By Joanna Tzenis According to a recent student survey , Minnesota youth of Somali heritage report high levels of family support for education. But what does this support look like? Scholars, practitioners, and humans in general agree that parental support is important, but there’s no consensus on how it should be offered. Should parents help with homework at home? Should they volunteer at the school? Sign their kids up for extracurriculars? Let them relax with unstructured time when not in school? Should parents be cheerleaders or task masters? My point is that there are many ways parents can support their children’s development. I've blogged before about educational strategies that are informed by cultural world views. What gets tricky is when parents’ approaches for supporting their kids differs from the expectations of the cultural majority. Studies on cultural and social resources of immigrant youth show how challenging it is to navigate different value systems arou...
Our youth development educators bridge research and practice. In this blog, they offer their views on what's happening in the field of youth development, with an eye to evidence-based research written by themselves and others in our field. We welcome your comments.