After many educational reforms over the past 2 decades, South Africa is still 1 of the lowest performing countries in terms of literacy outcomes. Despite an increased access to early childhood education programmes, more than half of Grade R learners will enter Grade 1 without the required skills to master reading. Clearly, systemic interventions…

Parent connectedness to their child's classroom has been cited by Epstein (2011) as being essential to the learning and growth of children, and yet it is an issue that is ongoing. The results of this study will give school districts insight on ways to bridge the ongoing gaps between parents and schools. With the technology world encompassing a…

Student, family, and community engagement is an important ingredient to foster students' social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD). In this brief, the importance and impact of meaningful engagement--building personal relationships, trust, and mutual respect between students and their educators, families, and communities--is described, and…

This paper reports findings from a nationally representative survey of K-12 teachers in May 2023 that examines the potential long-term impacts of COVID-19 on public schooling. The findings suggest fundamental ways in which school operations, instructional practice and parent-teacher interaction have changed since the pandemic. Some changes seem…

Family engagement in children's learning is an evidence-based approach supporting student learning. This study examines four primary school teachers' family engagement practice, within a non-dominant community. Utilising the framework of Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), the teachers examined their partnerships with families,…

Purpose: As part of a larger grant-funded project, a professional development (PD) series was conducted within the framework of a school-university partnership to improve teachers' capacity to meaningfully include fathers and father figures in the school environment, with a particular focus on fathers of children with disabilities. The authors…

This article recounts the changes that occurred when a research study was redesigned to become more participatory, involving children, teachers, families, and the wider symbolic cultural neighbourhood. What emerged was a research study that was "integrated" into the curriculum of a four-year-old classroom. Here, the process is…

Improved academic performance, among many other factors, has been linked in the research to parental involvement. Unfortunately, many view African-American parents as uninvolved because of the activities in which they choose to participate. This study is a narratological case study that examines the perceptions of African-American parents in…

A necessary move to dismantle educational injustice for historically marginalized populations is to create equitable family--school partnerships built on trusting relationships. Inequitable practices and implicit norms and biases must be intentionally counteracted to establish trusting relationships. The meeting protocol described in this article,…

With the sudden movement to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a need to understand the impact on teachers and their ability to facilitate learning in the online setting during this time period in the hopes of understanding and improving on such practices in the future. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to…

Successful transition processes for students with disabilities can assist secondary and post-secondary education institutions in meeting the needs of students. The purpose of this research is to examine the nature of the transition process from secondary to post-secondary education for students currently enrolled in college. By examining…

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative research was to seek an understanding of the challenges general education teachers faced when motivating, engaging, and instructing English Language Learners (EL) remotely online during the global pandemic of COVID-19. The data derived from individual interviews and focus group interviews revealed that…

Following the intensification and ambivalence of parent-teacher relations, this study examined the collaborative or conflictual relations, and teachers' professionalism as perceived by both teachers and parents: 325 teachers and 655 parents from 21 Israeli Jewish primary schools answered a questionnaire. Using a structural equation modelling (SEM)…

With the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, school-related closures and the hasty transition into homeschooling, parents were required to take a more active and positive role than ever before in collaboration with their children's educators. Thus, with this unprecedented situation, parents became an important source of information during the…

Traditionally pre-service teachers are undersupported as they develop culturally sustaining family engagement strategies through teacher preparation programming. As COVID-19 forced teachers, and in turn student teachers, to teach virtually, we explored how this setting affects student teacher access to students' home lives and families and impacts…