School-Immigrant Family-Community Collaboration Practices: Similarities and Differences

We compared school-immigrant family-community collaboration practices based on the six dimensions of Epstein’s influence model (2001). These three groups of stakeholders (N = 54) participated in this study by answering a questionnaire on their collaboration practices. Kruskall-Wallis analyses revealed a notable difference between the three groups with regard to decision-making practices and at-home learning. A positive correlation was found between the number of years of teaching experience in the school and communication, volunteering, parenting, and decision making, as well as between the child’s grade level and parenting. Results show that although the collaboration practices followed Epstein’s involvement theory, they remained weak, with no significant difference between the three groups in terms of their use. Our findings are discussed in light of recent literature and their practical implications and avenues for future research are proposed to better understand and improve the conditions favoring school-immigrant family-community collaboration.


Article abstract
We compared school-immigrant family-community collaboration practices based on the six dimensions of Epstein's influence model (2001). These three groups of stakeholders (N = 54) participated in this study by answering a questionnaire on their collaboration practices. Kruskall-Wallis analyses revealed a notable difference between the three groups with regard to decision-making practices and at-home learning. A positive correlation was found between the number of years of teaching experience in the school and communication, volunteering, parenting, and decision making, as well as between the child's grade level and parenting. Results show that although the collaboration practices followed Epstein's involvement theory, they remained weak, with no significant difference between the three groups in terms of their use. Our findings are discussed in light of recent literature and their practical implications and avenues for future research are proposed to better understand and improve the conditions favoring school-immigrant family-community collaboration. CJEAP,197 immigration, and what are the differences and similarities between these groups in terms of their collaboration practices?

Review of the Literature: SIFC Collaboration
In recent years, many education systems in both North America and Europe have begun singing the praises of collaboration between education and social advocates (Maubant & Leclerc, 2008) and have introduced several specific actions to ensure the commitment of the different parties in terms of equity, inclusion, and quality in education (UNESCO, 2018), as well as to encourage parents' participation and provide services adapted for immigrant and non-immigrant students alike (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2012). The goal is also to provide a relevant education program, promote achievement for all students in the current context of online learning due to the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and support a form of collaboration between governments, enterprises, and schools (GES) that is delegated to and led by the government and organized by the schools, while nurturing the school-family relationship (UNESCO, 2020): "G-E-S collaboration should have the following features: flexible instructions; self-regulated learning; on-demand selection and respect for differences; open resources; and scientific and technological support" (p. 37).
In this perspective, SFC collaboration has been found to have a positive impact on how well immi grant-origin families and their children adapt to the education program of their host society and overcome difficulties associated with acculturation and success in school (Mitchell & Bryan, 2007). Parent involvement at school also has a positive influence on their child's achievement (Jeynes, 2003). Furthermore, SFC collaboration enables schools to develop certain vital problem-solving competencies to assist students and teachers socially, culturally, emotionally, and scholastically (Laosa, 2005). Studies have indeed examined the intensity of school-immigrant family (SIF) collaboration, which can occur on several levels, from distanced collaboration to a more fusional partnership (Vatz Laaroussi et al., 2008), as well as the important contribution of school counselors on parenting and collaboration with the community (Griffin & Steen, 2010).

The Challenges of SIFC Collaboration
Several challenges compromise the SIFC dynamic, its quality, and its implementation. School-related issues identified in the literature regard, among others: (1) the absence of a formal pedagogical handbook on how to establish and sustain SFC collaboration in every context (Molina, 2013); (2) the lack of relevant references on community diversity in existing pedagogical documentation (Ministère de l'éducation de l'Ontario [MÉO], 2017); (3) the lack of geographical proximity between the school and the homes of these students (Lachaine et al., 2016); and (4) the difficulty encouraging and supporting teachers' skills and expertise to counter the lack of motivation, the feeling of being overwhelmed, or the choice of organization with which to collaborate (Kanouté et al., 2016).
Issues involving immigrant families have also been mentioned in the literature. The difficulties pertain to their parental participation, how they follow their child's education, and how their relationship with the school is established-all of which are generally affected by time, non-flexible work schedules, language, life stresses, etc. Tardif-Grenier et al., 2018), not to mention the lack of communication, conciliation, and parental responsibility, and how they respond to the help being offered to them (Prévôt, 2008). Regarding this last point, the school is not always a favorable welcoming environment for immigrant families, who can feel intimidated, stressed, and anxious when having to come into the school, because it is unfamiliar territory (Pratt-Johnson, 2015). Finally, concerns have been raised as to the lack of sensitivity of community organizations relative to logistical resources, their difficulty communicating with other services in the community, and their views which differ from those of the school (Lachaine et al., 2016).
Furthermore, several issues have been brought to light regarding SIFC collaboration, despite the school's pivotal role in getting families involved, implementing new practices, and supporting parent-teacher communication (Arapi et al., 2018), and the equally important role of the school-community partnership in supporting, guiding, and developing a sense of belonging in immigrant families and their children (Casto, 2016). Studies are indeed rare on the SIF relationship (Beauregard et al., 2014) and only a few recent works confirm the weak involvement of community resources (Larivée et al., 2017) and the 78 Boulaamane & Bouchamma informal and personal aspect of school-community interactions (Bakhshaei, 2015). To our knowledge, no quantitative study in Québec has specifically examined SFC collaboration practices in a context of immigration by considering these three groups of stakeholders using Epstein's influence model (2001). We therefore sought to compare their respective SIFC collaborative practices. While recognizing that each of the three groups has its own characteristics, we hypothesize that there were significant differences between these three groups of interest and therefore asked the following specific research questions: Is there a difference between these groups with regard to SIFC collaboration and do these collaboration practices vary depending on the participants' sociodemographic and socioprofessional variables?

Conceptual Framework: The Epstein Model
Several studies have been inspired by Epstein's overlapping influence framework (Epstein, 2001) for various reasons, such as highlighting the efforts of school counselors with immigrant and non-immigrant families (Griffin & Steen, 2010;Mitchell & Bryan, 2007), drawing a portrait of SFC collaboration projects in at-risk areas (Tremblay et al., 2015), defining parental participation in disadvantaged and minority schools (Bower & Griffin, 2011), and identifying communication practices between immigrant parents and teachers (Beauregard & Grenier, 2017), among others.
We thus used Epstein's model (2001) (figure 1) to examine the collaboration practices of the three groups of interest, in the context of Québec. This model is composed of six dimensions: 1. Parenting: parents' responsibilities, basic roles, and skills (e.g., the resources provided by the school to IF to help them better understand how to educate their children) 2. Communication: the effective dialogue taking place between SIF (e.g., meetings or telephone calls between a mother and a teacher to discuss the child's progress or to confirm the dates of certain important activities) 3. At-home learning: the parents' supervision of their children in the home (e.g., advice and recommendations given by the school to IF to encourage their child to read or to support discussions and active listening) 4. Volunteering: the voluntary involvement of parents in the school's activities (e.g., the school takes into account the work schedules and availability of immigrant families to enable them to participate in activities) 5. Decision making: the parents' participation and involvement in the decisions being made by the school's committees/meetings (e.g., enable immigrant families to attend and contribute to decisional activities, such as the parents' committee), and 6. Collaboration with the community: the means and resources of community organizations to help improve and support the school's programs and youth development (e.g., the school and the neighborhood library collaborate to develop an activity to improve the French-language skills of young immigrants).

Sample
All of the participants volunteered for this study (N = 55) and included 12 school members, 24 community representatives, and 19 immigrant families residing outside of the Montréal area.

School Representatives
This group (n = 12) was composed of five principals, six teachers, and one education consultant from schools in three different Québec municipalities. These educators included nine women and three men, with the majority having more than one year of teaching experience (n = 10) at their school. The schools had an average of 71 teachers and 744 students, including 242 students of immigrant origin. The average deprivation level of the participating schools was 6.5

Community Members
This group (n = 24) was composed of 19 women and five men, including nine SFC liaison agents, four community leaders, four coordinators, two community workers, two street workers, one special educator, one volunteer worker, and one employment counselor.

Immigrant Families (IF)
This group (n = 18) was composed of 12 mothers and six fathers who were parents of a child in elementary-level classes. The majority of these parents were born in Morocco (n = 9) and in India (n = 3). These IF were generally well-educated, with university degrees (n = 8) or higher (n = 5).

Data Collection Questionnaire
The three groups under study answered an online questionnaire divided into two sections, namely, sociodemographic and socioprofessional characteristics (age, gender, education level, experience, number of years in the school, school's deprivation level, etc.) and SIFC collaboration practices on a Likert scale ranging from 1 "never used" to 5 "frequently used". 80

Boulaamane & Bouchamma
For the educators' questionnaire, we translated and adapted the Measure of School, Family, and Community Partnerships of Salinas, Epstein, and Sanders (2019) which consists of 55 questions divided under six themes: communication (17 items), volunteering (8 items), parenting (7 items), decision making (10 items), at-home learning (7 items), and collaboration with the community (6 items). We also developed two questionnaires based on our review of the literature: the Immigrant Family Collaboration Questionnaire (IFCQ) housing 47 questions under two themes, namely, school-immigrant family collaboration (34 items) and immigrant family-community collaboration (13 items) and the Community Collaboration Questionnaire (CCQ) composed of 29 questions under three themes: relationship between the school and the community (12 items), support for immigrant families (10 items), and community planning (7 items). To ensure the clarity of each item, the questionnaires were pre-tested by one person from each group. For example, we did not refer just to "volunteering" but rather proposed statements related to the practices or habits of immigrant families that would help them get involved in the school or in community organizations. Table 1 presents a few examples of the questionnaire items.

Questionnaires
Item examples MSFCP Parenting: "Our school provides immigrant families with clear, usable information related to the academic success of their child." Volunteering: "Our school trains volunteers to be productive." Decision making: "Our school involves immigrant parents in the review of its educational programs and those of the district." Collaboration with the community: "Our school offers after-school programs for immigrant students, with the help of community businesses, organizations, and volunteers." IFCQ Immigrant family-School collaboration: "As a member of an immigrant family, I ask the school for ideas to help my child succeed." OR "As a member of an immigrant family, I work with the school staff to plan school outings and activities outside of school." Immigrant family-Community collaboration: "As a member of an immigrant family, I get involved in the socialization and Francization activities at community centres." OR "As a member of an immigrant family, I directly contact community organizations to obtain educational support." CCQ Mutual relationship between the school and the community: "As a member of the community, I involve schools in the meetings/gatherings to discuss how to better integrate youth in schools." Support for immigrant families: "As a member of the community, I provide psychological support to immigrant families who have difficulty helping their children or integrating themselves." Community planning: "As a member of the community, I organize continuing education/training for the school staff to enhance their intercultural capabilities." 81 CJEAP, 197

Data Analysis Method
We conducted our statistical analyses using SPSS version 25 software. Because the number of participants did not allow for a factor analysis, we proceeded as follows for each of the questionnaires: • Step 1: Grouping of the items according to the six dimensions of involvement (Epstein, 2001): communication, parenting, volunteering, at-home learning, decision making, and collaboration, • Step 2: Calculation of the averages of the items associated with each dimension, • Step 3: Grouping of the three SPSS files into one main file containing the six new variables (see Table 2 which presents the variables, their description, and the number of items for each variable), and • Step 4: Addition of a 7th variable which we called "Collaboration agent" which enabled us to identify each participant's group and consisted of three values (1 = community, 2 = school, and 3 = immigrant family). Descriptive analyses were thus conducted to determine variable distribution, followed by two non-parametric tests (with level of significance (p) set at 5%), namely, the Kruskall-Wallis test to compare the school members, immigrant families, and community workers (N = 54) regarding the established SIFC collaboration practices, and the Spearman correlation test to measure the level of association between the sociodemographic and socioprofessional variables of the school representatives and immigrant families and the variables pertaining to SIFC collaboration practices. The practices of communication, decision making, and at-home learning were sometimes used (which meant greater than 3 on a 5-point Likert scale), compared to the practices of volunteering, collaboration, and parenting, which were rarely used (greater than 2 on the same Likert scale).  Table 4 presents the descriptive statistics of the six dimensions with regard to collaboration. The means reveal that:

Correlation Test
As shown in Table 7, number of years of experience in the school correlated positively with the following variables: communication (r = 0.646; p = 0.023), volunteering (r = 0.740; p = 0.06), parenting (r = 0.699; p = 0.011), and decision making (r = 0.607; p = 0.036). This suggests that the greater the number of years of experience, the more the school participants tended to use these forms of collaboration. Furthermore, Table 8 shows child's grade level as the only variable to correlate positively with the variable parenting (r = 0.479; p = 0.045). This result indicates that immigrant parents practiced parenting more each time their children changed grade.

General Observation
Our findings show that the school and community participants in our study exercised communication, decision making, and at-home learning more than they did volunteering, collaboration, and parenting. That said, all three groups declared having participated in SIFC collaboration practices according to Epstein's model (2001), despite the absence in this model of references to such contexts as immigration, inequality, and diversity (Baquedano-López et al., 2013). It goes without saying that the notion of SIFC collaboration conveys its own specific context. Indeed, each province in Canada has its own legislation, regulations, and respective realities regarding immigration. In Québec, for example, there is much debate regarding the wearing of religious symbols in public. Schools are concerned by these issues and are connected to all societal changes. Despite the fact that the school and community participants acknowledged the usefulness of SIFC collaboration-as confirmed in the literature, our results show a low level of collaboration, with some practices being sometimes used and others rarely used. Indeed, this finding corroborates those of Griffin and Steen (2010) who showed that many school counselors do not participate enough in SFC collaborations, as well as those of Larivée et al. (2019) who observed weak SFC collaboration practices in a successful school.
Three reasons may explain these results: 1. a lack of knowledge regarding the existing types of collaboration practices and their effectiveness, and the absence of any repertoire or reference guide explaining SFC practices in the context of immigration (Brougère, 2005;Molina, 2013), 2. a lack of time-often evoked by the participants (Deniger et al., 2009;Larivée et al., 2017) to engage in volunteering and collaboration activities (SIF meetings and follow ups, volunteering in the school or the community, heavy workload, school-work-family conciliation, budget restrictions, etc.), and 3. a lack of adequate training on SFC collaboration and the reality of immigration that prevent these stakeholders from engaging effectively in collaboration practices and feeling competent and abreast of the situation. In this regard,  recommends that greater efforts be made within teacher training curricula to include the context of diversity and collaboration. Further to these arguments, this low level of collaborative practices observed in our study's participants may be due to the fact that the latter were all from locations outside the greater Montréal area, were less exposed to the challenges of immigration, and therefore had less diversity-related practices in their schools, compared to those in Montréal, as supported by the findings of Vatz-Laaroussi and Steinbach (2010). As a result, implementing diversified practices may be viewed as a daunting task, a new knowledge, or a new management style by individuals or groups involved in SIFC collaboration.

At-home Learning and Decision Making
Our results show significant differences between our three groups of interest with regard to the practices of decision making and at-home learning. In light of the many efforts deployed to create greater awareness of the importance of effective dialogue between the school, newly arrived families, and the community in a context of immigration, this observation is not surprising. Indeed, the Ministère de l'Éducation (2019) has emphasized the need to diversify existing methods of SIF communication, establish a relationship of trust to better understand what immigrant families are going through, and encourage the latter to increase their involvement in their children's school in various ways.
Concerning the many challenges experienced by these actors in contexts involving immigration (Charrette & Kalubi, 2016;Sanders, 2008), the observed similarities (participants' patterns of communication, volunteering, parenting, and collaboration) possibly indicate that the means and strategies currently in use are not indicative of effective and lasting collaboration, which according to , is characterized by such elements as active communication, mutual respect, a consideration for solid and sustained relationships, and collective decision making.
Indeed, despite the fact that government policies work and do light the way, they remain insufficient, as they lack clarity and depth in matters regarding immigration. Moreover, the standardization of certain education policies and procedures makes SIFC collaboration a complex challenge for many education and social actors (Boulaamane & Bouchamma, 2021a). It thus appears of importance that efforts be made to further examine and understand the differences between Québec families and immigrant families. Furthermore, even if the element of collaboration is mentioned in the province's school management training standard (Ministère de l'Éducation, 2008), this competency guide is criticized for not addressing the issue of ethnocultural diversity (Lambert & Bouchamma, 2019;OFDE, 2018).
In actual fact, parent participation tends to involve supervising their child's progress and motivation to succeed more than it does engaging with the community, which few studies have actually addressed (Larivée et al., 2017). Research in this area continues to stress "the importance of collaboration and shared responsibility between the school-team, the students, the parents, and the community, as well as the need to consider the school's priorities" (Bouchamma & April, 2021, p. 69).
From a methodological perspective, the resemblance of practices among the participants could possibly be attributed to the nature of these individuals, namely, elementary school children of immigrant families and the Québec's elementary schools. This may pertain to the roles and responsibilities involved and determined depending on the context of this education level in which collaboration practices are important to prevent learning, behavioral, and adaptation difficulties from occurring in immigrant youth.

At-home Learning
The observed difference regarding at-home learning may be explained by the fact that this practice often differs from one immigrant parent to another because "they are not familiar with their child's new learning methods; indeed, as education programs have evolved since their childhood, they often feel overwhelmed by the situation" (Kanouté, 2006, p. 28, author translation). The practices and the perceptions of the different roles may also vary from family to family (Vatz Laaroussi et al., 2008). For example, some believe that their child's learning is entirely the school's responsibility (Bouchamma, 2009) or that their role is restricted to at-home tasks such as checking and mentoring homework (Antony-Newman, 2019), while others have a larger view of their role and actively getting involved at home to help their children in their daily life in general and not only with school-related aspects (Kim et al., 2018). However, the school and community do provide assistance to immigrant families to help them adapt to this new at-home experience and do so with the means and tools they have at their disposal, such as in-home visits (Sibley & Brabeck, 2017) and providing access to school community workers (Potvin et al., 2013). In this sense, professionals who collaborate with immigrant families should better understand the value of the practices used by these families.
We may thus explain this difference in that the school and community participants opted for differ- 88 Boulaamane & Bouchamma ent strategies related to their respective management styles to support the children of immigrant families at home, depending on their needs, their context, the resources required, etc. This difference can also be associated with the various interpretations made by the three groups regarding at-home learning. It is indeed likely that (1) the school members counseled the immigrant families differently; (2) the parents had varying degrees of language/comprehension difficulties which prevented them from formulating specific requests for assistance; or (3) the availability of pedagogical materials and school activities for immigrant parents varied depending on the access they had to community services, which also varied, as the mandate of these services remains welcoming and assisting immigrant families and not practicing SFC collaboration.

Decision Making
As for the practice of decision making, the difference between the three groups of interest is associated with both the perception immigrant families have regarding their involvement in the meetings and activities and the encouragement of the school and the community to participate in the decisions being made. Indeed, although parents know their children's interests best and are the ones most likely to defend their needs (Minke & Anderson, 2005), some families are not ready to participate in school meetings or community gatherings. In a Swiss study, many parents believed that they had no significant impact on the school's strategies and viewed collaboration with the school as an additional task thrust upon them (Paccaud et al., 2020). Liboy and Venet (2011) also found immigrant families to be less involved in the decisional meetings held at school, such as those of the Parent Committee. Indeed, immigrant families are still held back by several obstacles hindering their integration at school, such as, for example, the lack of time (Boulaamane & Bouchamma, 2021a), the differences between the education system of their native country and that of the host society, the perception of teachers' responsibilities (Changkakoti & Akkari, 2008), and "the challenges related to decoding the socialization aspects of school culture" (Kanouté, 2002, p. 176, author translation). As a result, newly arrived families often have difficulty participating and getting actively involved in the school's decisional meetings and processes, such as the parents' committee or the school council.
Decision making may also differ between groups, as each one has their own logistical and human resources structures to encourage parents to participate in decisional gatherings, voice their opinion, or get involved in the decisions. For example, Gagnon et al. (2006) showed that school and community advocates in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district of Montréal were able to collaborate in a concerted effort and make decisions as a group with the help of SFC coordinators, and in Liboy and Venet (2011), the study's participants proposed that legislation be changed to promote this participation in the decision-making process; in other words, they sought a solution that was exosystemic if not macrosystemic.

Is there a Connection Between the Participants' Collaboration Practices and their Sociodemographic/Socioprofessional Variables?
Our results show that only the variable number of years of experience in the school correlated positively with communication, volunteering, parenting, and decision making. Of note is that 80% of our school participants had at least one year of experience.
This finding is in partial agreement with those of other studies confirming that the majority of teachers wished that they had more time to organize their actions and learn about other important material tools and human resources to meet the children's needs (Larivée et al., 2006). Other reports indicate that well-experienced teachers communicate more with parents (Nobert, 2018) and work to build a favorable relationship with them (Belleville, 2009).
This result may thus be explained by the fact that teachers' professional experience, their knowledge of the classroom and their students, their grasp of the school's system, and their contact with peers in education and the community helps them communicate more easily with immigrant families and eases the latter's participation in school activities and volunteering. According to Deslandes (2019), teachers who have had positive work experiences and are specifically trained in the field of school-family collaboration (school factors) are more likely to recognize the importance of their professional responsibilities regarding the work they do with the parents, to demonstrate a high sense of efficacy (school processes), and ultimately to foster practices centered on school-family collaboration.

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Moreover, for our participating immigrant families, the variable child's grade level was the only one to correlate positively with parenting. Indeed, although immigrant families practice parenting and support their children to help their integration and educational success, the fact remains that they continue to require assistance, specifically during the transitions between the different levels (preschool, elementary, secondary) . Families who tend to follow their children's progress early on are also more likely to continue this practice throughout their child's education  We are also reminded that to practice parenting, families must possess certain key skills, namely, a willingness and a sense of duty toward their child's education. Thus, in addition to dealing with a new host society, it is understandable that immigrant parents may find their role as parent difficult because of the new and unfamiliar school system and their lack of educational experiences in their new life, which differ from their own expertise, culture, and education background.

Conclusion
In this research, we focused on school-family-community collaboration practices in a context of immigration by comparing the practices of these three groups of stakeholders according to Epstein's dimensions of involvement and partnership (Epstein, 2001). The originality of our study is two-fold: this examination of SFC collaboration is timely because it specifically addresses the context of diversity to promote the integration and educational success of immigrant youth, and the choice of quantitative methodology is stimulating and complements existing research on the subject.
Our interpretation of the results leads us to assert that SIFC collaboration practices are underused by the three groups of interest under study, with no notable difference between groups in terms of the use of these practices. Overall, it appears that these stakeholders fail to sufficiently promote collaboration and are not familiar with many types of practices, which translates to significant limitations hampering the establishment of effective partnerships.
Our findings will hopefully enhance the awareness of all three groups regarding several existing SIFC collaboration practices, redefine the roles for each group, and generate a greater appreciation for how these partnership practices can be successfully applied and maintained. Actions such as increasing awareness of existing effective practices appear necessary. This awareness must be achieved through the use of tools that deploy collaboration-based strategies and targeted actions (Molina, 2013). In this vein, Boulaamane & Bouchamma (2021b) recently published a user-friendly practical guide for education stakeholders. It is also relevant that school members (principals, teachers, educational psychologists, and other learning specialists) have access to initial training and continuing education on the aspects of interculturalism and SFC collaboration. Scheduled time allotments, financial provisions, and organized training opportunities are crucial in this process.
Other actions may be highly useful, such as an appropriate review of collaboration practices, as proposed by some authors (Bryan et al., 2020), but this requires considerable attention, particularly in contexts of diversity, so as to determine which practices and methods are most effective in meeting the needs of all persons involved. Finally, it is important that reforms in government policies continue with sustained clarity and focus to fully consider the demands and challenges of the different contexts of diversity evidenced in today's schools (CSÉQ, 2017).
To conclude, the limited number of participants and the means available to us during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic did not enable us to work with a fully representative sample. Further studies should ideally combine the questionnaires of the three participating groups into one single questionnaire, with a common core for each of the groups. Future research should also examine innovative SFC collaboration practices in contexts of immigration, monitor their progress and results, and analyze the government's contribution in developing this collaboration to better understand what works best to favor the integration and educational success of immigrant students.