Home-school Interaction Research Articles

Home–school interactions relating to students with disability: a document analysis of Australian policy and guidelines

PurposeThe present study explored the extent to which home–school interactions for students with disability are addressed within Australian Federal, and State and Territory government and Catholic education department policies and guidelines.Design/methodology/approachUtilising a framework adapted from Trezona et al.’s (2018a, b) Organisational Health Literacy Responsiveness self-assessment tool, a document analysis of pertinent policies and guidelines provided an opportunity to understand the prominence of home–school interactions within these guiding documents, the prioritisation of home–school interactions, as well as stipulated actions, implementation resources and monitoring processes.FindingsThe findings of this analysis indicate that there are varying approaches to identifying and articulating home–school interactions and associated processes, as well as the roles and responsibilities assigned to stakeholders across the education system(s). Recommendations for increasing in-school and in-classroom translation of documented priorities and objectives are presented.Originality/valueThe article concludes with a broad conceptualisation of home–school interactions for students with disability as established within the analysed documents, as well as considerations for policymakers and researchers involved in policy and guideline development and implementation.

Factors influencing kindergarten Families' perceptions of home–school interactions

AbstractThe transition to and through kindergarten is consequential for the academic, social, and emotional wellbeing of children. Policies and practices are in place to smooth that transition. Researchers are working to understand which practices work best and for whom, particularly as the student population in U.S. schools continues to diversify. In this study, we analysed data from a large longitudinal study of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse families, children, and their teachers. We used multi‐level modelling to examine the factors associated with families' reports of strong home–school interactions at the transition to and through kindergarten on the Family Involvement Questionnaire. We found that children having attended preschool and lower class size were associated with family reports of strong interactions. Surprisingly, we also found that teacher–family language match, teachers' self‐efficacy for working with families, and teachers' beliefs about children were not significantly associated with families' reports of strong or weak interactions. This work has implications for family engagement policy and practice as children transition to and through kindergarten.

Innovative methods in collaborative research: mediagrams in the study of digital multilingual workplace communication and home-school interaction

ABSTRACT Recent developments in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics bring with them a need for methodological innovation in the study of multilingual communication in the online/offline nexus. As a response to this, our paper reports from a research project on migrants’ digital interaction to consider how mediagrams can be used for collaborative research in multilingual workplaces and schools. A mediagram is a visual tool used for collaborative data collection and analysis to capture one individual’s digital interaction, and to visualise, in a comprehensible manner, linguistic, digital, and modal resources used by this individual with specific interlocutors. The aim of this paper is to examine how mediagrams can be used to increase the participatory dimension of the sociolinguistic research processes, focusing on biographical dimensions and digital practices. For this purpose, we describe two distinct applications of mediagrams. First, a study of labour migrants’ digitally mediated workplace communication, and second, a study of parent-teacher communication. We discuss these two applications, considering participatory approaches in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, focusing on participants’ conceptions and participation and mediagrams’ methodological potential in post-digital contexts.

Analysis of Mental Health Status Model of Students in Higher Vocational Colleges based on Potential Profile

In order to strengthen the level of vocational college students' mental health research, and to understand the overall situation of students' mental health, this study investigated 550 vocational college students. The study mainly used the SCL-90 measurement tool to conduct a mental health test and establish the potential profile model. Through the analysis of SPSS and MPLUS, the study found that the mental health level of students in vocational college was relatively good, with higher levels of mental health than the national norm, but with serious polarization, i. e. higher scores for students with psychological abnormalities. In each dimension of the test, it was found that the dimensions with more positive factors were more mainly focused on: obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity and depression. Through the analysis of the potential profile model, it was found that the mental health level of students could be divided into three categories: “Mildly problematic group”, “Potentially problematic group” and“Highly Problematic Group”, the mental health level of the students mainly concentrated in the“Minor problem group”. The differences between the groups are obvious, and students' mental health levels are mainly concentrated in the “mild problem group”. Therefore, in the mental health work of higher vocational colleges, it is necessary to carry out daily propaganda and education to improve overall mental health literacy. At the same time, we need to strengthen the supervision of key students, carry out tracking analysis, establish personal psychological files, and promote home-school interaction.

Influencing Factors and Preventive Strategies of Job Burnout in Preschool Teachers

Early childhood education is the starting point of a person's socialization process. The rudiments of some thinking and habits formed in early childhood will affect the thinking mode and behavior choice in the process of personal growth. The professional enthusiasm of preschool teachers will affect the formation of children's emotional stability, personality and behavior. The study of preschool teachers' Job Burnout and its influencing factors has strong theoretical and practical significance. The results show that job intensity, career development opportunities and parents' support attitude are the three key factors affecting preschool teachers' job burnout. The prevention strategies of preschool teachers' job burnout are put forward from three aspects: Lifelong learning, platform construction and home school interaction.

Self-selection or self-disqualification? Chinese rural-to-urban migrant parents’ involvement imaginaries in home-school interaction

In the past decades, the expansion of parentocracy in China's official and civil rhetorics has bolstered the home-school interaction (HSI hereafter) paradigm where parents actively participate in children's schooling. In previous studies, migrant parents are usually simply described as cohorts who are unwilling and incompetent to HSI. This paper introduces the concept of “involvement imaginaries” to capture migrant parents’ dynamic perceptions of their roles, abilities, and contributions in and to HSI. The findings suggest a process wherein migrant parents self-select to integrate themselves into the urban HSI field and acquire urban disposition, and then come to self-disqualify in encountering structural and institutional barriers. Through this, the study challenges the stereotypes about migrant parents and contributes to understanding the symbolic biases and violence that exclude them from HSI.

Marshallese Families’ Reported Experiences of Home-school Connections: An Asset-based Model for Critiquing “Parental Involvement” Frameworks and Understanding Remote Schooling during COVID-19

COVID-19 closed school buildings across the United States, forcing a shift to remote education. How families navigated remote schooling likely varied across class, racial, and ethnic differences, raising questions about how the pandemic might deepen educational inequities. We talked to Marshallese migrant families in a town in the South Central United States about their experiences with remote schooling in Spring 2020. Findings suggest families engaged in school activities at home and were invested in their children’s schooling. They reported numerous inequities tied to technology access and “time-collisions” between familial and educational schedules. They also reveal culturally specific patterns of home-school interactions we call “distributed involvement.” These issues are relevant during in-person as well as remote schooling. Families’ reports suggest problems with normative models of “parental involvement,” revealing ways to make home-school connections more culturally sustaining. A better understanding of reported COVID-19 experiences can inform educational policies and practices in post-pandemic futures.

Home–School Interaction: A Vignette Study of Parents’ Views on Situations Relevant to Trust

This paper addresses parental trust in schools (hereafter referred to as “parent trust”) in relation to different situations of school-based involvement. More precisely, the study seeks to examine how selected situations of parental school-based involvement (parent-teacher conferences and parents’ evenings) are relevant to trust, and what facets of trustworthiness are activated in each situation. In line with the ‘comprehensive model of trust’ briefly presented in the introductory paper of this special issue, this study aims at interconnecting two elements: “trust among parents and schools” and “promotion of trust” based on perceptions of trustworthiness as antecedents for trusting behavior. Building upon this model and a prior vignette study on parent trust in different situations of school-based involvement, the paper highlights the potential of further theoretical and methodological developments in educational trust research relevant for both research and practice.

Exploring Parental Involvement in Early Childhood Education in Philippines: A Case Study

Despite the attempt to increase parental involvement (PI) in school, there is a gap in understanding it from stakeholders' perspectives. This descriptive case study explored PI in early childhood education in Philippines from kindergarten stakeholders' perspectives. This study employed two phases: phase 1 focused on document analysis and phase 2 on the interview of stakeholders, in which purposive sampling technique was used to recruit 65 participants. Data from the two phases went through content and thematic analysis. The findings revealed four themes: 1) meaningful home-school interaction; 2) collective in-school engagement; 3) structured at-home learning support; and 4) refining stakeholders' capacity. These findings underscore the significance of strong PI and the need for crafting policies that will set guidelines for smooth implementation of programs and increase stakeholders' school engagement. This study requires further investigation in understanding PI focusing on the viewpoints of various stakeholders within the different regions of the country to validate its findings.

The Impact of Parental Remote Migration and Parent-Child Relation Types on the Psychological Resilience of Rural Left-Behind Children in China.

Using survey data of middle school students from Ye county in Henan province and Chenggu and Ningqiang county in Shaanxi province, China, adopting latent class analysis and hierarchical linear regression, this study analyzes the impact of parental remote migration and parent-child relation types on the psychological resilience of rural left-behind children. The results show that: Only mother’s remote migration has a significantly negative impact on the psychological resilience of rural left-behind children, the time of parental first migration, the distance of father’s migration, and children’s migration have no significant impacts; parent-child relation of “alienation connection and weak function” or parent-child relation combination of “parental alienation connection and weak function” is the most unfavorable factor for the psychological resilience of rural left-behind children, while father-child relation of “close connection but lacking function”, mother-child relation of “intimate connection and strong function”, and combination of “paternal close connection but lacking function - maternal intimate connection and strong function” are the most favorable factors. There is gender difference in the impact of father-child relation types and mother-child relation types, the impact of father-child relation types is stronger than that of mother-child relation types; harmonious parental relation, supportive friends, caring teachers, and moderate home-school interaction are favorable for the psychological resilience of rural left-behind children.

Reading ourselves against the grain: starting points for parental engagement with newly arrived families

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we bring together research literature on parental engagement and refugees and parental engagement to open up novel conversations about schools’ work with newly arrived families in the context of a moment of mass forced migration to communities and their schools across the European Union. This work was undertaken as part of the Open School Doors (OSD) project, a two-year Erasmus funded project involving researchers and teachers from Austria, Germany, Greece and the UK in collaboration with a pan-European parents association (EPA) that aimed to develop resources for teachers and schools working to include and support newly arrived young people and their families. We use the term ‘newly arrived’ as an inclusive term, taking account of families from both forced and more-established migration contexts as well as families from diverse Roma communities. This review identified the theoretical and contextual issues that framed OSD. Our review of the literature found that existing models of parental engagement neglect the complexity of social identity markers for newly arrived families and their inter-section with a UK teaching practice framed by white-ness and ‘post’-colonialism. Through this review, we problematise ideas of socio-cultural neutrality in home-school interactions, and draw attention to disparities in actions and outcomes for different agents (teachers, young people, parents) which have potential impacts for newly arrived and refugee families. Through this we foreground a multi-layered, intersectional approach to parental engagement. Our hybrid thinking mobilises new insights on parental engagement that demands de-othering of refugee families and reading ‘teacher-selves’ against the grain. Our review contributes recommendations for primary and secondary education, including starting points for reflection, review and practice development for teachers and school leaders.

A review of daily conversations and practices at home: Exploring practices that promote early literacy in Spanish-speaking homes and home-school interactions

Coming from a low-income heritage language family, like 17% of Latino families, entails important academic risk factors related to lower scores on reading tests. Considering that it is estimated that Latino students will represent 50% of the U.S. public schools’ population by 2050, their literacy learning must be supported adequately. The purpose of this literature review is to explore, from an ecocultural perspective, early literacy practices of low-income Spanish-speaking families and analyze the nature of literacy home-school interventions implemented for this group. The literature highlights non-traditional literacy practices that are strengths of the Latino families, such as a robust oral tradition focused on social cues, children’s engagement in written household chores, and the use of the Bible to pass values. Parents have mixed beliefs regarding literacy promotion: they do not feel prepared to support their children; thus, they support teachers as experts. Three types of home-school literacy interventions were found: printed material sharing; printed material exchange; family programs. As the literature posits, interventions should consider and be based on family beliefs, culture, and strengths; otherwise, effectivity and attrition are at risk. Moreover, new research should be conducted to bridge the gap regarding the role of family actors other than the mother, as well as the differences within the Latino community and immigrant generation.

Student-centred photovoice as a mechanism for home-school interaction: Teacher perceptions of efficacy

Objective: The school and home environments play a significant role in shaping the health behaviours of children. Understanding students’ home environments is essential for teachers to recognise and meet their students’ needs, while collaborative partnerships between the school and home have been shown to result in academic success and improved behaviour management. This study explores the unique features of photovoice as a student-centred approach to understanding the links between the school and home environments, and its feasibility to be implemented independently by teachers in the classroom. Design: Descriptive qualitative method. Setting: A Project Promoting healthy Living for Everyone in Schools (APPLE Schools) is a school-based health promotion project being conducted in 70 school communities across northern Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Manitoba, Canada. Method: One-on-one interviews with teachers who were involved in an initial photovoice project ( n = 3) and researcher field notes from observations conducted over a period of 8 months were used. Data were analysed using latent content analysis. Results: Strengths, limitations and future directions of photovoice were identified. The strengths of using photovoice included genuine student participation, strengthened communication between the school and home, and the ability to address multiple learning domains. Limitations were cost, privacy and parental support. Teachers shared promising ideas about photovoice being used for health promotion advocacy. Conclusion: Photovoice can be used by teachers as tool to strengthen the relationship between the home and the school environments. Future use of photovoice in schools is encouraged.

Immigrant home-school information flows in Finnish comprehensive schools

PurposeSchool is an institution that provides an opportunity to improve children’s equity and wellbeing and to bridge the potential disadvantage related to ethnic- or language-minority backgrounds. Information sharing between immigrant homes and school can enhance school achievement, support positive identity formation and provide early support when needed. In this paper, the perspectives of immigrant parents, school welfare personnel and school-going adolescents are analysed in order to understand how they see their respective roles in information flows between home and school. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe data consist of qualitative group and individual interviews of 34 representatives of school personnel, 13 immigrant parents and 81 young people who have experienced immigration, in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland.FindingsDespite general goodwill, school personnel may fail to secure the flow of information. Due to structural power imbalance, school personnel are often incapable of engaging the parents in dialogical discourse. Young people of immigrant background in turn try to manipulate the information flow in order to protect their family and ethnic group and to cope with pressures from parents. The patterns of information flows in school as a social field reproduce immigrant homes as subaltern. Adolescents act in a strategically important juncture of information flows between immigrant home and school, which indicates that home-school interaction is actually a triad.Social implicationsAwareness building among school personnel is vital for equity and wellbeing of children of immigrant families.Originality/valueThis triangulated analysis of patterned information flows in school as a social field provides a fresh perspective to those working with children of immigrant families.

Integrating conceptions of scaffolding and co-construction to enhance parental involvement in the Pre-Nursery of a British International School

AbstractWhilst many practitioners value positive and effective working relationships with parents, enhancing home–school interactions can be complex, especially within highly diverse contexts. Within the UK, partnership working with parents is widely advocated. However, there may exist subtle, but crucial differences between interactions that scaffold parents into a professional’s view of the child and those that attempt to co-construct an understanding of that child. This paper outlines a case study set within a British international school in Thailand, wherein attempts were made to co-construct an understanding between practitioner and parent about each child’s learning. At the onset of the study, it was hypothesised that foregrounding scaffolding could alienate parents who may hold diverse, but equally valuable, perspectives on learning at home. Thus, the co-construction of understanding was emphasised. However, the study indicated that integrating conceptions of scaffolding and co-construction might b...

Home-School Interaction: Remodelling a Framework of Parents-Teachers Relationship for Supporting Students’ Learning

Family and school are not separated social institution. Many parents view that it is schools and teachers which and who should be responsible for their children education. These views should be challenged by arising concern and awareness of parents and teachers of the importance of shared responsibility and cooperativeness. Parents are responsible for laying the basic/foundation of children’s learning, basic values, moral education, and basic social learning. Teachers and schools bear responsibility for developing those basic education. During their learning at school, students have a chance to develop their social competence. School also can be environment where children are gradually learning to be adult learners. They can be adult learners through engaging in collaborative learning activities. Through this social learning, children can learn develop social concern and sensitivity. Moreover, they can develop their learning through experience.

Aligning theory with practice: Understanding school–family partnerships at an inner-city high school

Ideally, theoretical constructs and real world practice should be closely related. The aim of this study was to examine the ways in which ecological principles (i.e., cycling of resources, adaptation, interdependence, and succession) were reflected in school–family partnerships. Parents ( n = 15) and school personnel ( n = 10) at a predominantly African American inner-city high school participated in in-depth interviews regarding their conceptualizations of parental involvement, home–school interactions and strengths and weaknesses of home–school communication. Four major themes emerged to highlight the connection between the theoretical principles of ecology and the practice of parental involvement: effective communication, initiation of contact, provide and protect, and contextual conditions. Although theory and practice overlap, study findings suggest ways in which the ecological principals might expand to better align with the practice of school–family partnerships in inner-city high schools. Future directions for theory and practice are discussed.

Motivations, Sacrifices, and Challenges: Black Parents’ Decisions to Home School

This study examines home schooling among Black parents by providing insight to Black families’ beliefs, concerns, and desires for their children’s education. To date, the literature remains void of empirical work related to home education among African American families. However, the present study directly addresses this void. Findings demonstrated that parents’ motivations to home school included issues related to race and home-school interaction. In addition, Black parents reported that religious beliefs influenced their decisions to home school. But, unlike their Caucasian counterparts, Black home educators described a more liberatory form of religion.

Diverse Approaches to Parent Advocacy During Special Education Home—School Interactions

Home—school partnerships in special education often include parent advocacy that at times requires specific and specialized knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Parent participation is shaped by access to cultural and social capital resources and is critical to assessment and service delivery. This study explores the types of capital resources parents perceived necessary to their participation via five focus groups of participants from a range of socioeconomic, disability, and racial or ethnic backgrounds through 27 in-depth interviews. NVIVO7 was used to analyze data; categorical meaning and relational themes were coded recursively. Results indicated that intercultural and intracultural differences existed among parents. Advocacy on behalf of one student also required different capital resources than did advocacy for systems change. Discussion focuses on implications of parent advocacy on educational equity.

Family Perceptions of Facilitators and Inhibitors of Effective School-Based Dysphagia Management

This qualitative study focused on the perceptions of family members of children with dysphagia by asking what the family-identified factors are that facilitate or inhibit effective school-based management of pediatric dysphagia. Semistructured interviews of 7 family members of 6 children with dysphagia, ages 2 through 11 years, were conducted. Collective case study and cross-case analyses were conducted. The findings were confirmed through triangulation, respondent validation, and member checking. Interviewees identified 5 facilitating factors that enhance school-based dysphagia programs: (a) setting, (b) therapist and/or program, (c) capitalizing on positive child characteristics, (d) home-school interactions, and (e) external supports. Four factors that inhibit effectiveness also emerged: (a) setting, (b) therapist and/or program, (c) limiting child characteristics, and (d) home-school interactions. Practitioners may consider addressing the factors that were identified as facilitators of effective programs. More research is needed concerning (a) factors promoting effective parent-professional relationships, (b) methods for increasing professional preparation in pediatric dysphagia, and (c) the efficacy of school-based pediatric dysphagia management programs.