ABSTRACT

Parent-teacher conferences are a prime occasion for cross-cultural communication. The cultural model consists of a set of assumptions that the group takes for granted and therefore does not recognize as cultural in origin. Bridging Cultures is an ongoing cross-cultural professional development effort that allows a group of California teachers and researchers to collaboratively apply research on cross-cultural value conflict in schools to the education of children from Latino immigrant families. During the Bridging Cultures workshops, teachers proposed alternative practices for conducting parent-teacher conferences, and experimentation ensued. Culture lies in values and practices, not in ethnic labels. This teacher focused on the pragmatic difficulties of integrating different values into a parent-teacher conference, achieving the accomplishments she expected, and interpreting the parents' goals. In the interdependent perspective of Latino immigrant parents, education is a tool not for developing the individual potential of each child, but for enabling each child to help the family as a whole.