Factors Influencing Non-native Parents to Use Educational e-Services

Abstract

Educational e-services in schools help to bridge the gap between parents and teachers by sharing information about the children's school activities in a collaborative way. However, there is a lack of research explaining how effectively this collaboration takes place and the challenges that inhibit as well as promote such collaboration in a multicultural context. This paper investigates the factors which influence non-native parents to use educational e-services in the context of preschools (förskola) in Sweden. This is an interpretive case study based on interviewing non-native parents through structured as well as semi-structured questionnaires and literature review. The findings show that apart from some ‘internal factors', creating ‘awareness' and providing ‘motivation' are the two important successful factors that should be taken care of by the school management in order to influence non-native residents in a country to use educational e-services.