Critical Perspectives on Education Policy and Schools, Families, and Communities

Critical Perspectives on Education Policy and Schools, Families, and Communities
Author: Sue Winton
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1641138815

Critical Perspectives on Education Policy and Schools, Families, and Communities offers scholars, students, and practitioners important new knowledge about how current policies impact families, schools, and community partnerships. The book’s authors share a critical orientation towards policy and policy research and invite readers to think differently about what policy is, who policymakers are, and what policy can achieve. Their chapters discuss findings from research grounded in diverse theories, including institutional ethnography, critical disability theory, and critical race theory. The authors encourage scholars of family, school, and community partnerships to ask who benefits from policies (and who loses) and how proposed reforms maintain or disrupt existing relations of power. The chapters present original research on a broad range of policies at the local, state/provincial, and national levels in Canada and the USA. Some authors look closely at the enactment of specific district policies, including a school district’s language translation policy and a policy to create local advisory bodies as part of decentralization efforts. Other chapters reveal the often unacknowledged yet necessary work parents do to meet their children’s needs and enable schools to operate. A few chapters focus on challenges and paradoxes of including families and community members in policymaking processes, including a case where parents demonstrated a preference for a policy that research demonstrates can be detrimental to their children’s future education opportunities. Another set of chapters emphasizes the centrality of policy texts and how language influences the educational experiences and engagement of students and their families. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of implications of the research for educators, families, and other community partners.

Schools and Families

Schools and Families
Author: Sandra Christenson
Publisher: Guilford Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2001-04-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781572306547

"This is a resource for school-based practitioners, including psychologists, counselors, social workers, and special education consultants; clinical child psychologists; inservice and preservice teaches; and school administrators. It will serve as a text in courses on school consultation, building home-school partnerships, parent counseling, and parent education."--BOOK JACKET.

Families, Schools and Communities

Families, Schools and Communities
Author: Donna Lee Couchenour
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Company
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Community and school
ISBN: 9781133942290

FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, AND COMMUNITIES: TOGETHER FOR YOUNG CHILDREN, 5E, International Edition emphasizes the role of families and communities in children's education, and is geared to meeting national standards in teacher preparation programs. Content reflects current research and best practices in education. Divided into two sections, this book helps you understand contemporary families and provides you with the skills that you will need to build relationships with families and the community. You'll find specific ideas and strategies for increasing family involvement in the community and schools, encouraging learning at home, working with military families, recognizing family strengths, diversity in the classroom, and many other topics. New content includes integration of current standards and a new video feature as well as expanded material on advocacy, technology, and strategies for dealing with parents.

Family Involvement in Children's Education

Family Involvement in Children's Education
Author: Janie E. Funkhouser
Publisher:
Total Pages: 172
Release: 1997
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Schools that are most successful in engaging parents and other family members in support of their children's learning look beyond traditional definitions of parent involvement--parent teacher organizations or signing report cards--to a broader conception of supporting families in activities outside of school that can encourage their children's' learning. This idea book is intended to assist educators, parents, and policy makers as they develop school-family partnerships, identifying and describing successful strategies used by 20 local Title I programs. Following an executive summary, the book notes resources for involving families in education, includes research supporting such partnerships, and describes how Title I encourages partnerships. Next, the book describes successful local approaches to family involvement in education, organized around strategies for overcoming common barriers to family involvement, including: (1) overcoming time and resource constraints; (2) providing information and training to parents and school staff; (3) restructuring schools to support family involvement; (4) bridging school-family differences; and (5) tapping external supports for partnerships. Finally, the book presents conclusions about establishing and sustaining partnerships, noting that at the same time that successful partnerships share accountability, specific stakeholders must assume individual responsibility, and that those schools that succeed in involving large numbers of parents invest energy in finding solutions for problems, not excuses. Four appendices present profiles of 10 successful partnerships, descriptions in table format of 20 successful local approaches, contact information for profiled partnership programs, and resources for building successful partnerships. Contains 13 references. (HTH)

Other Kinds of Families

Other Kinds of Families
Author: Tammy Turner-Vorbeck
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807776599

This important book reconsiders the ways in which families are currently represented and addressed in school curriculum and culture. It addresses such issues as the educational needs of gay and lesbian families, the representation of adoption in children’s literature, and the experiences of homeless students and their families. Includes questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter. “Other Kinds of Families will help teachers to avoid making mistakes in their work with many different types of family diversity, and will provide the knowledge and ideas important to working with all families.” —Carl A. Grant, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Teachers, researchers, and policymakers will find thought–provoking ideas, engaging stories, and practical strategies for including those who have typically been excluded from the conversation. —Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst “Other Kinds of Families will enlarge your sense of humanity, encourage you to rethink the meaning and importance of our most intimate relationships, and change forever the way you see families—everyone else's and your own.” —William Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago

Family Engagement with Schools

Family Engagement with Schools
Author: Nancy Feyl Chavkin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2017
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190642122

Family Engagement with Schools is unique because it is the only book written especially for social workers and social work students who work in partnership with educators. The text introduces social workers to the new Dual Capacity-Building Framework and the latest resources.

Parents as Partners in Education: Families and Schools Working Together

Parents as Partners in Education: Families and Schools Working Together
Author: Eugenia Hepworth Berger
Publisher: Pearson Higher Ed
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2013-10-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1292051930

Parents as Partners in Education, Eighth Edition, is uniquely the most comprehensive book on the market covering the history of family/school collaboration, current issues and population trends affecting American schools and communities, diverse family structures, and techniques for establishing connections with parents and encouraging involvement with their childês learning. Based on the notion of funds of knowledge, the knowledge that children acquire from their families, this best-selling textbook helps the reader differentiate between culture and diversity as they relate to culturally and linguistically diverse families. This edition, with a new co-author, emphasizes on understanding families' funds of knowledge, discusses culturally relevant pedagogy to work with families and children, particularly those who are English language learners and/or immigrants, and provides an expanded section on working with families who have children with autism. A special focus on culturally and linguistically diverse children with special needs is a remarkable aspect of the book. Key additions and changes to this edition include: more practical ideas and tips for teachers on how to work with culturally and linguistically diverse children and their families in a classroom setting; applicable information on how to build parent involvement programs; strategies for working with culturally diverse students who have Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families; emphasis on the value of pre-school and pre-K programs methods for working with English Language Learners and their families, including a section on second language acquisition. Rooted in the premise that once educators understand the value of families for healthy development they can begin to create strong partnerships to assist children in successful experiences in school. Parents as Partners in Education: Families and Schools Working Together, Eighth Edition will be a key component to teachers gaining this knowledge and using it in the classroom for the betterment of all children and their families.

Strengthening the Connection Between School & Home

Strengthening the Connection Between School & Home
Author: Ricardo LeBlanc-Esparza
Publisher: Solution Tree Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2012-10-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1935543326

Examine the pivotal role family engagement plays in student achievement, and explore in depth the process of creating and implementing a family-engagement plan. This research-based guide includes many specific strategies, handouts, and reproducibles leaders can use to make their schools family friendly and connect with those families who may be hard to reach.