Building on Froebelian principles that highlight the importance of family and community, this study explored the importance of collaboration and communication as part of a two-way dialogue. The aim was to identify the key characteristics of a model that would encourage interest and commitment to partnerships from both parents and practitioners.…

Persistently negative stereotypes of college students' parents are biased toward parents from privileged backgrounds and reflect privileged practices that operate from a color-blind and class-blind ideology. This scholarly paper argues for a conceptual shift from parent involvement to family engagement, establishes the need for a more inclusive…

Collaboration and building common ground between schools and their communities are central to developing family and community engagement practices that work. This includes resolving issues faced by communities of color who have been historically excluded by traditional parent engagement models. This literature review by IDRA presents the latest…

This study investigated the theoretical frameworks used to frame research on family-school partnerships over a five-year period. Although many researchers have described their theoretical approaches, little has been written about the diversity of frameworks used and how they are applied. Coders analyzed 215 journal articles published from 2007 to…

Minority parents are less likely to engage in their children's school though they are not less interested in their children's education or less involved in their children's lives at home. This gap in parent engagement affects the educational success of their children and has significant implications for minority communities and states with large…

Parent involvement is a predictor of postsecondary education and employment outcomes, but rigorous measures of parent involvement for youth with disabilities are lacking. Hirano, Garbacz, Shanley, and Rowe adapted scales based on Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model of parent involvement for use with parents of youth with disabilities aged 14 to 23.…

This exploratory study investigated the use of concepts related to families, parents, and the home in 51 state-level early learning and development standards documents. Guidelines from six national family involvement, engagement, and school-partnership models were used to create the Family Involvement Models Analysis Chart (FIMAC), which served as…

This brief is part of a series that shares findings from a research collaboration between the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University and Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) focused on understanding implementation of the community school model in the district. This brief highlights findings related to…

This research investigated African American fathers' involvement in the school-based lives of their elementary-aged children using the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model of parent involvement and Epstein's framework of involvement. Questionnaires were administered to 101 African American males in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.…

In this webinar, Dr. Joyce Epstein, Director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and the National Network of Partnership Schools, discussed what the research says about effective family engagement. The webinar and PowerPoint presentation are also available. A brief list of resources is included.

In spite of recent education reform and reorganization efforts requiring the use of research-based methods, the fundamental elements of an effective program for children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have not been succinctly identified. This article presents the essential features of programs for students with EBD.…

This manuscript describes a process for addressing cultural differences that is effective when applied specifically to collaborating with families in planning an intervention or an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The process, known as biculturalization, is designed to create culturally appropriate interventions by identifying and…

Youth with emotional and behavioral (E/BD) and other disorders, who in many cases have not received needed interventions and supports in school, are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. This article considers how parents of youth with E/BDs can become more involved in the process when their child is referred to juvenile court, thereby…

Decades of research point to the benefits of parent involvement in education. Research has also shown that white, middle-class parents are disproportionately involved. Charter schools, as schools of choice, have been assumed to have fewer involvement barriers for minority and low-income parents, but a 2007 survey of charter leaders found that…

Home-school partnership is one of the important contributors to every child's learning. The changing demographics of the United States present an urgent need for home-school partnership with culturally diverse families. Traditional family involvement practices are challenged when working with multicultural families. The authors propose an…