Educational Participation of a Latino Mother of a Child with Special Needs

For purposes of this study I conducted a qualitative case study that examined in depth the correlation of Latino parent’s active educational involvement and the child’s improvement in their academics. Specifically, how Latino parents with a child with special needs perceived their educational role and what factors directed them to communicate less or more with special educators to enhance their child’s academic success.  I hypothesized that one of the most influential factors that challenged Latino parents to become an active participant of their child’s success depended on language barriers and lack of resources that allowed them to communicate with the special educators. During the recruitment process to conduct the study, I obtained a consent form to interview a Mexican single mother who has a child with mobility and visual impairment. Based on the limitations of the study, I only conducted three 75 minutes interviews with the mother and observed 8 hours of community-based educational activity that the mother and child participated in. Interviews where analyzed using theoretical coding and by examining the common themes found during the interview process.   Results of the study indicated that for the Mexican single mother, it appeared that she struggled to embody a positive role model for her child’s academic success given four factors: a language barrier, family stress form an absent father, lack of communication between special educators’ and herself, and low expectations that kept the child from realizing his full academic potential.