Brazil Interview Analysis Vol II: It's About the Parents

(Yes, it's a big jump from arm-wrestling in Morocco, but I told you I would fill in the blanks.)

While the discussions of race/class and their relationship to educational performance proved to be important (especially as it is a conversation that many of my interviewees did not like to have), discussions of parental influence in education turned out to be of equal, if not greater prominence in my interviews, particularly with teachers. In all honesty, the frequency with which parents were mentioned caught me a bit offguard and compelled me to change the focus of the interviews to be a bit more all-encompassing in the discussion of education and educational influences. The first mention of it came from a teacher in Nordeste who noted 'a lack of parental cooperation' as the most significant difficulty she faced in her career of teaching. She spoke not only of parents (especially those with very few financial means) who would frequently pull their children out of school in order to work, but more precisely of those parents who did not recognize education as a means for their children to improve their lives. 'I am not necessarily talking about parents without education, but those parents who do not recognize the value of education. If the parents do not care about or believe in the necessity of education for their children, then school becomes just another activity, and the parents do not hold children accountable for studying, assignments or even attendance.' This was powerful to hear from a first person perspective. From conversations and background reading, the argument that I am more familiar with has to do with the education level of parents and how that correlates to the child's school performance (granted, there are relationships in between these two, namely, that a parent's educational level is a good gauge of how they will communicate the importance of education to their children). That said, the perspective I was (prior to this conversation) far less familiar with had to do with the fact that uneducated/not highly educated parents can have the same positive impact on their child's educational experience, assuming they recognize and communicate the importance of formal education, and support it with informal education at home. That said, for parents that fall into this category, the figurative 'road to success' for the child is quite a bit steeper and the cost of sitting by idly is much greater (compared to the children of highly educated parents who can perceive, on some level, how education has improved the lives of their parents, without the parents necessarily verbally communicating it). On the 'other side of the tracks' I had the opportunity to visit two much nicer schools in the neighborhood of Victoria (one public, one private) in which both teachers and school administrators spoke glowingly (for the most part) of the positive parental contribution to education, both in their interactions with teachers, as well as holding their children accountable and supporting their education at home. The role of the parents--both positively and negatively--was echoed in almost all of my interviews and though I have not come across any data to support the argument that more positive parental involvement in education is correlated with better academic performance, I was convinced of this relationship's impact. Additionally, it has caused me to take a step in the direction of believing that parental involvement could be a veritable 'x' factor and universal theme further explaining why primary education is such a crucial period in the educational experience of the child (at the very least here in Brazil). On a slightly different note... Sitting in these interviews, I couldn't help but be reminded of the well publicized Bill Cosby 'tirade' in which he criticized poor/uneducated black parents for not instilling good values in their children. At the time of this debate, I chose to stay on the fence (a common Chas practice) as I recognized the legitimacy of both sides of the argument (prof. Michael Dyson became the public and outspoken opposition to Cosby's perspective). That said, through the conversations I had with these teachers, many of whom are parents themselves, I can understand (more intimately) that there is nothing more important and necessary than the positive contribution of 'parents' (whether they be biological parents, relatives or guardians) in the development of the child. Of course there exists a partnership between the parents and the school and without a functional/functioning school, the child can only go so far; that said, the necessary prerequisite is the contribution of the parents. I realize that circumstances of this link are quite different (Brazil vs. U.S. Black community) and that I really did not touch on the meat of the debate between Dyson and Cosby (especially in relation to the historical and well documented oppression of descendants of American slavery and the current effect of this oppression), but I do believe that there is some real value in this cross-cultural comparison.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.