Home-school Partnerships Research Articles

Supporting 11 to 13 year old students’ reading: perceptions of parents

In New Zealand, during the last decade, there has been a focus on improving home-school partnerships to help raise literacy achievement. When parents are aware of what is happening in the classroom to support their child’s reading development and learning, parents can put strategies in place to further endorse learning in the home environment. The article explores the issues surrounding the role of parents in the literacy learning of their children, particularly those of young adolescent students. Twenty seven parents of students in years seven and eight were randomly selected by the principals at six New Zealand schools. The schools represented a wide range of school types. The parents were interviewed using a semi - structured schedule. The research found that there was a link between parents who enjoyed reading and modeled this in their home environment to their child’s perceived interest and success in reading achievement. Fathers often were a powerful model for their children, more particularly their sons, when in developing attitudes towards the value and interest in reading for leisure or information.

Strengthening Indigenous parents’ co-leadership through culturally responsive home-school partnerships: a practical implementation framework

ABSTRACT The momentum of the decolonising education movement has led many scholars to rethink the ongoing impacts of colonialism on Indigenous peoples and generate catalysts for change. Using the decolonisation lens, the aim of this phenomenological study was to investigate the barriers, outcomes, and enablers of effective collaboration between West Papuan parents and teachers. Results suggested that although they encountered many obstacles, both groups of participants still believed in the possibility of establishing sustainable, culturally responsive home-school partnerships. In addition, when teachers embraced West Papuan culture in home-school partnerships, it increased their professional skills, parents’ agency, and self-efficacy, which in turn, enhanced children’s learning outcomes and strengthened children’s Indigenous identity. We offer a culturally responsive home-school partnership framework, developed from the bottom-up narratives of teachers and parents. The framework centres on three key strategies: culturally responsive communication, decolonising pedagogical practices, and emancipatory support.

Cultural Self-Awareness: An Initial Step in Home-School Partnerships

The US is becoming progressively diverse and so are our classrooms. Home-school partnerships are essential to supporting diverse learners. It is critical both new and veteran practitioners make intentional efforts to provide culturally proficient practices when building home-school partnerships. Cultural awareness is identified across disciplines as the initial step to being a culturally proficient practitioner (e.g., CCPEP, nd; Randall-David, 1989; SAMHSA, 2014). Self-awareness is an important but often overlooked step in cultural awareness. This article addresses three techniques to increase cultural self-awareness as an initial step to building effective home-school partnerships with diverse families.

A systematic review of understanding parental involvement in children’s ESL learning: What the literature says?

A systematic literature review (SLR) regarding parental involvement in children's ESL learning at the primary school level was carried out using electronic data searching. This review considered articles published in the last three years (2020–2022) from an electronic database, specifically SCOPUS. The paper summarizes previous research, examines the current literature, and suggests directions for future research. The results of this evaluation, which include the identification of ten relevant papers, show that the majority of the parental involvement studies were conducted qualitatively and focused more on home-based than school-based involvement. Besides that, reading activities were largely performed by parents to get involved in their children’s ESL learning followed by helping with homework. Several theories have been seen employed by studies shortlisted in this SLR namely Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory, Epstein Framework, Walker‘s Model of Parental Involvement, and Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory. Bourdieu Social Classes Theory and Asset-based Framework. The findings of this review suggest that for children to benefit most from reading, parents should obtain a better understanding of effective reading strategies. Additionally, more studies are needed on school-based parental involvement to get more insights into implementing home-school partnerships for better student educational outcomes.

Parental Perspectives of Sleep in the Home: Shaping Home-School Partnerships in School-Based Sleep Promotion Initiatives.

Sleep is a critical component of child health and the prevention of chronic disease. Children may benefit from school-based sleep promotion; however, parents need to be involved for healthy sleep strategies learned at school to be translated to the home. The objective of this study was to explore parental perspectives on sleep behaviors and responsiveness to school-based sleep promotion. Twenty-five parents of school-aged children were purposively sampled for interviews from July 2019 through April 2020 in Alberta, Canada. Descriptive qualitative methodology was used, and data were generated through semistructured interviews and researcher field notes. Interviews were transcribed and themes were identified by using latent content analysis. Three themes emerged from analysis: 1) sleep is valued and supported, 2) barriers to healthy sleep exist, and 3) schools are allies in promoting sleep. Parents perceived that sleep was essential for their child's health, facilitated healthy sleep practices in the home, and highlighted barriers (busy schedules and poor parental role models) that affected sleep. Parents supported and expressed value in school-based sleep promotion and noted factors that affected the success of school-based sleep promotion. Parents are responsive to school-based sleep promotion. Promotion efforts should include resources that engage and involve parents in the school community. Throughout the development of resources to support school-based sleep promotion, additional consideration of parent-reported barriers to promoting healthy sleep in the home should be included.

An Empirical Study of Parents’ Participation Behavior in the Home-Based Online Learning of Primary School Students

Parental participation has an important and direct influence on the effect of home-based online learning of primary school students. Taking more than 500 guardians of primary school students in a number of prefecture-level cities in the Pearl River Delta as the questionnaire respondents, and applying the structural equation model method, this paper, based on the theory of planned behavior, explores the effects of various factors on parental participation in the home-based online learning of primary school students. The results show that: (1) the behavioral intention of parents to participate in the home-based online learning of primary school students has a significant influence on their actual participation behavior. (2) Behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have a significant influence on behavioral intention. To strengthen the actual effects of parents’ participation behavior, this paper puts forward a number of suggestions. These include enhancing home-school partnerships, achieving home-school co-education, and training parents with regard to the integration of daily Internet use and online learning for primary school students. This study supports the effective implementation of home-based online learning of primary school students and the joint effect of home-school co-education, specifically from the perspective of parents in the subsequent implementation of integrated online and offline teaching.

Challenges to authentic home–school partnership for parents of children with ASD: a qualitative case study

ABSTRACT Using an in-depth qualitative case study approach, this study examines parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as they tried to become involved in their children’s education and establish home–school partnerships to better support their children's needs in an elementary school in Turkey. Specifically, we focused on the school-level, structural barriers that these parents faced during the process. Our findings indicate that despite these parents’ unparalleled enthusiasm and advocacy in supporting their children’s education, their efforts to work in partnership with their children’s school was hindered by various structural barriers. This study questions traditional perceptions and practices employed by schools to promote home–school partnerships for parents of children with ASD and argues that these traditional ways of viewing partnership further complicate the situation and hinder possible authentic partnerships that might have occurred between schools and parents. This paper provides suggestions for school leaders, teachers and families, as well as for policymakers, to establish more authentic partnerships for parents of children with ASD.

Privacy, power, and relationship: ethics and the home-school partnership

ABSTRACT Research on the ethics of the home-school partnerships in secondary education is scarce. This paper uses data from three case studies to argue: students have a right to privacy which home-school partnerships can circumvent, parents can be used as a resource to leverage compliance from students which undermines young people’s privacy, and developing trusting relationships between parents and teachers is complex when considering the power differentials within that relationship. This article concludes that specific areas around privacy that require greater consideration include: the use of parents to leverage behavioural change in students, the sharing of information students may legitimately believe is intimate without consent, and seeking a change in values within the home. We also consider the areas of resistance students have displayed towards an encroachment on their private spheres.

'It's really important to be collaborating': Experiences of participatory research for Chinese and Vietnamese parents of autistic children.

Participatory research involves academic partners working together with the community that is affected by research to make decisions about that research. Such approaches often result in research that is more respectful of, and responsive to, community preferences - and is vital in the context of autism research with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Whilst participatory approaches are becoming more commonplace within CALD autism research, no studies have explored the experiences of being involved in autism research from the perspectives of CALD community partners over the course of a study. This paper intended to address this gap by reporting on the experiences of CALD parents of autistic children who were community partners in a 1-year Australian research project exploring home-school partnerships for CALD parents of autistic children. We aimed to: (1) report on how parents' involvement in the research process shaped the home-school partnerships study over time and (2) understand their experiences of being community partners on the home-school partnerships project. Using key principles of participatory approaches, we established Chinese and Vietnamese parent advisory groups to contribute to a project exploring home-school partnerships for parents of autistic children from CALD backgrounds in Australia. Advisory groups included parents of autistic children from Chinese/Vietnamese backgrounds, as well as interpreters, professionals and researchers. We documented how parents' participation as community partners shaped the home-school partnerships study over the course of the project. We also elicited parents' own views and experiences of being community partners through informal, open-ended questions at the beginning and end of the study. We found that parents' input fundamentally shaped the broader home-school partnership study, from meaningful, accurate translation of interview schedules through to making decisions regarding community-specific recommendations and dissemination plans. Parents themselves reported being keen to collaborate and to hear and share opinions for the purpose of the home-school partnership study - although they noted how emotionally difficult sharing their stories could be. While they initially had some concerns about combining being involved as a community partner with their existing responsibilities, ultimately, parents were surprised by the scope of the home-school partnership study and their level of involvement as community partners. Through hearing others' stories and sharing their own in advisory group meetings, parents reported ancillary benefits of their involvement, including increased self-advocacy and well-being. These findings show how research that is conducted in partnership with diverse members of the autism community has the capacity to improve the quality of the research and benefit community partners. This study clearly documents the benefits and potential challenges of participatory approaches with CALD communities. These findings emphasise to researchers and funders the importance of including extra time and money within budgets in order to produce meaningful research that is respectful and responsive to communities.

Parents of children with intellectual disabilities for home-school partnership – the ELIPDA and PAT project

The European Pillar of Social Rights states that “Everyone has the right to quality and inclusive education, training and life-long learning in order to maintain and acquire skills that enable them to participate fully in society and manage successfully transitions in the labour market”. The main emphasis of all education policy efforts in the European Union have been along the axis of inclusion. The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) together define the rights and duties of the parents of disabled children as well, while clearly define the duties of public actors. The research outcomes of the ELPIDA and Parenting Together (PAT) projects – to be presented at the conference – have contributed to understanding the capacity building needs of parents of children with intellectual disabilities and that of professionals collaborating with them, also contributing to the definition of state actors’ responsibilities. The two projects focused on children of different age groups and thus different needs. The evidence based ELPIDA project, had been chosen for the Zero Award 2020.

Impact of COVID-19 on Self-Directed Learning: Perspectives of Rural English First Additional Language Teachers

Since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been changes in the ways teaching and learning occur in most classrooms, including English first additional language classrooms. Teachers spent less contact class time with their English FAL learners to comply with the COVID-19 safety protocols, such as social distancing. More than ever, learners in rural schools faced the responsibility of learning independently for extended periods. The focus in this article is on how the learners’ efforts to learn independently were disrupted and how teachers assisted these learners in overcoming these challenges amid the pandemic. The article explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural English FAL learners’ self-directed learning. The findings confirm the existence of COVID-19-induced challenges that impeded rural English FAL learners’ self-directed learning. These included a lack of motivation and a negative attitude towards self-directed learning, closure of learning facilities and a lack of learning material, overdependence on the teacher, poor physical learning environments and limited parental support. The study also reports on strategies that English FAL teachers used to enhance learners’ self-directed learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. These included strengthening home-school partnerships, providing emotional support, and simplifying learning activities. The article concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted self-directed learning in South Africa.

Using technology to facilitate partnerships between schools and Indigenous parents: A narrative review

Technological advances have the potential to support educational partnerships between schools and parents. While the positive benefits of technology for these partnerships have been reported in the literature, there is still incomprehension about how to best use this technology to meet the needs of Indigenous parents. Given the intergenerational impacts of colonisation, socioeconomic stress, structural barriers in schooling, and other critical challenges experienced by Indigenous parents, the use of technology as a tool for partnering with Indigenous parents requires careful consideration of their experiences. Therefore, the aim of this narrative review was to describe key attributes of the use of technology in home-school partnerships with Indigenous parents. Findings revealed that technology integration was beneficial to increasing Indigenous parental engagement, as it was connected to the wellbeing and future of Indigenous young generations. However, it could also exacerbate divide, raise cultural tensions, and bring undesirable consequences. Therefore, as a practical implication, schools should embed culturally appropriate approaches when adopting technology in their partnerships with Indigenous parents.

Caregiver and Teacher Perspectives on Home–School Partnerships Within a Tier 2 Intervention

Home–school partnerships between teachers and caregivers of students with or at risk of emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) are critical to support positive student outcomes. Yet, effective home–school partnerships may be particularly challenging to foster for students with or at risk of EBD, and little is known about how teachers and caregivers view these partnerships. We used a directed content analysis qualitative approach to examine the presence or absence of components of a conceptual model, the CARES framework, within home–school partnerships from the perspectives of both teachers and caregivers of students with or at risk of EBD. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six U.S. teachers and 11 U.S. caregivers who had participated in a study examining the promise of a Tier 2 intervention. Findings highlight themes unique to specific components of the CARES framework and themes common across components, with authentic relationships and effective communication emerging as particularly salient for both caregivers and teachers. Results suggest critical directions for future research and essential lessons for researchers developing interventions to support positive home–school partnerships for caregivers and teachers of students with or at risk of EBD.

Middle-class mothers’ participation in tutoring for spoken English: a case of unlocking middle-class identity and privilege in contemporary India

ABSTRACT Sociological inquiries on parental involvement seldom consider the investments parents make in themselves to realise educational advantages in their children's schooling. This gap hides the processes underlying class-making and class-produced privileges. To address this gap, this article investigates middle-class mothers’ participation in tutoring and coaching for spoken English in Dehradun, India, focusing on their reasons for soliciting such paid tutoring support. It shows that mothers subscribe to these services to facilitate home-teaching, productive communication with their children, and effective home-school partnerships. Mothers’ subscription to private tuition emerges in this context as a source of cultural capital that parents use to unlock their middle-class identity and privilege in the educational landscape. The article argues that English private tutoring is a case of a capital exchange – economic for cultural and social forms of capital – which parents may use to accumulate key resources and produce, maintain, and intergenerationally sustain their middle-classness.

Serving students with disabilities in K-12 online learning: daily practices of special educators during the COVID-19 pandemic

Online and distance education strategies offer a path for closing opportunity gaps for students with disabilities because of digital technologies’ flexibility and capacity for differentiation, but fully online schooling does always guarantee an inclusive education. The COVID-19-induced shift to remote learning highlighted the need for more insight into inclusive practices for students with disabilities in online contexts, especially at the K-12 levels. The present study describes special education teachers’ online teaching practices with students with disabilities and the necessary conditions for special educator use of technology in K-12 remote learning. Using in-depth interview (N = 2 0) and survey data with special educators teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, findings highlight specific strategies special educators use to differentiate instruction as well as innovations in hybrid content experiences and home-school partnerships across K-12 schooling. The practices of special educators teaching in online environments provide insights into how all educators can support learners with or without disabilities in K-12 distance education settings.

Bridge Over Troubled Water”: Experiences of Retiring Teachers Shifting to a New Pedagogical Milieu in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic

This qualitative study utilized the phenomenological method, which focused on the experiences of retiring teachers in Angeles City, Pampanga during the shift to the online distance learning (ODL) modality at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the study is to explore how retiring teachers have perceived the new normal education, the changes they have observed, the challenges they have encountered, coping mechanisms they have utilized, support received and their learning experiences in general. There were six participants identified through the purposive sampling technique and qualified within the criteria set in the study. Data are analyzed through Content Analysis. Findings reveal that participants perceived ODL with negative perceptions. Most of the participants identified changes in the new normal education in terms of instructional materials and preparations, classroom environment, and learning modality. Challenges and struggles identified in instruction are technological, time management and delivery, and motivational challenges; in classroom management are student discipline, student engagement and motivation, and student attendance; while in at the assessment are academic dishonesty, insufficient assessment activities, and irresponsibility among students. As regards the participants’ coping mechanisms, in instruction, adaptive instruction, teaching resilience, and social support are noted; in classroom management, enforcing classroom rules and routines, modeling ideal behaviors, home-school partnership, and building capacity; in assessment, assessment accommodations and modifications, positive attitudes towards students, and building capacity. Supports are also received by the participants like professional, social, administrative, and spiritual support. Further, retiring teachers had positive learning experiences in ODL. Based on the findings, it is suggested that support should be sustained, hence, professional support must be strengthened. Keywords: Retiring teachers, online distance learning, pedagogy, teaching

Problematising conceptions of “effective” home-school partnerships in secondary education

ABSTRACT This conceptual study seeks to understand parent and teacher perceptions of “effective” home-school partnerships across three secondary schools in England, before problematising these normative understandings. Currently there is little research into home-school partnerships at a secondary level in the UK, and the policy environment is anaemic. To aid the possible direction of future research, six themes are reported from in depth case studies with three schools chosen due to a reputation of good practice. These findings create four principles of perceived effective home-school partnerships: relationships, community, pastoral support, and supporting learning at home. We then problematise these principles and suggest key areas for future research and practice, particularly around the ethics of the relationship with parents, and constructing parents as “co-educators”.

Supporting Parents’ Needs as Educational Partners to Enhance Children’s Classroom Learning

Parents are essential in supporting their children's learning and development. Parental support to young learners include helping their children with homework, school projects, collaborating with the teachers, participating in school events and school governance. This study argues for strengthening an inclusive home-school partnership to effectively support their learners. The focus of this study was to explore the parents-school partnership in supporting children's learning. The research applied a qualitative approach using a semi-structured online interview questionnaire via Google forms. Fourteen (14) parents met the inclusion criteria, and interview forms were used in the analysis. The study found that most South African parents have minimal knowledge and understanding of how to support their children’s learning. There is a lack of communication and partnership between the school and home. This will ensure appropriate communication and participation of parents in the school activities. Schools should recognise that the South African context is diverse and should be inclusive in their policies to accommodate all parents. School governing bodies should be enabled to foster the relationship between the schools and parents since they are representative of the parents. The results showed that to strengthen the home-school partnership, schools must be conscious of applying principles that will advocate for inclusiveness and the recognition of the diversity of the parent population.

The Role of School Leaders in Promoting Successful Home–School Partnerships in Singapore’s Special Education Schools

Effective home–school partnerships are deemed highly important for the academic success and well-being of students with disabilities (Beveridge, 2005; Blue-Banning et al., 2004; Shelden et al., 2010). Findings of a qualitative case study of parents’ perspectives about the relationship between the home and Singapore’s special education (SPED) schools revealed that school leadership is a key contributor to positive and productive partnerships. Specifically, participants focused on the importance of leaders being welcoming and approachable, practicing strong communication skills and strategies, and having positive perceptions about parents and their role in the school. These findings suggest that school leaders who trust parents and can foster trust in their leadership can be key players in promoting positive relationships for successful home–school partnerships. While the study was conducted in Singapore, the findings are transferable to any K-12 education context, as they offer school leaders insights on how to foster a successful collaboration with the families.

Effectiveness of Parents’ Workshop on Home-School Partnership and Students’ Mathematics Performance. The Case of a Public Secondary school in Botswana

It is undisputable that an effective home-school partnership has an impact on their children’s learning and subsequent academic performance. However, the extent of parental involvement is found to be lacking due to various reasons according to the literature. This paper reports on the effectiveness of utilizing workshops as an intervention strategy to facilitate a home-school partnership that could enhance student mathematics performance in a public senior secondary school in Botswana. Parents from one, purposively selected public senior secondary school, participated in this study. The study used a pragmatist paradigm to draw on a mixed-methods approach and employ a quasi-experimental research design with experimental and control groups. Questionnaires for parents and their children, parents’ interviews, and tests in mathematics were the main data collection instruments for this study and were used as pre and post-interventions. The parents’ workshops intervention was implemented for a period of three weeks on the experimental group. Parents were provided with knowledge and skills through presentations on parental involvement. The results demonstrated that the parents’ workshops intervention improved home-school partnership. The results showed that the intervention had a large positive impact on Home-school communication with an effect size difference of 2.260 between pre-test and post-test mean scores for the parents in the experimental group. Consequently, children’s mathematics performance positively changed after the intervention. The difference between pre-test and post-test within the control group showed a small effect size (0.308) while a large and practical effect size (2.215) was found between pre-test and post-test within the experimental students.