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Few parenting curricula exist that are culturally-appropriate to the Mexican-immigrant population served by many programs. The Even Start family literacy program has four integrated components, making it more difficult to find appropriate curricula for the families they serve. During Winter 2006, discussion groups were conducted with participants in two Even Start programs in Oregon to gain information and insight from participating parents to use in the development of the parenting curriculum used. During Spring 2006, the programs that participated in the discussion groups received the parenting curriculum that they had helped develop: one program received the entire, integrated curriculum, the other program initially received only the parenting component of the curriculum.
This study used a mixed-methods approach to examine and compare the gains in knowledge made by the program participants. The quantitative data were not statistically significant and therefore, the hypotheses could not be supported by the quantitative data. The qualitative data illustrated gains in parenting knowledge among both groups and greater gains made by the treatment group. The qualitative data also revealed that the curriculum was culturally-appropriate according to participants.
Findings from this study may have implications for future research. Both groups showed evidence of gains in parenting knowledge regardless of whether they received the integrated or non-integrated curriculum, demonstrating that receipt of a culturally-appropriate parenting curriculum using either format will produce some gains. This study however, could not produce statistically significant quantitative results due to the small sample size and a possible ceiling effect with the treatment group of the measure used. Generalizability is limited as this curriculum was developed for a very specific population and program. All measures examined short-term and not long-term gains. This study does however serve as one model for the development of a culturally-appropriate parenting curriculum. This study also presents one model for the evaluating integration versus non-integration of components in Even Start programs. This study is encouraging that there are gains to participants’ knowledge when integrating components and that providing culturally-appropriate curricula is feasible and beneficial. |
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