Challenges of kindergarten teachers working in collaboration with vulnerable parents

This study seeks to understand the challenges encountered by kindergarten teachers in collaboration with vulnerable parents for children’s education and identify professional practices in responding to those conflict threats. The importance of parent-teacher collaboration in early childhood settings has been long recognized (Rouse & O’Brien, 2017; Vlasov & Hujala, 2017). However, there are gaps in the literature regarding how teachers perceive conflicts and develop corresponding resolution strategies (Bang et al., 2021). Drawing on a social constructionist framework, the study interpreted teachers’ experiences and responses to the challenges and tensions when interacting with vulnerable parents (Ellis et al., 2015; Ward, 2018). This qualitative study collected data through semi-structured interviews with 16 teachers from 4 kindergartens. Their descriptions of critical incident cases were analyzed inductively. Informed consent was obtained from the participants prior to the study. Participation was voluntary while they had the right to withdraw anytime. Data confidentiality and anonymity were addressed. This study has been endorsed by the university’s research ethics committee. This study identified four vignettes from critical incident cases reported by kindergarten teachers. Findings reflect that kindergarten teachers viewed those conflicts as an opportunity when working with vulnerable parents. They highlighted effective practices of parent-teacher collaboration that developed through reciprocal communication, trust building, empathic understanding, and non-judgmental listening. These are promising strategies for resolving potential conflicts and establishing collaborative interaction between parents and teachers. The study highlights the need to strengthen teachers’ professional development in exploring effective practices to deal with the conflict threats of parent-teacher collaboration. Copyright © 2023 EECERA.