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How do Pacific Island families perceive the
role and engagement of Pacific parents in
their children’s education?
Maggie Flavell
Presented at Vaka Pasifiki Education Conference, Nuku’alofa, Tonga,
September 2014

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Abstract
This presentation reports on a recent study which examines Pacific Island families’
perceptions of the parental role in the learning process in a high school in Aotearoa - New
Zealand. The purpose was to develop an understanding of how both parents and students
perceive parental involvement. While other projects have evaluated perceptions of Pacific
parents and students, this research was unique in that its context was a high-decile school
with a small but growing number of Pacific students.* By focussing on this demographic
group, it addressed a gap in research on the role and engagement of Pacific parents in their
children’s education. A phenomenological qualitative design was employed, using focus
groups and interviews. Careful consideration was given to Pacific research methodology,
such as the use of ‘Talanoa’ principles.
The study examines how parents and students perceive the communication process, both
within the family and between home and school. The findings highlight how parents’ values
and beliefs affect communication between parents and their children at home, and how
parents engage with teachers. For example, parents stress the importance of education as a
means of securing economic prosperity; whilst they wish to support teachers by encouraging
their children to work hard, they are not always confident at communicating with the school.
The research also reveals how parents’ values and beliefs affect student engagement in the
classroom.
Recommendations from this study focus on the need for schools to develop inclusive
strategies which encourage dialogue between teachers, parents, and students. It carries an
important message for all educators passionate about achievement for Pacific students,
calling for a re-thinking and transforming of school systems to allow for Pacific parent and
student voices to be heard.
Background
The need to improve educational outcomes for Pacific students in New Zealand (Aotearoa) is
reflected in the claim that the Pacific Island population has “the highest proportion of people
with no qualifications” (Statistics New Zealand and Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, 2010).
*A high decile school indicates that students were largely drawn from a high socio-economic community

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The New Zealand Ministry of Education emphasises the importance of engaging families to
help raise the achievement of this cohort of students (Ministry of Education, 2012a), and has
highlighted the engagement of Pasifika families as a research priority at secondary level
(Ministry of Education. 2012b).
The specific context for this study was a school where academic results have overall been
more positive than those reflected in national statistics (NZQA, 2013). This research setting
was unique in that the school is located in a higher socio-economic area than other schools
which have participated in studies involving Pacific Island students. It has an increasing
percentage of Pacific Island students (currently twelve per cent of the student population),
many of whom have come here in preference to more local and lower decile schools. The
purpose of this study was to explore the role and engagement of Pacific parents in this
particular setting and, therefore, address a gap in existing research literature.
Literature Review
The involvement of parents at secondary level
Secondary schooling is a demanding time for young people as they work towards national,
academic qualifications, make decisions about subject choices, and consider future careers.
Parents can provide invaluable support. They may notice the first signs of their child’s
disengagement with learning and may know how best to solve it; and they can guide their
children through educational pathways as they progress through their senior years of
schooling (ERO, 2008a).
Parental involvement, when carried out at home, is most effective at supporting the academic
outcomes of children (Bull, Brooking, & Campbell, 2008; Deforges & Abouchaar, 2003;
Harris & Goodall, 2008). Senior students benefit when parents give encouragement and
advice related to learning strategies, academic goals, and career choice (Hill & Tyson, 2009),
when they set high expectations (Jeynes, 2007), and when they are well informed
(Catsambis, 2001). Parents can help their children develop self-efficacy by modelling,
nurturing, and encouraging a young person’s belief and ability to take on challenges and
persist through difficulties (Bandura, 1994; Schunk & Parajes, 2002).

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The involvement of parents from minority cultures
Many Pacific Island parents in New Zealand value education as a means for a better, more
economically prosperous life (Siope, 2011) and, subsequently set high expectations for their
children to perform academically (ERO, 2008b). When students from minority groups
perceive that their parents place a high value on education, they are more likely to be
motivated to do well (Okagaki, 2001). However, if parents rely on the notion of student
effort as a major tool for achieving academic success, they may not understand their child’s
ability or be able to set realistic goals (Yamamoto & Holloway, 2010). Furthermore, issues
such as limited English proficiency, lack of experience with the education system, and
financial constraints can also negatively impact on the quality of parental involvement from
parents from minority cultures (Yamamoto & Holloway, 2010). In addition, schools tend to
have institutionalised codes of behaviour and act as providers of knowledge so that the power
dynamics reflect the school’s top-down control. This causes further alienation with parents
who feel they do not have a voice (LaRocque, Kleiman & Darling, 2011). Pacific parents in
New Zealand, indeed, have reported discomfort about interacting with school, feeling they do
not have a voice, despite a strong interest in their child’s education (Fletcher, Parkhill,
Fa’afoi, Tufulasi Taleni, & O’Regan, 2008).
Method
A phenomenological approach was used to address the research question: “‘What are the
perceptions of Pacific Island parents and students of the parental role in the learning
process?’” In order to address this question, this study specifically explored how Pacific
parents and students perceived the parents’ communication role when parents and students
interacted at home about the students’ academic progress and, similarly, when parents and
teachers interacted at school.
The involvement of students and their families can present particular concerns regarding
coercion. All aspects of the university ethical procedures were adhered to in order to
maintain an ethically reflexive approach. Since this study was conducted by a Palagi
researcher (of European descent), Pasifika methodology was employed to help develop
respectful relationships with the participants and to secure trustworthiness of data. The
principles of Talanoa (Vaioleti, 2006) and of Teu Le Va (Anae, 2010) promoted respectful

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dialogue as did the incorporation of cultural advisors to give advice on protocol and other
cultural matters.
Participants, data collection and analysis
In total, seven parents and 12 senior students participated, recruited with the support of
cultural advisors and via snowballing. One parent focus group and two student focus groups
took place, followed by one-to-one interviews for those participants who expressed an
interest and were willing to attend. In all cases, semi-structured questions were used to allow
for a free flow of dialogue. Transcriptions of meetings were analysed in order to uncover the
thoughts, both conscious and unconscious, of the participants. Through this immersion in the
data, using an inductive and reflexive process, broad categories arose and, into these,
emerging themes were slotted. An important principle throughout was to remain close to the
participants’ own words.
Findings – the parents’ perspective
The importance ofeducation
Parents confirmed that families had migrated to New Zealand for a better quality of life.
They valued education as a means of achieving economic security and, therefore, believed it
was important for their children to work hard at school in order to get a good education. One
father said:
You’ve got to be a hundred per cent.You can’t be half-hearted in things you do or you get
half-hearted results.
Parents wanted to encourage their children to do as best they could but expressed concern
that sometimes children did not work hard enough. One mother said:
I know my son is bright and he’s got his head screwed on but I also knowhe can be lazy.
Relating to others
Parents placed a high value on supporting their family and being part of a community. They
spoke of family arrangements and their willingness to make personal sacrifices. A mother
explained:

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They (Pacific Island families) have a lot of visitors that come and go and also there might be
some family that comes and stays and so there is overcrowding.
The importance of relating to others was particularly evident through their commitment to
church. A parent said:
Church is your extended family. It’s more like family.
In addition, parents explained that they placed a high value on respectful relationships. For
example, the incorporation of a prayer at the start of the parent focus group was positively
acknowledged because:
It’s part of respect.
Respect and listen
In particular, parents emphasised how listening was an important part of respectful
relationships. As one father said of his son and classmates:
They need to respect themand listen. ...because he is too much chatting with his friendsand
not listening to what the teacher said.
Parents acknowledged that their respectful nature made it hard to ask questions and was a
potential barrier in communication with teachers, who were seen as figures of authority,
because:
sometimes we are too polite
They also acknowledged that it was also difficult for their children to speak up when they
needed help in class. A mother showed concern that:
if you don’t voice your concerns, it will be left.
Therefore, there was a dichotomy between showing respect and yet also recognising the need
to speak up.
Work as team
Despite some parents acknowledging the difficulty of asking questions, they did want to build
relationships with the teachers so they could understand how to support their child. As one
mother said, they wanted teachers to give:

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honest feedback, not something that is just token.
A consensus of opinion amongst parents was to work alongside teachers:
as a teamto help with achievements.
However, they felt this was difficult due their lack of knowledge. As one mother explained:
NCEA (examination system) I amstill trying to get my head around it.
Another mother explained that a lack of understanding, combined with other commitments,
meant that parents often chose not to attend meetings at school:
There’s no point. They won’t understand or it clashes with family/church activities.
Since parents expressed difficulty communicating with teachers, they relied on their children
to report academic progress. This was potentially problematic, as one parent summed up:
You trust themthat they are telling you the truth.
Findings – the students’ perspective
Go to uni
Students showed they understood their parents’ message about the importance of education,
as this student qualified:
If you wanna good job you have to do well in school, you need a good education
Whilst they expressed a personal desire to go to university, they confirmed that these
stemmed from parental expectations. One student said:
My parents really want me to go to uni.
Parental pressure
Although students knew they were expected to do well, some acknowledged that they did not
work hard. One said:
It’s just laziness and I don’t like doing homework.

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A number also said that they kept information from parents, such as:
if it’s a bad grade I will keep it to myself.
They spoke of not wanting to cause disappointment, as one explained:
I amjust so ashamed to bring it up.
Added to this was the complication that parents did not understand the students’ academic
world. A student said:
I could tell themmore but, actually,they don’t have a clue about the system.
Therefore, some students avoided conversations at home about academic progress but, at the
same time, appreciated the fact that parents pushed them because:
It’s good.
Separate worlds
Students reported that they kept their worlds separate. One explained:
So you got your church-self, yourschool-self and then you’ve got your home-self. So it’s like
three different things so you wouldn’t want yourparents to know all about yourschool and
stuff ‘cosit’s got to be different fromyour home.
Students often faced difficult decisions with their time as they moved from one world to the
next. A student, who focussed seriously on her academic studies, talked about her other
commitments:
Me and my sister, we clean the house. I babysit. Yeah, like, I do everything in the house. I
help out the family, cook dinner,and yeah, we have church youth practices after church or
after school but, like,at 6 o’clock and we just practise and practise and then go home and do
some more chores.
The importance ofothers
Like the parents, students showed a preference for group settings. For example, they
appeared comfortable with their church commitments. One declared:
Oh, we enjoy it... It’s just that we were raised, brought up to go to church

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In class, students spoke of the importance of being able to work in groups to support one
another. A student said they liked to:
discuss and talk about the different ideas
They felt more comfortable in small group situations where they could ask questions. They
feared, in whole class situations, they might be judged unfavourably by other students so they
elected to remain quiet. As one student declared:
they don’t want to look bad in front of people.
Consequences
Students, therefore, often combined a passive approach in class and maintained a distance in
academic conversations at home. The consequence of this was summed up by one student.
Aware that parents have high expectations and that students do not ask questions in class, he
said:
They don’t want to fail their parents.…but without themtelling theirparents and without the
teacher knowing, they’re going to anyway.
Discussion
The impact of parental expectation
Whilst parents wanted to encourage their children to do well, they were disappointed in their
children’s passive attitude to learning. The parents’ ability to positively influence their
children’s approach to learning was limited by the lack of reciprocal interaction in the home
context. One reason was the parents’ lack of understanding of the NCEA qualification
system. Parents, who have low self-efficacy in terms of their own academic ability, may lack
confidence in supporting their children’s learning, especially as the children progress through
high school to more complex work. However, even well-qualified parents expressed
confusion about NCEA. Their children could have facilitated conversations in the home,
helping them to gain a better understanding of their grades but often chose not to do so.

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When students kept information about low grades from their parents, parents possibly found
it hard to measure what was a realistic expectation to set their child. Instead, they encouraged
their children to work hard and achieve the best grades possible. Consequently, students may
have felt they were expected to perform to a high standard and achieve unrealistic grades.
They, therefore, kept negative information away and this seemed to form a circular pattern,
making it harder for parents to adjust their expectations to a more realistic level. Any friction
and lack of communication between parents and children, therefore, may have stemmed from
a parental over-reliance on effort as a grade determinant (Yamamoto & Holloway, 2010).
Ironically, students expressed an appreciation for the fact that their parents pushed them to
work hard, suggesting that they depended on their parents to motivate them to study.
However, the students’ ambivalent attitude about whether they wanted to engage in the
conversations made it difficult for their parents to play an effective role. Furthermore, since
some of the students expressed a reliance on their parents’ encouragement, they may not have
been intrinsically motivated and fully engaged in their own learning. Otherwise, they would
not have needed their parents to push them.
Students can achieve positive education outcomes when they exercise self-efficacy and
visualise success (Bandura, 1994). When parents set high expectations for academic
outcomes, their children may feel that they cannot attain these goals and, consequently, lack
self-belief and feel they are not competent. Any negative feedback from parents may
reinforce feelings of inadequacy. An unintended, negative consequence from parents’ high
aspirations for their children is that it may have undermined their child’s personal confidence
and, subsequently, their inclination to be self-motivated with their studies.
A contrast in values between home and school
The students, like their parents, showed a preference for operating interdependently in groups
and reflected the collectivist values of their parents. In effect, they operated within two
potentially contrasting value systems: individualism and collectivism. Schools generally
support the value system of the dominant culture which has a westernised, individualised
perspective (Trumbull, 2003). The New Zealand curriculum encourages thinking skills that
are both independent and critical (Ministry of Education, 2007c). However, in a collectivist
culture, independent thought is discouraged when children are expected to listen and respect
the knowledge of their teachers (Trumbull, 2003); and students may choose to focus on

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relationship maintenance at the cost of striving for individual success which risks separation
from the crowd (Gore, Wilburn, Treadway, & Plaut, 2011).
Students operated in different worlds, choosing to keep home and school separate. Since
previous research has also reported this (Hill & Hawk, 1998; Siope, 2011), it is interesting
that this pattern continues with subsequent generations of Pacific children. In a collectivist
culture, interdependence and strong family cohesion are emphasised in parent-child
interactions (Kwak, 2003). As individuals continually negotiate meaning through social
interaction, and in doing so, adapt existing cultural values, the younger generation is likely to
develop different perceptions to those of their parents (Kwak, 2003). Students possibly
elected not to talk with their parents to explain their perceptions in order to avoid any friction
and confrontation.
Parents, too, faced a dichotomy in the different value systems. In a collectivist culture, the
concept of the self is someone who only has meaning in relationship to others which is a
different way to perceiving the world compared to that from a westernised, individuated
perspective (Tamasese, Peteru, Waldegrave, & Bush, 2005). It was important to the parents to
build relationships with teachers in order to communicate with them about their children.
Whilst these parents showed confidence in the educational system by electing to send their
child to a high-decile school, the consequence was that, like parents in earlier research, they
felt disconnected from the school system and perceived there were barriers to
communication.
Conclusion
This research concludes that the selection of a high-decile school by parents may not be
enough to bring positive academic outcomes for Pacific Island students. These findings
highlight the need to re-think and transform school systems so that home-school relationships
move beyond traditional models. Schools need inclusive strategies which encourage dialogue
between teachers, parents and students in order to promote a shared understanding of the
students’ academic targets and goals. The Ministry of Education has made its clear in its
Pacific Education Plan for 2013 – 2017 that it seeks to improve the academic achievement of
Pacific Island students. The engagement of families is an important ingredient for success. It
is to be hoped that funding will be available to support further research and initiatives
engaging families at secondary level.

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