Graduate Research Papers

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Open Access Graduate Research Paper

Abstract

The United States has experienced the rapid growth of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) students in public schools since 1990. Issues concerning CLD students such as their limited English proficiency, school failures, parental involvement in their education, appropriate models of bilingual education and study resources provided by libraries have caused increasing concerns from policy makers, school administrators and educators at all school levels. Facing the diversity population reality, both school libraries and public libraries are called to become more culturally responsive in providing effective outreach library services to ensure academic success of all CLD students and meet the needs of immigrant families.

The problem identified by this exploratory grounded-theory research is the public library in a Midwestern city that may not understand fully what it means to be 'culturally responsive' through its library programs nor endeavoring a firm commitment to creating library outreach programs to better meet the needs of CLD students and their families. The purpose of this study was to explore the uses of the public library by CLD students' parents together with their perceptions of this public library services and programs. This inquiry tends to be exploratory and a qualitative approach was used with interviews of CLD parents as the research instruments. Ten Chinese-speaking parents for this inquiry were selected from Chinese-speaking residents in a Midwestern city of Iowa who choose to send their children to Chinese language classes. Any interpretation from the data were grounded-theory orientated. The findings suggest that most Chinese parents hold positive attitudes toward the children's program, especially story-telling offered regularly in the library and children's collections. The findings present some challenges for innovation facing this public library such as flexible scheduling, wider collections and English language classes for immigrants' survival needs.

The significance of this study is desired to add some insights into the nature and organization of the effective public library services for the 21st multicultural society as well as further study concerning connecting to other ethnic groups of immigrants within the community other than the Chinese background.

Year of Submission

2010

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Department

Division of School Library Studies

First Advisor

Karla Krueger

Comments

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Date Original

Fall 2010

Object Description

1 PDF file (vii, 37 pages)

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