Author Information
Paulina Pizarro, Universidad de Las Américas, ChileAmy Crosson, PennState, United States
Abstract
Chile has become one of the main recipient countries of immigrant populations in Latin America, particularly. While many immigrants are Spanish speakers, Haitian families face a distinct situation due to the use of Creole as their mother tongue. Children of Haitian families born in Chile predominantly attend publicly funded schools, which poses specific challenges for early childhood education, particularly in relation to school–family communication. This study employed a qualitative approach based on seven in-depth interviews with Chilean early childhood educators working in schools in Santiago, Chile. The aim was to explore educators’ perceptions of facilitating and hindering factors observed in the families of immigrant children attending preschool classrooms. Interviews were fully transcribed and analyzed by the authors using discourse analysis, with the support of the artificial intelligence tool NotebookLM. Five main categories emerged from the analysis: a distinction between children’s integration into the school context and parents’ difficulties in communicating with the school; tensions between national child-rearing practices and those of immigrant families; differences in levels of commitment to the school context; the influence of families’ life-course trajectories and prior experiences; and weaknesses in educational public policies aimed at facilitating dialogue and intercultural communication between educators and immigrant families. Interpreted in light of the existing literature, the findings provide relevant insights for early childhood education policy in Chile. They highlight the urgent need for clearer guidelines to support educators in mediating communication with immigrant families, in order to promote more equitable learning opportunities in early childhood classrooms.
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