The importance of presence: immigrant parents' school engagement experiences

The authors have been engaged in research focused on how parents on high-poverty urban communities negotiate understanding and build sustaining relationships with others in school settings. In this article, the authors draw upon ethnographic methodology to report on the stories of three working-class immigrant parents and their efforts to participate in their children's schooling. In contrasting the three stories, the authors argue that parental engagement needs to be understood through parents' presence in schooling, regardless of whether that presence is in a formal school space or in more personal, informal spaces, including those created by parents themselves. (DIPF/Orig.).