This study examines parental involvement in urban public schools, focusing on how parents in organised school-centred networks support, navigate, and negotiate from their different social positions. The multiple case study of specialised music programmes provides insights into parent strategies and behaviours in intermediate practices between…

School integration and inclusion are important for educational equity, yet inclusionary educational policies often end up being exclusionary in practices. In this article I contribute to our understanding of school level mechanism underlying this process. I draw on 2 years of data collection in a progressive culturally responsive school…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in parents' perceptions of frequency and effectiveness regarding parental involvement among various demographic groups (ethnicity, education level, socio-economic status, number of children in the home) based on Epstein's (2007) six typologies of…

Recent policies in Ethiopia put students at the heart of school improvement through structures for peer leadership and school-level consultation, evaluation and decision-making. This article draws on an ethnographic study of a government school in Tigray, Ethiopia, to explore how the participation and influence of students is achieved and mediated…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of how minoritized families and communities contribute to equity-focused school change, not as individual consumers or beneficiaries, but as educational and community leaders working collectively to transform their schools. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative case study…

This article presents an analysis of a Latino parent group and an African American parent group in California who struggled to engage with a contentious urban school reform. Using Bourdieu's cultural capital framework, the study focuses on the institutional responses to parent involvement, and the inequality in access that occurs as capital from…

Background: Research suggests that schools' capacity to successfully implement and sustain reform programs may rest, in part, with district-level facilitation. The importance of district leadership has been established for a variety of educational reforms, including school, family, and community partnerships. However, few studies have been…

When asked to explain why so many urban schools show unsatisfactory results on academic or social measures, principals routinely and quickly turn to descriptions of parents. In other words, when seeking to explain why work within a school is so difficult or why reform initiatives have been unsuccessful, many principals point outside the school.…

Described in this 1955 document is the initiation of school integration in the District of Columbia immediately following the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decision. The report presents information about the desegregation process in terms of pupil assignment and extent of interracial classes, teacher and administrator integration, parent…

This study compares parent participation in a suburban New York school district with parent participation in five Chicago city schools. Section one provides an overview of the study, which was based on an examination of external innovations (such as laws, court orders, and new programs) that created new bases for parents to become involved in…

The relationship between parent participation and academic achievement in elementary schools is examined using statistics from the Chicago (Illinois) public schools and a survey of principals and presidents of local school councils. The questionnaire assesses the extent of parent participation in the schools. Data from initial or telephone…

This paper examines the impact of parental involvement on the overall condition of the Washington (District of Columbia) public school buildings, and then looks at the impact of various variables on student achievement. Regression analysis shows the relationship among building conditions, parental involvement, and student achievement. Although a…

This study examines the ways in which parents and other community members, especially urban minorities and the poor, participate in decisions that bear on the education of their children. Information concerning the role and effectiveness of community organizations in Atlanta, Boston, and Los Angeles over a 15 month period is summarized. The…

This report is a series of interviews with fifteen citizens experienced in school community relations at five different sites across the nation. A background section presents the rationale for and the design of these interviews and introduces the participants. The greater portion of the report presents a summary of and commentary on the interviews…

Parent involvement in their children's education is widely regarded as a way to help students succeed in school. High parental involvement has been linked to increases in student achievement and engagement in school. As a result, efforts to increase parent involvement in their children's education, both in and out of school, have been included in…