigrant families from Kosovo, assisting with schoolwork is primarily the responsibility of mothers. Regarding the frequency of assistance, the results indicate that children receive help from parents only a few times a month, from siblings a few times a year, even less often from classmates and professionals outside school, and almost never from an instructor. In terms of the ways parents help their children with schoolwork, the analysis shows that parents often supervise, remind, and encourage their children to learn but rarely become directly involved in the learning process itself (e.g. studying together, checking the child’s knowledge, or reading with the child). The academic success of children who had received numerical grades was reported by parents to be relatively low (M = 2.64), with approximately one-fifth of parents stating that their child had repeated a school grade. When interpreting the results, it is important to consider the broader structural and sociocultural circumstances that may affect parents’ opportunities to be involved in their children’s schoolwork.