The ISOTIS team is planning to interview parents on their experiences related to children’s education and upbringing (experiences with educational systems and support services, hopes and wishes for their children, resources and support needs). Interviews will be aimed at parents with a Turkish, North-African, Roma or native lower socio-economic background, who have children aged 3-6 years or 9-12 years. The study wants to explore the strengths and potential of families who may be in a disadvantaged situation due to their minority status, cultural background and/or experience of financial hardship. The families’ views will inform the project results. The goal of the ISOTIS team is for these results to be used by local, national and European stakeholders to improve educational systems and support services in Europe.

On September 7-8th, the core team of ISOTIS researchers involved in the interview study participated in a meeting held in Oxford, organized by Martine Broekhuizen, Thomas Moser, Katharina Ereky-Stevens, Edward Melhuish and Jacqueline Barnes. The themes discussed at the meeting included the selection of participants and foreseeable challenges, the preparation of the data collection manual and decisions on the interview guide.

The interviews will be conducted from the end of October 2017 to March 2018, in 10 European countries: Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Portugal.

The ISOTIS team would like to thank all the families willing to participate and all the stakeholders contributing to the development of this study.

Watch ISOTIS researcher Martine Broekhuizen (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) presenting the goals of the parent interview study.