Valéria Schörghofer-Queiroz, BA MA

Multilingual parents’ identity construction in the context of parental engagement

Supervision: Eva Vetter
Period: 2019-
Contact: valeria.schoerghofer.queiroz@univie.ac.at

As pointed out by previous research and official reports, pupil’s good performance at school is closely linked to parental engagement. However, minority families, such as multilingual migrant families, often experience disadvantages in relation to school involvement, which is often caused by discrepancies in the understanding of parental engagement and unequal power relations in the school space. In this context, the identity construction of multilingual parents play a crucial role in their possibilities of investing in their children’s learning process, as it is intrinsically connected to the positions they assume considering the dominant ideologies and the values of capitals in the spaces where they circulate. Therefore, this dissertation aims to analyze how multilingual adults with kindergarten and school-aged children negotiate and construct their identity as a parent while engaging in their children’s learning and interacting in the space of their children’s kindergarten and/or school. To achieve this goal, a qualitative case study is conducted with seven multilingual parents, which collects data from diary entries, interviews with parents and observations. The expected results of this research intend to question dominant views and practices of parental engagement, as well as contribute to enhance multilingual parents’ experience in the school space.