An Exploratory Data Analysis of Reasons Hispanic Parents Give for Withdrawing or Denying Permission for Their Limited English Proficient Children to Participate in Transitional Bilingual Education Programs

226 p.Thesis (Educat.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1987.This study attempted to answer three problems utilizing exploratory data analysis. The first problem determined and analyzed the reasons Hispanic parents, who reside in a typical school district with limited English proficient (LEP) students, give for withdrawing or denying permission for their LEP children to participate in transitional bilingual education programs. Secondly, this study provided an analysis of these parents' modes and extent of participation in the education of their LEP children and to compare that with a similar analysis of Hispanic parents who permit their LEP children to participate in transitional bilingual education programs. A third purpose of the study was to determine if there is a relationship between all of these parents' modes and extent of participation and their children's academic success.School administrators, policy makers, and researchers need to be careful when examining the success of transitional bilingual education. It appears from this study, that stating that transitional bilingual education programs are ineffective because students in these programs do no better in English skills than children in traditional programs who are exposed to English throughout the day may be a myopic conclusion. It is the expectations of parents, not the transitional bilingual education program, that has an effect on what happens to LEP children in school. Based on the reasons stated by the non-program parents, it appears that the decision to withdraw or deny permission is one that has linguistic and cultural implications. While parents in the non-program group reported being more involved than the parents in the program group, there appears to be an association between parental involvement and student academic achievement. Therefore, educational administrators, policy makers, and researchers must begin to examine the linguistic and cultural alternatives and the home environment factors, forces, and variables that may have an effect on academic achievement of LEP students.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD