The question driving this study was: What makes rural secondary parents feel in community with their children's schools? Using a sociomaterial approach, data were collected from three rural schools in northern Alberta, Canada using walking interviews with parents in the schools, site observations, focus groups, and individual interviews with 21…

This article discusses how the key players' multilayered collaboration may be enacted by the Change Laboratory methodology in the footsteps of Virkkunen and Newnham (2013) to address a complex issue for the benefit of adolescents. It can be defined as a group processing approach used by a group to solve a problem of its own defining. Over six…

The work of contemporary school principals is intensifying in terms of complexity and volume. Many factors moderate and drive such work intensification. More than ever before, school principals are expected to build relationships with organizations and agencies connected to the student and school community. Using findings generated from a…

The immigrant population is increasing steadily every year in Canada and in Quebec, in particular. The immigrant population is made up largely of families, most of whom have school-age children. However, we have little information on the practices these parents adopt when they become involved in their children's schooling. In this study, 28…

In this article, we report on a study in which we interviewed working class families who were the first cohort in a family literacy program that had been locally developed and implemented in a small village in Canada more than two decades previously in response to community-identified needs. The study was framed by Tulving's concept of episodic…

Parental participation and cooperation in children's educational experiences is positively related to important student outcomes. It is becoming increasingly evident that context is a significant factor in understanding academic achievement, and the setting in which a child, family, and school is situated is among the salient contexts influencing…

Our research involved a community-school literacy initiative where seniors visit elementary schools to read with children. As we considered the residual data in our study, we were led to explore an emerging school-community relationship--a web of connection--being created by senior volunteers in the project. We discuss this aspect of our study in…

In the province of Quebec, there has been a movement towards creating community schools since the last education reform. School integrated services make a unique contribution to the creation of a community school, and some important challenges must be considered and overcome if the community school is to exist in Quebec as it currently exists in…

Based on qualitative research, this article aims to clarify the process of creating school-community partnerships. Two secondary schools with numerous partnerships were selected within a southern Ontario school board characterized by economic and cultural diversity. Drawing on the within- and cross-case analyses of documents, observations, and 25…

The findings in this article will be presented in relation to developing and implementing processes of school, family, and community partnership programs in two primary and two secondary schools in Quebec from 2001 to 2005. The action research project was based on Epstein's (2001) comprehensive framework of six types of involvement: parenting,…