Home-school Relations Research Articles

New approaches to data collection with research participants

This article draws from a larger doctoral study that examines parents' and teachers' perceptions of parental involvement in early childhood learning. The Covid-19 lockdown happened on March 18, 2020, in Cameroon before data collection was completed, therefore presenting an opportunity to investigate home-school relationships during this period. The private nursery school's initiative in organising distance learning during the lockdown was unexpected, considering Cameroon is a lower-middle-income country where most families struggle to afford digital tools for online learning. Thus, I was interested in finding out perceptions of how this was achieved. New approaches for data collection were adopted using WhatsApp messaging and Zoom interviews with parents and teachers; WhatsApp messaging was especially chosen to suit participants' needs in this context. The head teacher was recruited as a teacher-researcher who elicited children's stories through conversation and drawing techniques. There were challenges in renegotiating participants' consent and setting Zoom interviews due to differences in time zones and poor network connectivity. After data collection, retrospective ethical approval was sought to include the additional information in my research. The insights gained from the study can be helpful for researchers concerning emergency response strategies in data collection, steps for gaining further ethical approval and adding knowledge on research methodology about online data collection.

Teachers' Perceptions of Supporting Young Carers in Schools: Identifying Support Needs and the Importance of Home-School Relationships.

Recognition and support for young carers has improved steadily in the past two decades; with stronger legislation and more visibility and awareness of the challenges that many of the YC face, especially with respect to their education. Recent UK-based initiatives providing toolkits and guidance for school staff have provided much needed direction for schools, to support the loosely defined statutory requirements. The aim of the current research was to hear from school staff about their experiences in identifying and supporting young carers, to better understand any enablers and barriers. The thematic analysis of the interview data from 18 school staff was organized into two main themes: perceptions regarding the characteristics of young carers; and perceptions regarding the importance of home–school communication. Each superordinate theme contained several sub-themes. Overall, the teachers perceived many difficulties identifying young carers who did not volunteer this information and felt that the main enabler of identification was the trust relationships between the school and the pupil and parents. Once identified, the schools perceived the main areas of need that they could provide support for were the emotional wellbeing of the pupils and additional academic opportunities. They spoke too of the difficulties balancing the provision of this extra support within the constraints of the school context, both in terms of the school day, and the competing priorities relating to academic and social–emotional needs. School staff recognized that extra time outside of school was difficult for young carers to attend. Other subthemes are discussed with consideration to enablers and barriers. The implications for the dissemination of good practice, and addressing policy are considered.

Between consensus and conflict: Schools and parents negotiating the educational trajectories of students at risk of early school leaving

There is a vast amount of literature which locates the home-school relationship as a keystone to improving academic outcomes and preventing school dropouts. It is not always sufficiently clear, however, how these relationships are established and function and how they impact on students’ school engagement. This paper draws on the concepts of familial habitus and institutional habitus to better understand how home-school relationships are formed and how they are deeply class-biased. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with parents and teachers from four public secondary schools in Barcelona, this paper examines the factors explaining more and less harmonious relations between these two agents. This article will help shed light on the challenging relation between home and schools, taking into account different sociocultural contexts mediating this interaction and suggesting some implications in terms of educational policy from a social justice perspective.

Lessons Learned: Home-School Collaboration for Students with SEN during Emergency Remote Teaching

ABSTRACT Positive home-school relationships are essential for students with SEN, and this was especially true during the initial months of the pandemic lockdown, when parents took on more responsibility for schooling. Qualitative analyses suggested that principals and parents struggled to make connections during the first months of emergency schooling but ultimately recognized the value of family-focused planning and working together as co-educators. Participants identified “partner with parents” and “develop iterative practice” as steps moving forward. Recommendations for effective school/home relationships during crises are framed by sensemaking theory.

Uncovering new opportunities for family engagement during COVID-19

In March 2020, COVID-19 dramatically and indelibly altered the U.S. educational landscape. Drawing on data from interviews with 30 Michigan preK teachers, Bethany Wilinski, Alyssa Morley, and Jamie Heng-Chieh Wu describe the centrality of family engagement in their pandemic preK education and the practices that contributed to stronger home-school relationships. They consider how the family engagement practices that emerged during the pandemic might be carried forward by thinking of family engagement as an improvisational practice that is co-constructed by teachers and families.

Exploring Bahraini Parents’ Views on Parental Involvement in Primary Education

This article reports on an exploratory study of parental involvement in primary education conducted in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Drawing on a survey of 154 parents across 16 schools, parent views on parental involvement are explored – specifically, beliefs and experiences about parental involvement, and who should be held responsible for ensuring parental involvement. The study finds that the participants viewed all types of parental involvement identified by Epstein (2011) as important, and that it was emphasized by their children’s schools, but had a school-centered view of home–school relations. Furthermore, they identified a range of barriers to parental involvement, with parents’ other responsibilities featuring as the most important. Cultural factors influencing parental involvement within the specific cultural context of Bahrain are discussed.

Towards a textural sociological approach to single mothers’ voices: a study of Hong Kong mothers

ABSTRACT This article explores single-mothers’ experiences regarding the schooling of their children. Because most research on home-school relations has been derived from samples of two-parent families, little is known about single parents’ perspectives on their children’s education. Drawing on in-depth interviews with eight single mothers in Hong Kong using a textural sociological approach, this article illuminates the essential, hard-to-capture qualities of single-mothers’ everyday lives focusing on how they manage childrearing priorities, how they rationalize their childrearing beliefs and practices, and how they navigate relationships with their children’s teachers, schools and the wider community. The implications include identifying ways for schools and teachers to support single-mother families in their children’s education. The study also extends the existing literature on home-school relations providing a textural understanding of diverse family lives.

Emotionally based school non-attendance: two successful returns to school following lockdown

ABSTRACT Emotionally based school non-attendance (EBSNA) needs are complex, with a distinctive combination of risk factors affecting each individual. This study presents an exploration of the perceived facilitators to successful returns to school for two primary-aged children who had previously experienced anxiety around school attendance. The perspectives of parents, school staff, and educational psychologists were gathered using semi-structured interviews to identify effective support. A reflexive thematic analysis was conducted to generate themes. Findings demonstrate that the support in each case was highly individualised. Key facilitators considered to achieve this included: effective home-school communication; taking a functional approach; engaging other professional support; cultivating positive relationships; and practitioners regularly reflecting on their practice. The significant overlap between themes supports an interactionist, ecological model of early identification and intervention for EBSNA difficulties. Implications for practitioners include the need to ensure a reflective, individualised approach, and the importance of facilitating the home-school relationship.

Culturally Responsive Practices in a Diverse Elementary Classroom: A Case Study

The population in the US continues to grow more diverse leaving schools to face the challenge of meeting the needs of students from varied linguistic backgrounds. In order to create successful learning experiences for English learners from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, teachers need to be educated in culturally responsive pedagogy including understanding their students’ backgrounds, creating positive learning environment, using culturally relevant strategies, and fostering positive home school relations. This article presents a single participant case study as described by Merriam (2009), where one teacher provides her experience implementing culturally responsive practices in her classroom after participating in a TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) professional development program.

Designing and Implementing Interactive, Collaborative Family Literacy Events

Shared experiences through school-hosted events, such as family literacy events, can afford opportunities to support and extend academic learning while fostering positive home–school relationships. This article describes the importance of developing primary-grade students’ literacy skills through a talent development lens and explains several ways to nurture students’ literacy skills and recognize potential, gifts, and talents during family literacy events. This article features one of the activities from the family literacy events, Environmental Print Bingo, a modification of I-Spy and Bingo which uses rich and varied environmental print resources. A description of this activity, necessary resources, and implementation tips are provided. Options for differentiating this learning activity to provide more challenge for gifted learners are suggested. Throughout the article, the application of a pedagogy for early childhood gifted education and Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence as a framework are discussed; these approaches informed the design of all family literacy activities. A brief overview of nine additional family literacy event activities is also shared. Welcoming and involving families of English learners is an important consideration in many communities, and therefore, preparation tips and considerations for facilitators that will help maximize the participation of all families are included. Finally, reflections and helpful advice for implementing family literacy events in your school communities are presented, including advice for implementing online family literacy events. Ultimately, this article should help readers conceptualize, plan, and implement family literacy events in their school communities.

The promise of Appreciative Inquiry as a tool to developing home-school relationships for secondary Pacific students.

Crucial to the success of Pacific learners is the engagement of schools with the learners’ families and their communities. This article reports on a small-scale study which focussed on home–school relationships for Pacific secondary learners in Aotearoa New Zealand. It explored good practice and further considered how schools might develop their home–school practices to better support Pacific students. An Appreciative Inquiry (AI) lens supported this strength-based approach. AI promotes positive change through the inclusion of multiple voices. This article argues that AI is a tool which schools could use to review and develop their home–school relationships with Pacific families and, in so doing, bring about structural changes that promote successful learning experiences for Pacific students.

Challenges to Parental Involvement in Children’s ESL Learning

This paper highlights the findings from the research question, namely: “How do the participating parents work with their children at home?” This is a qualitative study involving seven participating parents of struggling readers of ESL in a Malaysian primary classroom. Interviews were conducted to obtain information from the participants and data was inductively analysed encompassing a co-construction of meaning between the participants’ expressions and researcher’s own interpretation. Two major themes emerged from the data namely involvement; and challenges. In this paper, the results of one of the main themes developed, that is challenges will be discussed. This paper focuses on three types of challenges reported by the participating parents of this study which are “parents and family factors”, “school and teacher factors” and “child factors”. The findings of this study suggest some implications for the system surrounding struggling readers in the Malaysian context including strengthening home-school relationship and establishing educational program for parents.

Head Start Teachers’ Views on the Family-Teacher Relationship: A Research-to-Practice Summary

This study looked at Head Start teachers’ relationships with families. The purpose of the research was to document home-school relationships from the perspective of teachers and to understand the teacher characteristics that may predict how teachers perceive their relationships with families. The study used a national sample of Head Start teachers and a questionnaire called the Family Provider/Teacher Relationship Quality measure. Results suggest that teachers’ job satisfaction, caregiving beliefs, and depressive symptoms all predicted how they viewed relationships with families. These results point to the importance of continuing to support teachers’ psychological wellbeing and their developmentally appropriate beliefs, as these may promote positive relationships with families.

Predictors of Head Start Teachers' Perceived Quality of Relationships with Families

The relationship between home and school is an important component of children’s early educational experiences. However, little research has examined the home-school relationship from the perspective of teachers. This study examines whether teacher characteristics predict how Head Start teachers rate the quality of their relationships with families using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), 2014 cohort. Results suggest that teacher characteristics, including job satisfaction, caregiving beliefs, and depressive symptoms, predict how they perceive their relationships with families. Supporting teachers’ psychological wellbeing may be one effective strategy for promoting positive relationships between teachers and families.

Home-School Cooperation in Rural Kindergartens: A Survey Study with Chinese Kindergarten Teachers

Home-school cooperation in children’s education is complex. It could be even more complex in rural contexts, due to the potential contributions of isolated location, insufficient resources, a lack of teachers’ professional competence, parental absence or parents’ limited understandings about education. A questionnaire survey was designed to explore the views of 1526 Chinese rural kindergarten teachers on home-kindergarten cooperation. The purposes of the study were to analyse 1) how the rural teachers perceived and experienced home-kindergarten cooperation; 2) what personal and professional factors influenced teachers’ perspectives and experiences; and 3) similarities and differences of teachers’ views. Two results emerged from the study. Firstly, common themes concerning teachers’ regular communications with parents were identified. Secondly, it is also the case that home-school cooperation was subjected to limited cooperative activities and a lack of organisational structures in the kindergartens. The study concludes with a discussion of some implications of the positive and challenging factors for encouraging cooperative home-school relationships in rural kindergartens.

Recommendation of School Social Work Activities to Address Students Issues in Vietnam

Bullying and physical violence, truancy, self-harm and other mental health issues are increasingly experienced within the school population. In being a crucial part of addressing such issues and the more traditional areas of poverty, family relationships and parenting, child abuse and neglect, home-school relationships, support for children with disabilities, school social work has become a specialist area of professional practice with a growing evidence base of effectiveness. This paper aims to explore issues related to middle-school students in Vietnam and their needs in school social work activities to address those problems. Implications for school social work research and practice which are recognized as a key area for students’ wellbeing are discussed.

Creating Positive Lived Experiences in Schools for International Relocatee Parents and Their Children

Children benefit from strong home–school relationships. Yet, parents who are immigrants and refugees are expected to follow frameworks for school involvement that are incongruent with their cultural backgrounds and experiences. Drawing on aspects of world-making (Kondo in World-making: Race, performance, and the work of creativity. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2018) and funds of knowledge (Moll et al. Theory Pract 31(2):132–141, 1992), this mixed-method case study explores how one group of international parents at a university laboratory school perceive their roles and responsibilities in the education of their young children. Data collection tools included a school-wide survey and semi-structured interviews distributed during two phases of data collection. Research findings indicate that this group of parents is highly invested in their children’s education. They see their responsibilities as supporting the teacher, reinforcing the curriculum, and helping their children understand that school practices can differ from those that occur in the home. Further, these parents seek deeper connections with faculty and staff and other parents to form stronger relationships. The majority of interviewees indicated that they would like to participate more fully in the life of the school but didn’t know how to do so, given their biographical experiences and within the current school structure.

Enhancing inclusion through the collective activity of collaboration: a cultural historical activity theory perspective

ABSTRACT This research study focuses on how teachers experience, negotiate and resolve tensions through the collaboration with other teachers and members of staff and the factors which may influence, support or undermine their role as inclusive teachers. For the purposes of this study, we drew upon Cultural Historical Activity Theory framework to examine the interconnectedness of the factors that may influence teachers’ collaborative activities. We used Cyprus as our case study to explore the collective activity of collaboration (or lack of) between teachers and other members of staff in the school system. Research data revealed that teachers are increasingly aware of the value the collaboration with other teachers as a means to achieve inclusion more successfully. However, a number of factors including professional factors and contextual factors such as increased workload, lack of additional personnel in classrooms, curriculum demands and home-school relationship were found to create tensions in the activity of collaboration and consequently to affect the implementation of inclusion in the school system.

The multidimensional school climate questionnaire (MSCQ) parent-version: Factorial structure and measurement invariance

ABSTRACT The current study aimed to test the factorial structure and psychometric properties of a parent version of the Multidimensional School Climate Questionnaire (MSCQ), a multi-informant and multidimensional measure of school climate recently developed and validated in Italian for a student version, by also providing evidence of measurement invariance between students and parents. Participants were 320 parents, mostly mothers, and 339 students enrolled in four middle schools in Northern Italy. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed a good fit for the expected six-dimension model (Student Support, Home-school Relations, Student Relations, Student-Teacher Relations, Educational Climate, Justice). All factors were positively correlated with each other and reported good Cronbach’s alphas and composite reliability scores (ω). Full configural and metric and partial scalar invariance were achieved between parents and students. These findings confirm that the parent version of the MSCQ is a psychometrically sound measure to assess multidimensional perceptions of school climate. Lastly, limitations and practical implications are discussed.

Digital technologies and parental involvement in education: the experiences of mothers of primary school-aged children

This paper makes a contribution to the developing field of the political economy of educational technology and to an understanding of the significance of digital technologies for home-school relations. The digitalisation of social life is increasing and the impact of digitalisation on home-school relations, parents, and children is under-researched. This article draws on a new qualitative study where fifteen mothers were interviewed about parenting a primary school aged child in England with a focus on digital technologies, home-school relations, and parenting. I argue that processes of digitalisation are contributing to a bureaucratisation of home-school relations. Drawing on Weber’s social theory, I argue that managing communications and information is taking precedence over other aspects of parental involvement in education. In this process, digital technologies are contributing to increasing demands for involvement in education that are placed on parents, reinforcing the wider norms of the intensification and professionalisation of parenting.