Building partnerships in education through a story-tool based intervention: Parental involvement experiences among families with Roma backgrounds Moreira, Tânia Berrocal De Luna, Emilio Acculturation Home- and school-based parental involvement, Academic socialization Roma (Gypsies) Story-tool intervention Home-school partnerships Intervention-based research This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds (PTDC/PSI-GER/6847/2020), and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). The TM was supported by a PhD fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (SFRH/BD/125876/2016). The authors would like to thank the participants who accepted to take part in the intervention program and the school Directors and social assistants who agreed to cooperate and provided logistical support in different research steps. The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1012568/full#supplementary-material ^According to the European Commission and Council of Europe (2012) definitions, the term, the term Roma is widely used in formal contexts to cover a wide diversity of groups (such as Roma, Sinti, Kale, Travellers, and the Eastern groups), including persons who identify themselves as Gypsies (the term used in Portugal). As an "umbrella" term, Roma recognizes the heterogeneity of lifestyles and cultural backgrounds and the need to be sensitive to framings that problematize the minority (Matras et al., 2015) and replace deprecatory terms (such as Gypsy) associated with a history of oppression. In the Portuguese context, people recognize themselves as Gypsies; however, as a political term of convenience, Roma is used to cover the heterogeneity among the different Gypsy groups in the Portuguese context. Introduction: School educators are likely to explain the poor educational trajectories of students with Roma backgrounds related to the lack of parental support and interest in children’s education. Aiming to understand further the patterns of Roma group’s parental involvement in children’s school life and their engagement experiences in school-related activities, the current research set an intervention supported by a culturally sensitive story-tool. Method: Grounded in the intervention-based research framework, 12 participants (i.e., mothers) from different Portuguese Roma groups participated in this study. Data was collected through interviews conducted pre-and postintervention. Eight weekly sessions were delivered in the school context, using a story-tool and hands- on activities to generate culturally significant meanings regarding attitudes, beliefs, and values toward children’s educational trajectories. Results: Through the lens of acculturation theory, data analysis provided important findings under two overarching topics: patterns of parental involvement in children’s school life and participants’ engagement in the intervention program. Discussion: Data show the distinct ways Roma parents participate in children’s education and the relevance of mainstream contexts providing an atmosphere likely to build collaborative relationships with parents to overcome barriers to parental involvement 2023-05-10T08:39:20Z 2023-05-10T08:39:20Z 2023-03-09 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Moreira T, Martins J, Silva C, Berrocal de Luna E, Martins J, Moreira D and Rosário P (2023) Building partnerships in education through a story-tool based intervention: Parental involvement experiences among families with Roma backgrounds. Front. Psychol. 14:1012568 [doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1012568] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/81433 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1012568 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 4.0 Internacional Frontiers Media