ISOTIS researchers Inês A. Ferreira, Carla S. Silva, Leonor Neves, Sofia Guichard and Cecília Aguiar publish paper "Predictors of shared book reading at home with preschoolers: Are there differences between Roma and non-Roma low-income families?" in the Journal of Social Psychology of Education.

The authors state "This study expanded the literature on SBR, by going beyond child and family sociodemographic predictors and investigating the role of parental beliefs and mesosystemic links between the family and the preschool (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), as well as the role of ethnicity in a predominantly low-income sample."

Further the authors conclude "The major finding of our study is the similar pattern of predictors of frequency SBR found in the Portuguese Roma and non-Roma samples, which may provide important insights for practice in this field. For example, Roma and non-Roma families living in the same (or comparable) deprived urban areas may experience similar challenges in mobilizing resources to engage in home literacy activities such as SBR with their preschool children. Therefore, even though tailored interventions for Roma families may be relevant, our findings suggest that both groups of families may benefit from similar interventions aiming to increase the frequency of home SBR. Findings further indicate that such interventions should consider the multiple levels of the context that help predict home SBR, including individual variables that are key in shaping children’s educational experiences in their microsystems (i.e., mothers’ education and academic aspirations for their children) and selected features of the mesosystem (i.e., parental involvement in informal preschool activities). Thus, possible interventions may include informal activities in preschool for families (e.g., storytelling coffee/tea meetings) or activities with examples of successful students from the local community or members of comparable vulnerable socioeconomic communities."