Regular Article International Journal of Qualitative Methods Volume 21: 1–17 Qualitative Methodology Innovation That © The Author(s) 2022 DOI: 10.1177/16094069221078735 Promotes Educational Success of Children journals.sagepub.com/home/ijq of Immigrant Families in Disadvantaged Contexts Rosa Valls1, Olga Serradell2, Roger Campdepadrós3, and Lena de Botton4  Abstract Most of the qualitative research aimed at diagnosing the educational performance of children of immigrant families in disadvantaged contexts does not address how such research can contribute to social impact. However, some research oriented to social impact has collected evidence of achieving improvement in schools implementing actions to promote educational success. This study is a qualitative meta-analysis of a line of research aimed at social impact to contribute to enhancing the educational success of children of immigrant families. Within the framework of this research line, the analysis focuses on three research projects, from the Spanish Research, Development and Innovation plans. These three research projects have analysed 23 case studies of schools in different disadvantaged contexts of Spain from 2009 to 2017. The main findings show that these research focused on social impact and included in their methodologies a category related to the improvement of educational achievement. Including the category of improvement of educational achievement allows qualitative research to obtain evidence of whether the educational actions implemented in those schools contribute to the educational success of children of immigrant families. Keywords educational success, immigrants, disadvantaged contexts, improving educational achievement, categories, social impact Introduction success in the title, we get 13 articles. Once we discard the repeated articles, literature review articles, and articles that are This article starts from the general acknowledgement that most not qualitative or mixed methods among the two searches, we of the qualitative research that addresses the school perfor- get 17 articles from qualitative research directly related to the mance of children of immigrant families does not handle how educational success of children of immigrant families. Out of to contribute to improving it, that is, to create social impact. these articles, 11 focus on identifying barriers to educational Most of this research aims at diagnosing their educational success, and five offer some evidence of what factors con- performance in disadvantaged contexts and what factors keep tribute to overcoming those barriers. These two searches were them behind that of native children, which is necessary to understand what barriers exist, but not enough to address how such research can improve these children’s educational suc- 1 Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain cess. We can conduct an easy fact-checking. If we search for 2 Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain articles published in peer review journals indexed in Web of 3 Universidad de Girona, Girona, Spain 4 Science in the last 10 years (2010–2020), combining the Universidad de Barcelona Facultad de Economı́a y Empresa, Barcelona, Spain keywords immigrants (topic), school (topic) and qualitative Corresponding Author: (title), we obtain 51 articles. If we review them, 13 are related Lena de Botton, Department of Sociology, Universitat de Barcelona Facultat to the educational or school success of immigrants. If we d’Economia i Empresa, Avinguda Diagonal, 690, 696, Barcelona 08034, Spain. search this time, putting the keywords immigrants, school and Email: lenadebotton@ub.edu Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 International Journal of Qualitative Methods obtained with the mentioned concrete keywords, but the re- children of immigrant families, or to what extent these atti- sults are very similar if we carried out other equivalent tudes have contributed to the improvement of the academic searches. achievement of these children. This study is a qualitative meta-analysis that contributes to While a growing body of quantitative research has ex- creating knowledge about the qualitative methodologies used amined non-cognitive factors affecting adolescent school in a line of research aimed at social impact to contribute to performance across cultures, there is relatively limited qual- enhancing the educational success of children of immigrant itative research investigating adolescent perceptions of factors families. To this end, it first presents a brief state of the art that influencing their achievement at school. A study conducted shows some examples of qualitative research that only have eight focus groups with 32 Indian adolescents living in India contributed to creating knowledge in identifying the barriers to and 20 Indian immigrants in Canada to explore their per- the educational success of children of immigrant families, and ceptions about the factors affecting their school engagement some others that in addition also provided evidence about and performance (Areepattamannil et al., 2018). Focus groups factors that contribute to overcoming them. Secondly, the were guided by the topics of academic self-concept, academic methodology section contextualises the meta-analysis of the motivation, academic achievement, and classroom learning qualitative methodologies of three research projects within the environments. The analysis of the focus groups suggested that referenced line of research. Finally, the results identify which Indian adolescents both living in India and living in Canada elements these three projects have included in their qualitative were motivated toward school and academics. However, both methodologies that allow them to collect evidence of social groups perceived their classroom teachers as controllers rather impact on improving educational achievement in schools that than autonomy-supportive. Nevertheless, no variable in this implement actions to promote the educational success of qualitative research identified the impact that this finding has children of immigrant families in disadvantaged contexts. on improving the school performance. Another important group of qualitative research focuses on Qualitative Research Diagnosing the Educational the influence of family context and parent involvement on Performance of Children of Immigrant Families in children’s school adjustment. Teachers’ narratives have also been used in the case analysis of children with special edu- Disadvantaged Contexts cational needs from immigrant families in Catalonia. These There is a large body of qualitative research related to the case studies have included both tutors and special education educational achievement of children of immigrant families teachers. They have expressed the importance of parents’ that focuses on the impact of the school context, such as involvement in being informed, in taking action and in making teachers’ attitudes and behaviours, teachers’ expectations, their voices heard in order to contribute to their children’s parents’ involvement and expectations, acculturation pro- learning process; but in contrast, the study points out that the cesses and the children psychological adjustment, strategies of opportunities that these schools have given parents to do so schools and minorities’ youth to face challenges. But, in- have been very scarce (Paniagua, 2015). However, this study consistency has been identified regarding the effectiveness of did not provide to teachers and families the available evidence programmes for the adaptation of minority children, analysed of what kind of family involvement contributes to improving from qualitative methodologies, given that these programmes the achievement of immigrant children with special educa- are limited to a particular context (Makarova & Birman, tional needs. 2015). Based on interviews with native and immigrant parents at a A qualitative study analysed 30 interviews with school primary school in an urban context in Greece, Koustourakis personnel from two regions of France, mostly teachers, about et al. (2016) analyse how Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘cultural capital’ their experiences and opinions on students presenting school correlates with expectations for the educational future of their refusal in general and, specifically, on migrant children or children. One of the main findings was that the educational children of migrants (Martin et al., 2020). Many school expectations of parents, regardless of their national origin and personnel reported experiencing difficulties, ambivalence and educational background, appear to be very high. In particular, destabilising feelings in situations involving immigrant all parents, native and immigrant, want their children to families whose school culture was different from their own. complete high school and then go to university. However, They were challenged to devise new strategies for dealing with native families with socio-cultural advantages expected their these youth and their families. According to this study, al- children to have prestigious scientific occupations, while though some staff members were at risk of developing ex- Greek families with socio-cultural disadvantages and immi- clusionary attitudes, others faced school refusal with grant families wanted their children to choose occupations that commitment and creativity. Despite the study revealing the ensure immediate job stability such as the armed forces or the tensions experienced by these teachers due to the contradic- police (Koustourakis et al., 2016). However, neither state of tions between their school culture and the reality of an in- the art, nor the topics that guide the interviews, mention any creasingly multicultural school, it has not been investigated available evidence of educational actions that contribute to the which teacher attitudes are overcoming the school refusal of expectations of both immigrant families and native families Valls et al. 3 from disadvantaged contexts that their children can reach the impact of assigning them to a lower grade than their age when most prestigious scientific careers, overcoming thus the de- they arrive in the United States, probably due to their lack of terminism of some Bourdieu’s concepts. English language skills (Gindling & Poggio, 2012). This study We review next the research on mothering strategies of identifies an important factor that can contribute to a better Iraqi immigrant women in Sweden to promote their children’s understanding of why children who have been separated from educational success. A total of 16 mothers participated in five their parents during migration remain behind their peers in focus groups. For all of them, migrating to Sweden meant a educational achievement. However, no success story is ana- significant decline in their socio-economic status and they had lysed in which a child who is separated and then reunified has to rely on social welfare for many years. A prevailing argu- had educational success. ment that these women gave in the focus groups is that Qualitative research has also been developed on how fostering discipline is part of their mothering strategies to language brokering developed by children from Latino encourage their children to focus on school to achieve edu- American families affects their academic and linguistic skills cational success, as an imperative for their chances to obtain (Villanueva & Buriel, 2010). Most Latino parents arrive in the employment, preventing the risk of school failure, criminal United States speaking only Spanish. It is their children who behaviour and dependence on social welfare (Bergnehr, learn English first through their schooling, delegating to them 2016). However, this study does not provide knowledge of the responsibility of interpreting and translating for the rest of whether or not these mothers have the option of carrying out the family. Nine first and second-generation Latina adoles- educational or decisive participation in their children’s cents between 13 and 15 years old were asked about their schools, as elements that have previously been shown in the experiences as language brokers. These girls reported that literature to have an impact on the improvement of their their mothers were the people they translated for the most, and children’s academic outcomes (Flecha, 2012; Girbés-Peco school-related issues were the most frequently reported reason et al., 2019; Khalfaoui et al., 2020). for brokering activities as well as the most stressful. One of the Interviews with immigrant parents have also been col- main findings of the study is that participants who were the lected, asking them how schools can support the emotional, sole language broker in the family also reported more fluency social, cultural and educational needs of their children. In a in both English and Spanish than those who shared a language study focussing on six Salvadoran parents recently arrived in brokering with a sibling. Language facilitators who do not the United States, it was identified that if schools improved share that responsibility with others are likely to develop better communication with parents and reconsidered their views on bilingual skills than those who share that translation role with participation, families would be seen as assets to their chil- their siblings. The study identifies the stress these adolescents dren’s education rather than obstacles to increasing their future face in having this important responsibility in their family. But aspirations and educational efforts (Colón et al., 2020). But it says nothing about how improving language skills because this is not a study that has analysed the impact on improving of their language brokering can have an impact on improving the educational achievement of children of immigrant families academic performance at school, and whether there have been in those schools that are already implementing such im- any non-stressful cases and why. provements in family communication and participation. In this Qualitative research has been developed to analyse ex- sense, Bal and Mete in the study on cultural learning and periences of discrimination in children of immigrants and the literacy identify the impact that the Research-Action method responses given by the children and their parents (Romero has had on this learning (Bal & Mete, 2019). et al., 2014). The study qualitatively investigates experiences Mixed method research has been carried out to analyse the of discrimination in 20 teenagers (11–15 years), and the re- impact of the separation of Latin American parents during sponses of these and their parents who participated in separate migration in their children’s problems at school after re- focus groups for teens and parents. Although the school is unification (Gindling & Poggio, 2012). In the quantitative identified as one of the settings where most situations of analysis, they found that children separated from their parents discrimination occur, no variables are included to identify how during the migration are more likely to be behind others of the these discriminatory situations affect children’s educational same age in school compared to children who migrated with performance, neither to identify which responses have a their parents, but it could not determine why this is so. In the positive effect on educational achievement. In this sense, qualitative analysis, teachers and parents were asked their another study indicates how solidarity is key to fostering impressions of why this would be the case. It developed in- educational inclusion (Hernández Arteaga et al., 2020) depth, non-structured interviews with school counsellors and In the United States, there is a long tradition of qualitative psychologists and focus groups with Latin American parents research that focuses on the educational expectations that of children from whom they had been separated during mi- parents from cultural groups have of their children, particu- gration. The qualitative fieldwork identified that children larly from Latino, Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations. separated from their parents during migration may be less There is much less research on West African immigrants, a successful in the host school not only because of the negative fast-growing immigrant group in the United States. But in psychological effects of separation, but also because of the recent years some qualitative work has been developed (Chen 4 International Journal of Qualitative Methods Lee, 2018; Kumi-Yeboah, 2018; Kumi-Yeboah et al., 2020; Another qualitative study was aimed at collecting evidence Roubeni et al., 2015). Roubeni and colleagues (2015) ana- on factors related to motivation, action and culture, from 11 lysed the migration narratives of 12 West African immigrant Mexican immigrant parents from a low-income background, families in New York City for the connections between ex- which had influenced their children’s educational success and periences of loss and educational aspirations for their children. their admission in a selective college preparatory high school Although narratives often refer to losses of material assets, (Goldsmith & Kurpius, 2018). This study also starts from the status, culture and family and community networks, parents analysis of success stories to explore the factors, in this case, value the importance of education to the socialisation of related to parent involvement, that contributes to the educa- children in the United States and the importance of their tional success of their children. One of the findings of the children’s educational success in alleviating their families’ study contributes to overcoming the deterministic theories that difficulties. The family narratives also report their efforts to correlate the socio-educational status of parents with the negotiate with their children the demands of the new host educational aspirations towards their children. The study culture with the traditional values of the heritage culture found that a parents’ effort to help their children succeed is not (Roubeni et al., 2015). What is missing in this study is how dependent on high levels of parent education or income, rather researchers could share with these families the available ev- on the home-based strategies and to the extent that the edu- idence about the experiences of schools where the heritage cators promoted outreach to parents for their participation in culture is valued as an asset contributing to the educational school. Part of the topics selected for the elaboration of the success of their children, succeeding in the public education parent interview questions were from a previous review of the system of the host country without giving up their cultural literature regarding Latino parent involvement strategies to heritage. help their children succeed in school. Based on the educational experiences of fifty-four un- Qualitative Research Addressing Evidence of the documented immigrant college students in the United States, it explored the concrete ways in which social capital is used to Educational Success of Children of Immigrant Families succeed in K-12 institutions and access higher education However, there is fewer qualitative research-oriented to social (Enriquez, 2011). The study found that undocumented stu- impact that has collected evidence of success stories to explore dents receive emotional and financial support from different the factors that are contributing to achieving school success of actors including family, peers and teachers. Given their sit- children and youth from immigrant families. A qualitative uation as undocumented students, informational resources study of 11 urban Hispanic youth in an after-school program specific to their legal status were usually provided by other was carried out to explore how they constructed the meaning undocumented students rather than by traditional institutional of career, educational and cultural domains of development agents. This study highlights the importance of empowerment adjustment through their participation experiences in the as a collective, extending the concept of social network in- program (Perry & Calhoun-Butts, 2012). This qualitative cluding other agents beyond the traditional institutions and the research was social impact-oriented to gain a better under- family as peers and teachers. Another qualitative research standing of how to improve student attendance in the program. based on monitoring 94 students from 19 nationalities from This after school program programme is one of a number of immigrant families in Spain, in their fourth year of the sec- programmes developed by a non-profit organisation aimed at ondary compulsory education, found that students who community-based education and social services to K-12 continue to post-compulsory education have a wide relational students, families and adult learners, the vast majority of dimension of ‘social capital’ that includes peers as models of which are of Latin American origin belong to low-income school success (Sandin-Esteban & Sanchez-Marti, 2015). families with limited English proficiency. Some of the re- Previous qualitative research has linked the multiple worlds searchers were directly involved in the educational activities of children of immigrant families such as school, teachers, of this non-profit organisation. They were able to learn more family and peers to academic success, but there is very little about the reality being studied. In order to collect evidence research that has done so on how African-born immigrants of how the programme works and what the participants’ integrate these multiple worlds into US schools. A qualitative perceptions were, the researchers with the staff selected study conducted focus groups with 40 Ghanaian-born im- ‘success stories’ to be able to analyse their narratives in migrant students in 10th, 11th and 12th grades and open-ended depth. Among the questions asked to the 11 youths were semi-structured interviews with 10 teachers, from Atlanta ‘How important has [the agency] been for you?’, ‘And in metropolitan area, to explore the factors related to the strat- what ways?’, ‘How has [the agency] helped your family?’, egies that students use to combine their multiple worlds in the ‘What is the most important thing about [the agency]?’ Their context of school and classroom situations (Kumi-Yeboah, answers largely identify how the after-school program 2018). The findings suggest that students develop strategies contributed to better academic performance, the achieve- for managing two worlds at school, in their interactions with ment of the high school diploma and the development of teachers, their peers and their families, shaping their per- college aspirations. spectives and helping them cross borders to achieve success in Valls et al. 5 school in the United States. As a conclusion, it is suggested of educational success (Flecha & INCLUD-ED Consortium, that teachers, educators and school administrators need to 2015). One of its specific objectives was to investigate how the know more about the background of these students and their educational exclusion affects diverse sectors of society, par- strategies since very little has been written about this col- ticularly the more vulnerable groups – migrants and their lective of immigrant students. children among them – and what kind of educational provision A similar qualitative study was carried out with 20 im- contributes to overcoming their respective discrimination. migrant youth from Ghana and Nigeria in the metropolitan This research project identified educational actions that obtain area of New York City to explore how do they describe the successful results in very diverse contexts (Flecha & factors that helped them to adapt, acculturate and integrate to INCLUD-ED Consortium, 2015). The social impact of achieve better academic success in US urban schools (Kumi- these educational actions has been published in several in- Yeboah et al., 2020). Semi-structured interviews were con- dexed journals: on interactive groups (Aubert et al., 2017; ducted with students. The categories for the interview analysis Dı́ez-Palomar & Cabré, 2015; Garcı́a-Carrión & Dı́ez- and the results were checked together with the youth par- Palomar, 2015; Garcı́a-Carrión et al., 2018a; Valero et al., ticipants, authenticating the credibility of the researchers’ 2018; Valls & Kyriakides, 2013; Villardón-Gallego et al., interpretations. The findings suggest that teacher, parent, and 2018; Zubiri-Esnaola et al., 2020), extending learning time peer support, social and electronic media, and extracurricular (Morlà-Folch et al., 2020), dialogic reading (Garcı́a-Carrión activities emerged as the factors that helped acculturation et al., 2020; López de Aguileta et al., 2020; Serradell, 2015; strategies and academic success. Soler, 2015), family involvement in learning activities This qualitative meta-analysis study will bring to the state (Garcı́a-Carrión et al., 2018b; Girbés-Peco et al., 2019; of the art innovative elements that qualitative research in- Khalfaoui et al., 2020), family education, as dialogic literary cludes in order to guide it towards the evidence collection of gatherings (de Botton et al., 2014; Flecha, 2012; Garcia Yeste the social impact from those actions that are improving the et al., 2018), and participation in school evaluations and educational achievement of children of immigrant families in decision-making (Dı́ez et al., 2011; Flecha & Soler, 2013). disadvantaged contexts. After the INCLUD-ED project, dozens of research projects, both at European and national level, followed this research line and were developed from different universities to analyse Method the social impact that successful educational actions were This study is a qualitative meta-analysis (Brown et al., 2020; having on schools in very different contexts. Among them, we Erro-Garcés & Alfaro-Tanco, 2020) of a line of research aimed selected three research projects from the Spanish Research, at social impact of educational actions to contribute to en- Development and Innovation plans. The selection criteria for hancing the academic success of children of immigrant choosing projects with which to conduct the qualitative meta- families. In this section, we will contextualise the emergence analysis were: having qualitative fieldwork as the principal of this line of research, the criteria of selection of the projects part of the empirical design, focussing on obtaining social analysed and the delimitation and characterisation of the impact evidence of educational actions implemented in objects of analysis. schools from disadvantaged context, and having children of The line of research stems from the research project immigrant families as one of their targeted groups. As a result, INCLUD-ED. Strategies for inclusion and social cohesion in the following research projects were chosen: Europe from education (Flecha, 2006–2011), funded by the EU Sixth Framework Programme, which was coordinated by - Project 1: The improvement of coexistence and learning the University of Barcelona, and involved 15 universities and in primary and secondary schools with immigrant organisations from 14 EU countries. The social impact gen- students (2009–2011). National R&D&I Plan. Secretary erated led the European Commission to select it as one of the of State for Universities and Research. Ministry of 10 successful stories from the Framework Programmes of Education and Science. Government of Spain. Research, the only one in Social Science and Humanities - Project 2: Forms of student grouping and their rela- (European Commission, 2011). Furthermore, the project tionship with school success: ‘Mixture’, ‘Streaming’ findings were the basis for several policy recommendations in and Inclusion (2009–2011). National R&D&I Plan. the European Union, for instance, the European Parliament Secretary of State for Universities and Research. Min- resolution of 2 April 2009 on educating the children of mi- istry of Education and Science. Government of Spain. grants (European Parliament, 2009). INCLUD-ED aimed to - Project 3: Improvement of the education system through achieve academic success and social cohesion for all children the family education of vulnerable groups (2014–2017). and communities in Europe, regardless of their socio- Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation State economic status and/or ethnic background. Plan. Government of Spain. The project analysed the educational actions that lead to social inequality, with a particular focus on the actions that We have developed a meta-analysis of the qualitative analysis contribute to reducing such inequalities and present evidence reports and final reports from each research project. Even though 6 International Journal of Qualitative Methods Projects 2 and 3 are mixed methods, we have only analysed their immigrants than the mean of their territory. The families in qualitative part. Overall, we have analysed reports of 23 case these schools come from Latin American countries (Bolivia, studies of schools in different disadvantaged contexts of Spain Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and from 2009 to 2017. And we have focused on the analysis of the Honduras), North Africa (Morocco and Tunisia), West Africa aims, specific objectives, techniques of data collection, com- (Gambia, Equatorial Guinea and Senegal), Middle East (Syria) position of the research teams, environment of trust between and Europe (Bulgaria, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania and Uk- researchers and studied communites and categories of analysis. raine). One primary and one secondary school were selected in The study has been approved by the ethics committee of the each of the five Spanish autonomous regions selected (Aragon, Community of Research on Excellence for All with the Catalonia, Galicia, Basque Country and Madrid). number 20210108. The qualitative techniques developed in Project 1 ad- dressed the perceptions of teachers, families and students about (1) factors, practices or actions that promote or hinder Findings the educational success of children of immigrant families and In this section, we present the meta-analysis results of the (2) factors, practices or actions that favour or hinder a school climate of coexistence. 22 semi-structured interviews were qualitative methodologies of the three research projects. carried out with teachers. In addition, 21 semi-structured Briefly, on the one hand, according to the aim, objectives, interviews and 20 life stories were conducted with family methodology, techniques for data collection, team composi- members (mostly parents and some siblings). Interviews fo- tion and orientation towards the community, the principal cused on specific questions about their perception of the findings have identified that all projects were focused on school’s practices and the teachers’ attitude, and family life obtaining evidence of educational actions’ social impact. And stories mainly dealt with family’s background, and previous, on the other hand, all of them included in their qualitative methodologies the improvement of educational achievement present and future educational expectations. Five life stories with students in the final years of primary, fifth and sixth grade as one of their categories of analysis. were also gathered. These student life stories aimed at (1) the experiences of their educational trajectory, (2) past and present Aim, Specific Objectives and Techniques for Qualitative expectations and the implication in their academic self- Data Collection Focused on Obtaining Evidence of concept and future expectations and (3) perceptions about the practices and interactions in their current school which Social Impact in Schools from Disadvantaged Contexts contribute to promote their educational success and a good Next, we summarise the aim, objectives, methodology and school environment. In addition, 11 focus groups were also techniques for data collection of these research projects. The held with students in the final grades of primary school to three of them were designed to obtain social impact evidence gather the perception of immigrant students as a group about of educational actions implemented in schools from disad- their experiences and opinions about school and its rela- vantaged contexts with a high rate of immigrant families. The tionship with educational success and the improvement of social impact approach can be identified in the aim, specific coexistence in the school (see Table 1). objectives, and the qualitative techniques for data collection of Project 2 has a specific objective for the qualitative phase, each project. to carry out a qualitative study of schools that are carrying out Regarding the aim, Project 1 analyses educational practices diverse student grouping models and its impact on the edu- related to improving coexistence and students’ academic cational performance. Schools selected were implementing success from immigrant families to find those common ele- the two most usual student grouping models in Spain, ments that can contribute to the development of programs or streaming and inclusion. Streaming here refers to a group of educational actions for primary and secondary schools. Project practices involving tailoring the curriculum to different groups 2 explores the distribution of human resources and student of children based on ability within one school (Commission of grouping in schools and its impact on classroom diversity (in the European Communities, 2006; Valls & Kyriakides, 2013), terms of cultural and social background and achievement and the inclusion concept is used to refer here the school level) and school success. Project 3 studies family education organisations responding the needs of a diverse student body benefits on families themselves, their children, the school and in a shared learning environment in order to acquire the the community. Concerning the specific objectives, Projects 1 mainstream curriculum (Ainscow, 1999; Valls & Kyriakides, and 2 were designed to identify those factors that promote 2013). In particular, the factors hampering educational success educational success and those that hinder it. Project 3, on the in the streaming model and the factors promoting educational other hand, opted for a more in-depth analysis of success success in the inclusion model were analysed. A total of five stories. schools were selected for the case studies (one primary and In Project 1, the schools were selected because they were one secondary schools that were implementing the streaming implementing specific projects aimed at academic success in model and one primary and two secondary schools for the disadvantaged contexts with an equal or higher proportion of inclusion model). Valls et al. 7 Table 1. Description of Project 1. Project Aim Specific Objectives Qualitative Method Techniques No Techniques’ Objectives To analyse successful inclusive To identify and analyse Case studies: 10 schools Interview 22 To obtain knowledge about practices related to educational practices that with a higher or equal with the teachers’ perception of improving coexistence and promote educational % of students from teachers educational practices aimed the educational success of success and improved immigrant families at immigrant students and students from immigrant coexistence in primary and than in their their impact on their families, in order to find secondary schools with a territories (5 PE and 5 learning and coexistence in those common elements high number of students SE) the school that can contribute to the from immigrant families Interview 21 To obtain knowledge about development of proposals To identify and analyse with the families’ perception in for primary and secondary educational practices that families relation to educational schools do not promote practices in the school that educational success and encourage their children to improved coexistence in continue studying, improve primary and secondary their learning and improve schools with a high their coexistence with other number of students from students; as well as practices immigrant families that do not promote it Life stories of 20 To collect the family’s history families on their past, present and future experiences and expectations about their children’s education Life stories of 5 To collect students’ students perceptions of their educational background, past and present experiences of practices and interactions at school that contribute to promoting their educational success and a good school environment; implications for their academic self- concept and expectations for the future Focus groups 11 To gather the perception of with immigrant students as a students group about their experiences and opinions about school and its relationship with educational success and the improvement of coexistence in the school Total 79 These schools were public, located in both urban and rural student achievement, beyond the perceptions of teachers, context, distributed in four autonomous regions of Spain students and families. (Andalusia, Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, Galicia and In Project 2, semi-structured interviews and focus groups the Basque Country). In all of them, there was an equal or were the techniques used to collect information from teachers. greater percentage of children of immigrant families than in 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted to know the the mean of their territory. Other selection criteria were that teachers’ perception about the influence of the student grouping schools should have standardised tests’ results on basic skills used on the academic performance. Two focus groups were held in language, mathematics and science that the education de- with teachers to know their collective perception about the partments of the different autonomous governments perform. grouping modality used in relation to their student’s academic These criteria made it possible to have objective data on performance (maths, language, science). Five life stories and 8 International Journal of Qualitative Methods one focus group were held with the families. The life stories interdisciplinary including backgrounds from educational were aimed at exploring the families’ perception about the theories, teaching and school organisation, educational and influence of the student grouping used on the academic social research methods, social anthropology, educational outcomes, and knowing the families’ assessment of the psychology, and sociology. Some of these researchers had grouping modality that had been applied to their children. been for many years involved within the studied schools. They The focus group were aimed to explore the collective per- contributed to these schools, from their academic background, ception of families about the influence of the student by providing evidence on the social impact from educational grouping used on the academic results, and knowing the actions aimed at the success for all, as well as by participating families’ assessment of the grouping modality that had been as volunteers in the different educational actions implemented applied to their children. Five life stories and two focus there. Their commitment with these schools made it easier for groups were also conducted with students. The life stories them to research them, as well as to gain a deeper under- were addressed to explore their perception about their ed- standing of its social and educational reality. Students and ucational experiences in grouping modalities along their families considered these researchers as school staff, even educational trajectory. The students’ focus groups were though they were university professors and researchers and geared towards knowing their collective perception about the contributed as volunteers in their free time without any grouping modality in which they had been involved in re- economic benefit. Therefore, there was a high degree of trust lation to their academic performance (maths, language, and between schools and research teams before the development science). Two classroom observations were undertaken; one of the studies. in a classroom grouped with a streaming model and another in a classroom grouped with an inclusion model, during a Categories’ Focus on Collect Evidence of Improvement language class (see Table 2). Educational Achievement The qualitative phase of Project 3 has three specific ob- jectives: First, to analyse the main characteristics of family In the following, we show the categories of analysis used in education in disadvantaged contexts with a high proportion of each project and examples of evidence for categories related to immigrant families; second, to analyse the benefits of family improving educational achievement. In the meta-analysis of education for families and their children and finally, the third, the three research projects, it has been identified that all of to deepen the impact of family education over time. Eight them have included the improvement of educational primary schools that had been implementing family education achievement as one of their analysis categories. for more than 2 years were selected for this purpose. These Since the aim of Project 1 was to identify both practices schools were all public, located in urban disadvantaged that encourage and those that hinder the educational success contexts with a high rate of immigrant population in five of children of immigrant families and coexistence at school, autonomous communities of Spain (Andalusia, Castile-Leon, the main category of analysis defined was improvement of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Valencia). The immigrant educational achievement and coexistence. The subcate- families in these schools came from areas around the world gories were, on the one hand, classroom’s elements, actions such as Latin America, North and West Africa, the Middle and practices, and, on the other, teachers, families and other East, Asia and Eastern Europe. actors that favour or hinder educational success and co- For each of the three specific objectives, different quali- existence. Through the previous literature review and the tative data collection techniques were carried out. For the first dialogue with participants in interviews and focus groups, specific objective, semi-structured interviews were conducted, the topics of analysis were identified within the four sub- 24 with families, 6 with fifth and sixth grade primary school categories classroom, teachers, families, and others (see students, 12 with teachers, 11 with volunteers and other staff, Table 4). as well as separate focus groups for families, students, teachers A teacher that is responsible for the immigrant children’s and volunteers and other staff. The same techniques were used classroom provides an example of impact on improving for the second specific objective, semi-structured interviews, educational achievement for the subcategory ‘Classroom’ 25 with families, 6 with students and 11 with volunteers and and the subcategory ‘Human resources’. This primary school other staff, as well as focus groups, 10 with families, 4 with was first implementing streaming actions, and thus, immi- students, 3 with teachers and 3 with volunteers and other staff. grant children, mainly arrived from North Africa, were For the third specific objective were developed longitudinal placed in a reception classroom with other immigrant stu- case studies of 13 family members involved in family edu- dents to learn the host country languages, that are Catalan and cation during 3 years (see Table 3). Spanish. The newcomers were not led to an ordinary The composition of the research teams and the existing classroom with the other native children of their age. This environment between researchers and studied communities school later changed its organisation towards an inclusive seem relevant for the research to generate social impact. model, by virtue of which immigrant children started to learn Around 40 researchers from 16 universities took part in one or the host country languages in the ordinary classroom with the more of the three research projects. The research teams were native children. The teacher who was previously in the Valls et al. 9 Table 2. Description of Project 2. Project Aim Specific Objectives Methods Techniques No Techniques’ Objectives To analyse the distribution To carry out a qualitative Cases studies of 5 schools Interview with 10 To know the teachers’ of human resources and study of some representatives of streaming teachers perception about the student grouping in educational centres that model (1 PE and 1 SE) and influence of the student Spanish schools in explores the the inclusion model of grouping used on the relation to classroom relationship between student grouping (1 PE and 2 academic results diversity and school these models and SE) from disadvantaged Life stories of 5 To explore the families’ success academic results contexts and cultural families perception about the diverse influence of the student grouping used on the academic results. To know the families’ assessment of the grouping modality that has been applied to their children Life stories of 5 To explore the perception students about their educational experiences in grouping modalities along their educational trajectory Focus groups 2 To know the collective with students perception of students about the grouping modality in which they are involved in relation their academic performance (maths, language and science) Focus groups 2 To know the collective with perception of teachers teachers about the grouping modality used in relation of their students’ academic performance (maths, language and science) Focus group 1 To explore the collective with families perception of families about the influence of the student grouping used on the academic results. To know the families’ assessment of the grouping modality that has been applied to their children Observations in 2 To observe two classrooms classroom (one grouped with a streaming model and the other grouped with an inclusion model) during a language class Total 27 reception classroom is now in the class with all the migrant performance on the basic skills tests in language, mathe- and native children, where there is also another teacher. In matics and science carried out by the Department of Edu- addition, the school started to organise its classes in inter- cation of the Autonomous Community improved for both active groups, and the teacher explains that since then the immigrant and native children within the sixth grade of 10 International Journal of Qualitative Methods Table 3. Description of Project 3. Project Aim Objectives Method Techniques No Techniques’ Objectives To analyse the social To analyse the main Case studies of 8 Semi-structured interviews 24 To analyse the main impact of family characteristics of family schools of with families characteristics of family education in education in primary and Semi-structured interviews 6 education in disadvantaged disadvantaged contexts secondary with students disadvantaged contexts contexts To analyse the benefits of education Semi-structured interviews 12 family education for with teachers students and their Semi-structured interviews 11 families with volunteers and other To deepen the impact of staff family education over Focus groups with families 9 time Focus groups with students 3 Focus group with teachers 2 Focus groups with volunteers 2 and other staff Semi-structured interviews 25 To analyse the benefits of with families family education for Semi-structured interviews 6 students and their with students families Semi-structured interviews 11 with volunteers and other staff Focus groups with families 10 Focus groups with students 4 Focus group with teachers 3 Focus groups with volunteers 3 and other staff Longitudinal case study of a 13 To deepen the impact of member involved in family family education over education during 3 years at time for themselves and the 8 schools their children Semi-structured interview 1 To contrast the findings with a teacher in a primary with other successful school from Chile international experiences Semi-structured interview 1 of family education with an US academic Seminars in the United States, 4 New Zealand, Australia and Brazil Systematic literature review on family education and its impact on the academic achievement of their children Total 150 primary school (11–12 years old). Interactive groups (IGs) native children in Catalan and not speaking Arabic among are a form of classroom organisation based on heterogeneous them, as it was the case in the reception classroom. groupings with reallocated human resources. IGs are char- acterised by the participation within the classroom of diverse I think the IGs are better. Right now we have just distributed the adults who do not necessarily have professional teaching tests marked by the Department and all the children have passed. I experience. Participants may be students’ relatives or other think it is very positive for speaking skills, because of course it is community volunteers who may have little educational not the same to put all the children who do not know Catalan in a background (Valls & Kyriakides, 2013). This teacher adds in classroom because they will relate to their language among her interview that organising the classroom in IGs has helped themselves. If there are two Arabs they will probably speak immigrant children to greatly improve their oral skills be- Arabic between them and Catalan will be heard less. So if they are cause all the teaching hours are spent interacting with other in the classroom (with the other native students) and you go in and Valls et al. 11 Table 4. Project 1 Categories. Curriculum Segregation Streaming grouping Heterogeneous grouping Classroom Human resources Learning language in other separated room Discrimination Interactions between native and immigrant students Dialogic educational actions Expectations Discrimination Student labelling Coexistence environment Teachers Cultural references Communication and relationship with families Motivation Engagement with students Improvement of Educational Achievement and Teacher’s attitude towards students Coexistence Expectations Family involvement (in decision-making and in children learning activities) Family education (for themselves at their children schools) Cultural references Perception of student grouping models Families Perception of student labelling Perception of coexistence environment Communication and relationship with teachers Socio-economic conditions Language skills Cohesion between families Racism University referents Students’ auto-concept Others Students’ expectations Community involvement and partnership Coexistence environment in neighbourhood help them ... If you are inside the classrooms I think you have the students in that group at a low level (PEM2EC2, 1, 162) Catalan language models all day long. Personally I think it’s [Quote from a teacher taken from the final report of the Project 1) better, the tests give us the results. (PEM2EC2, 1, 12) [Quote from a teacher taken from the final report of the Project 1) Another example of the impact on improving students’ performance was gathered due to the subcategory ‘Family The subcategory ‘Heterogeneous grouping’ within the involvement’ within the category ‘Families’. Drawing upon category ‘Classroom’ allowed to get the following finding, that the storytelling of a 15-year-old immigrant girl from Romania interactions among heterogeneous students produces higher at third year of Compulsory Secondary Education, this sub- learning outputs. Teachers, students and families hold a positive category allowed to realise that since her school started or- evaluation of heterogeneous grouping under interactive groups. ganising classes in IGs and involving parents as volunteers, As a sample this quotation from a teacher: the whole class started getting better marks. I think it is better, [because] if you split by [habilities] groups, I remember that last year in Social Sciences we were doing badly those less advantaged will always perform less. Whereas if you and parents came to help us. The whole class has improved since make heterogeneous groups, the most advantaged can help the then. All the class got better marks. (AGIM, 1, 90–92) [Quote less one. When an advantaged student helps a disadvantaged from a student from the final report of Project 1) student, both of them are improving their learning. (...) I think that classifying children by level does not help them because the For Project 2, which aimed to analyse the distribution of disadvantaged ones will always remain at a low level because all human resources and student grouping in relation to classroom 12 International Journal of Qualitative Methods diversity and school success, the categories were also defined Is he Spanish? on the basis of previous literature and dialogue with infor- No, he is a foreigner. I think he is a Muslim (RAI_SM1_74- mants. The two main categories were streaming impact and 83_12c) [extract from the report of the qualitative case studies of inclusion impact on academic achievement. Within the first Project 2]. category, the subcategories correspond to the different types of streaming: learning activities organised according to perfor- mance levels, reinforcement and support groups separated Shortly after collecting this student girl’s story, a focus group from their reference group, exclusionary curricular adapta- discussion was held with other students from her class. They tions and exclusionary optativity of subjects in secondary also appreciated the involvement of this immigrant parent as a compulsory education. In turn, for the second category, the volunteer because it has helped them improve their English subcategories reflect the different types to which the inclusion skills. To the same question from the researcher about how they model is applied: heterogeneous groups with a reorganisation value the participation of volunteers in the classes and whether of human resources inside classroom, divided into hetero- they help them to learn, the students responded: geneous groups in different spaces, extension of learning time, inclusive curricular adaptations and inclusive optativity of Student B: In addition, people of many nationalities come here. subjects in secondary compulsory education (see Table 5). There is also a Pakistani who comes, who knows five languages Regarding the category ‘Inclusion impact on academic and helps us in class. achievement’ and the subcategory ‘Heterogeneous groups Researcher: Are you learning a lot with him? with a reorganisation of human resources inside the class- room’, it allowed to collect social impact evidence both from Student A: Oh yes, how to pronounce. the story of a secondary school girl and from the focus group Student B: And they learn (parents/volunteers) too, eh? At least held later with students of her class. This school includes pre- they remember what they learned back when they were students. school, primary and secondary education and has a high concentration of immigrant families. In 2010, it began to im- Student D: ‘Fabricado? [Manufacturing]’ ‘Made, made!’ And plement educational actions based on the inclusion model. since we don’t know how to pronounce, we say: ‘made’ [made]. Among them, classrooms organised into heterogeneous groups And he tells us: ‘Made, made! [meɪd] It’s already stuck in my in terms of performance level, gender, culture and mother head’. (GAI_S_179-184_12) [extract from the report of the tongue. Other education professionals, family members and qualitative case studies of Project 2]. volunteers are involved within classrooms. This secondary school student explains how a parent from a primary education In Project 2, we also find the subcategory ‘Extension of child from Pakistan is volunteering in her English class (English learning time’ within the category ‘Inclusion impact on the as a second language). The student values him because she and academic achievement’ allowed to get the following finding in her classmates have improved their English pronunciation as a disadvantaged social context where the students had lower this parent has excellent English speaking. The researcher asks levels of achievement than the mean of that region. In this the student how volunteers that come as a support to class help context, the school performed an extension of the learning them. She answers the following: time by means of a tutorised library, dialogical literary gathering and helping students to do their homework. In the Most of all there is one who knows a lot of English that helps us to first case, the dialogical literary gathering provides the stu- pronounce. He is teaching us how to pronounce English. He is a dents an improvement in the reading and comprehension primary school father. competences, as this teacher explains: Table 5. Project 2 Categories. Streaming Impact on Academic Achievement Learning Activities Organised According to Performance Levels Reinforcement and support groups separated from their reference group Exclusionary curricular adaptations Exclusionary optativity of subjects (secondary compulsory education) Inclusion impact on academic achievement Heterogeneous groups with a reorganisation of human resources inside classroom Divided into heterogeneous groups in different spaces Extension of learning time Inclusive curricular adaptations Inclusive optativity of subjects (secondary compulsory education) Valls et al. 13 The level of my students was so low that I realised that we must development of case studies in eight primary and secondary begin with a six year old level for a 3rd or 4th degree children. schools. Categories were defined to identify those charac- Then, off course, from that point of departure children only teristics of family education that could impact with benefits for improved, even though it took a lot of time. (...) I got to took them families themselves and their children. Six main categories to other neighboorhoods libraries [after the school’s time], and were identified: ‘Participation facilities’, ‘Content’, ‘Learning working the instrumental dimension. (EPI_PM1_172-173_16) environments’, ‘Staff (educators, volunteers, etc.)’, ‘Decision- [Quote from a teacher taken from the qualitative report of the making/management’ and ‘Others’. For example, the category Project 2) ‘Others’ included ‘Partnerships between schools and other social actors in the community that make family education In the second case, students get a better understanding of possible’. Table 6 shows the different subcategories identified the subjects and improve their learning easier than in ordinary for each of these six categories. classes because of the closer and more individualised attention Regarding the other two specific objectives of Project 3 (to from adult volunteers, as this student’s quotation shows: analyse the benefits of family education for students and their families, and to deepen the impact of family education over It is not like in the ordindary classroom where a teacher has to pay time), other categories were also defined. These categories attention to 18 children; here sometimes we are six or five students responded to the evidence gathered of family education and [the volunteers] explain me better the matter (RAI_P- benefits in families themselves, students, schools and the MI_96_16c) [Quote from a teacher taken from the qualitative community. For example, one of the subcategories within report of the Project 2) ‘Students’ is ‘Improvement of educational achievement’. For the third specific objective of Project 3, to deepen the impact of Project 3 focused on the characteristics and benefits of family education over time, the same categories were used for family education in disadvantaged contexts. Family education the longitudinal case study analysis. The categories for these targets families and other community members to address their two specific objectives can be seen in Table 7. educational needs and interests (Flecha, 2012). Family edu- Under the category ‘Student’ and the subcategory ‘Im- cation can be carried out both within their children’s schools provement of educational achievement’, Project 3 has col- and in other community organisations. For the first specific lected evidence of how families participating in family objective of Project 3, to analyse the main characteristics of education improved their children behaviour and academic family education in disadvantaged contexts, categories were achievement. A primary school teacher from one of the defined both from the literature review and through the schools that has been part of the case studies stated in the Table 6. Project 3 Categories for Family Education Characteristics. Participation Facilities Time Options Space for childcare Welcoming environment Content High quality content Materials aimed for adults After-school programs for parents and children together Reading programs for parents and children together Literacy STEM for families Health literacy ICT learning Parenting Free legal advice to newly arrived immigrants by other immigrants Employability skills Learning environments Working in heterogeneous small groups Positive learning environment – fostering solidarity Evidence-based educational actions Staff (educators, volunteers, etc.) Educators promoting trust and family engagement High expectations Bilingual professionals or volunteers Teacher and executive team involvement Decision-making and management Family involvement in decision-making Organisation and planning Others Partnership among schools and other social and educative actors 14 International Journal of Qualitative Methods Table 7. Project 3 Categories for Benefits of Family Education. Families Increased the cultural level Increased expectations Increased motivation for learning Increased confidence, self-esteem and perception of well-being Increased involvement Emerging leadership Creation and reinforcement of social networks Creating new educational referents Students Improvement of educational achievement Improving behaviour Increased motivation for learning Increasing participation in educational assignments and initiatives Increasing expectations Identification new referents/role-models Increasing learning interactions School Improving family-school communication Increasing participation in school Improving the school climate Reducing prejudices towards cultural minority families Community Strengthening school-community relationships Increased interactions linked to out-of-school learning Reduction of racist and classist prejudices Coexistence improvement Coordination with social services and other social actors interview: It is observed that they are children who are doing The subcategory ‘Increased expectations’ within ‘Fami- better because they are taking more interest. Simply because lies’’ category allowed to find out how a teacher realised that my mother comes to school. In many cases they are not bright her low expectations regarding participants learning capacities children, but they improve in terms of attitude and perfor- make her to teach lesser than she could have done, make her mance (C.AVE.P-D) [Quote extracted from Project 3 final teaching less than other teachers were achieving with families report]. She was teaching in a public school in one of the with similar education level. suburbs of a city in Andalusia. Twenty-five percent of the families in this school are immigrants of low socio-economic The problem was me. I spent a year training mothers of school stu- status from Romania, Morocco, Algeria, the Sahara, Nigeria, dents, and I planned some things to work on, but never, for example, I Senegal and Ecuador. This school has several family edu- dared to take an exam on them. I thought, ‘no, no, no, we will do things cation programmes such as Dialogic Literary Gatherings (de little by little.’ […] And then, the next year I saw other students that had Botton et al., 2014), mathematics and other topics depending taken exams, that were projecting Power Point presentations. […] I had on the families’ demand. set expectations that were..., I don’t think they were inadequate, but The subcategory ‘Increased involvement’ within the cat- they were very basic, and actually I could have tried to do more things, egory ‘Families’, helped realising the impact that the partic- and the people who were coming would have responded. It has been ipation of one of the immigrant mothers in this school has on me who had set lower expectations. They could do a lot more than I improving her children’s motivation and academic perfor- had anticipated, it was just a matter of trying it (C.M-G.D.V2-M1) mance. She explained that since her increased involvement in [Quote extracted from Project 3 final report]. Dialogic Literary Gatherings she had more learning interac- tions with her children, her dialogues have been academically Discussion and Concluding Remarks enhanced, and they now do their homework and read together: The qualitative meta-analysis of the three research projects Our dialogue is different, we can talk about things that I could not provides knowledge about how qualitative methodologies that talk about before. We can work together on some project that they have been oriented towards social impact have introduced the bring in, that I couldn’t before. The book we are reading in the improvement of educational achievement as one of their literary gathering, we can read it together at home. We can talk categories. The three projects were explicitly oriented towards about the book, I can explain to them about it. There are things that social impact, as it has been seen in their aims and goals I couldn’t explain before and now I can (C.AV-E.F-P) [Quote sections. The fact that the three projects analysed have been extracted from Project 3 final report]. oriented towards collecting evidence of social impact, has led Valls et al. 15 them to developing qualitative methodologies that provide a focus on children of immigrant families, and a geographic better understanding of the factors that hinder the educational delimitation, there are, to date, few research projects to an- success of the children of immigrant families, but also that alyse. However, there is an increasing demand from society unveils what factors contribute to overcoming those obstacles. and from government institutions to the scientific community In all three projects, the categories of analysis have been defined to conduct research with social impact (Aiello et al., 2020), both from previous literature that has reported evidence of and the qualitative inquiry is key to achieving such goal actions that are contributing to the educational success of (Sordé Marti et al. 2020). So, in the next future, we would children of immigrant families and from the dialogue with probably witness an increase of this kind of research. A families, students, teachers, volunteers and other staff. further research, replicating the meta-analysis of categories This meta-analysis allows identifying three innovative used in qualitative fieldworks, could also be conducted in ways in qualitative methodologies of including evidence some other educational or social areas or populations (as collection of the social impact of educational actions im- students with special needs, housing, unemployment, etc.), plemented by schools that pursue the academic success of so checking whether the results presented in this article are children of immigrant families. This knowledge provides a applicable to other contexts. breakthrough in the state of the art in which there is very little qualitative research whose main objective is to gather social Declaration of Conflicting Interests impact evidence of educational actions including as a category The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the improvement of educational achievement. As we docu- the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. mented in the literature review, some qualitative research has provided evidence of the improvement in educational success Funding of children of immigrant families through their participation in The author(s) received no financial support for the research, au- after-school programs (Perry & Calhoun-Butts, 2012), by thorship, and/or publication of this article: Research Grants Agency identifying parent involvement strategies to help their children of the Government of Catalonia for the Research Group on Education succeed in school (Goldsmith & Kurpius, 2018), or analysing Overcoming Inequalities (2017 SGR 1560). the influence of social network, community, teacher and peer group support (Kumi-Yeboah et al., 2020). However, im- ORCID iD provement of educational achievement was not listed as a Lena de Botton  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9909-987X previous category in any of these studies. 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