Author(s)

Grace H. C. Huang¹, Eddie T. C. Lam^2*

¹Department of Teacher Education, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
²Department of Health & Human Performance, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA.

In 2020, there are 25.9 million refugees worldwide. With the rapidly rising refugee population (over 600,000 from 2010 to 2020) in the United States, supporting resettled refugee families is a pressing issue, in which a comprehensive understanding of the refugee families is sorely needed. The purpose of this paper was to identify the challenges of resettled refugee families in their parenting practices and educational involvement. Entering a country with a different language and culture than their own, refugees, parents in particular, face numerous challenges upon relocation (e.g., refugee parents who raise their children in a new and unfamiliar environment have to balance between the new adaptation and the preservation of their original culture). This obstacle is manifested in their parenting practices and involvement in their children’s education and schooling as well as language barrier. We provided an overview of the parenting challenges and explored the cultural dissonance in parenting and its impact on family dynamics. Implications were provided to address the challenges refugee families face in the areas of systemic and personnel support, effective strategies, and family-school relations.

Resettlement, Parental Involvement, Support Strategies, School Relations

Huang, G. and Lam, E. (2022) Resettled Refugee Families: Parenting Practices and Educational Involvement. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 10, 181-195. doi: 10.4236/jss.2022.106015.