Mina Prokic will defend her Doctoral Thesis on January 23rd, 2020.

Time: 15:00hrs

Place: Auditori Mercè Rodoreda, Mercè Rodoreda Building, UPF Ciutadella Campus.

Title: Intercultural Relations and Family-School Trust: Immigrant and Native Families in Schools of Barcelona.

Abstract: The main aim of the thesis is to explain intercultural relations between immigrant and native families in the school context and how these reflect in their trust in local schools. For this purpose, I analyze the relationship between native and immigrant families and their relation to teachers, school staff and direction, considering school norms and the ways in which the differentiation between immigrant and natives takes place. I also look at what trust in schools means and how it is performed by native and immigrant families. For this purpose, I employ a theoretical framework that is situated at the intersection of the overlapping research between immigration studies and education. By linking the literature on intercultural relations and trust in schools, I develop my theoretical framework on the conditions that are important for enhancing school trust in an intercultural context.  To obtain my data I use a qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews and participant observation, for getting a richer picture of the settings and familiarizing with the ideas that are formed in the link between intercultural relations and trust in schools.  The fieldwork is done in Barcelona where I interview native and immigrant parents as well as educational professionals in schools in two districts: Ciutat Vella and Sants-Montjuic.

The thesis consists of three main articles with an overall framework of school trust and family school relations. The first paper tries to answer how native parents regard immigrants and how this affects their trust in schools, while the second paper shows the perceptions of intercultural relations and trust by immigrants in relation to schools. In this way, we are able to see how the perception that natives have about immigrants compares to what immigrant parents think and what are the potential conflicts between them. Finally, the third paper paper shows the view of education professionals such as teachers, administration and educational inspectors and their views on intercultural relations and family school relations. Through these three articles, this thesis explains what the demands of immigrant and native families and contrasts them with what schools are doing and how they are managing diversity.  It demonstrates the expectations of native and immigrant families about the functioning of schools and education institutions, how they respond to this demand, and what institutional conditions can lead to more trust in the school context and what institutional conditions can hamper it.