Perspectives of Teachers and Parents of Chinese American Students With Disabilities About Their Home-School Communication

This exploratory qualitative study aimed to examine the perspectives of teachers and parents of Chinese American students with disabilities regarding home-school communication in the special education field. The author recruited 2 parents and 2 teachers for this study. Different sources of data including observations, interviews, documentations, and e-mail exchanges were gathered and analyzed to identify components of effective interactions from both groups of participants. Emerging themes were identified: advocating for their child's education, mismatched expectations, barriers to communication, collaboration, and perspectives on building effective communication. Challenges to positive parent-teacher interactions included unstated assumptions about communication, communication barriers, and mismatched expectations will be discussed. Implications of these findings will be provided.