(PS4-B42) Preschool Teachers and Families of Color: Elevating Community Voices to Illuminate a Quality Relationship-building Process

Introduction: Parent-teacher relationships are critical in early childhood as they help promote key social-emotional and pre-academic skills needed for school success. However, historically minoritized families report having more negative parent-teacher relationships compared to White families (Mendez, 2010). This is alarming as teachers’ perceptions of parents play a role in how teachers perceive and respond to child behavior in the classroom. Research is needed to elevate the voices of parents and teachers to support them in forming quality relationships. The current study aims to outline a working model that explores contributing factors that affect the development of quality relationships between teachers and historically minoritized parents.

Methods: As part of a larger community-based partnership, we conducted semi-structured Zoom interviews with teachers and parents from two early childhood education centers in the Pacific Northwest that primarily serve low-income families of color. Participants were nine parents, six teachers, and one enrollment coordinator. Parent and teacher interview scripts reflected a parallel process and consisted of 15 open-ended questions. Interview questions focused on either the parent-teacher relationship (e.g., Describe what a quality parent-teacher relationship looks like to you?) or child behavior (e.g., Who do you go to for support when handling challenging behavior?). To better understand the process of building a relationship, we analyzed all transcripts using a grounded theory approach to engage in thematic analysis and develop a set of mini-theories. 

Results: Preliminary results suggest that in the absence of a quality relationships, the following steps lead to lower quality relationships between parents and teachers: Step 1) Teachers hold inaccurate perceptions of the parent (e.g., parents won’t be much help, don’t want to engage, are biased towards me, etc.), “They [parents] might also be prejudging the teacher like, ‘Will the teacher treat my kids fairly?’”; Step 2) As a result, teachers become reluctant to engage with parents, “If you're a 25-year-old Mexican woman and I'm a 50-year-old white woman, and I'm trying to tell you what to do with your child, I don't know, sometimes I feel like they might feel a little more judged”; Step 3) Parents feel disconnected or caught off guard when contacted about behavior concerns, “He had something come up at school pretty recently and I got this super long email from the vice principal about it. . . Why didn't you just call me?”.

Discussion: Our findings indicate that despite teachers and historically minoritized families wanting to have quality relationships, there are crucial breakdowns in communication and understanding between groups. In the absence of quality relationships, teachers may fall back on their biases which negatively impact their interactions with parents. By elevating the perspectives of parents and teachers, we may begin to understand the intra- and interpersonal processes that lead these relationships awry. Implications for research and practice will be discussed with an eye towards equipping parents and teachers with culturally-responsive practices for improving their relationship.