Collaboration between family and school and its relationship with the social and academic competences of the Roma students from the Canary Islands

Abstract

The social gap of the Roma People is still notorious and is projected in the school dimension in terms of the greater dropout and school failure of students. The present study has a twofold objective: a) to analyze the perception, both of parents and teachers, about the quality of relationships between family and school; and b) examine to what extent the quality of said collaboration is related to the social and academic competences of the sons and daughters. The participants were 60 families of gypsy ethnicity, 80 children of these families and 33 teachers who teach them, residing in the Canary Islands. The information was collected through questionnaires and the data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and the CHAID decision tree technique. The independent variables were the factors of the family-school collaboration questionnaire, the variables of the socio-demographic profile of the family, the existence of inappropriate behaviors in the educational center and school absenteeism. The dependent variable was the factors of social and academic competences. The results show that families and teachers perceived a good climate in the school, with low family-school participation. The level of social competencies in the students was good and the decision trees indicated that it was associated with having fewer inappropriate behaviors at school and with a higher level of family support in school tasks and of family collaboration with the school. Academic competencies were lower and were associated with less support from families with homework and with absences from class. In conclusion, in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands the educational inclusion of the Gypsy People is being possible and with additional efforts to improve family-school collaboration it will also be possible to improve educational success.

Keywords: Roma people, family-school collaboration, social skills, academic skills, school integration.