In 2008, in order to meet global standards for basic education, Mongolia adopted a new educational system replacing an 11-year system, under which children started primary school at age seven, with a 12-year system in which schooling commences at age six. Since education should be an active collaboration between school and family, having younger…

With roots in community development and the work of Dewey, a compelling case has been made for universities to be involved in urban school reform. Further, with increasing demands placed on universities to become responsive to community needs, university partnerships with K-12 schools are one means by which institutions of higher education have…

This study sought to examine the direct and indirect associations between school size and parents' perceptions of the invitations for involvement provided by their children's school in a school system that has actively attempted to reduce the negative effects of school size. Using data from the New York Public Schools' annual Learning Environment…

This paper reports on a Canadian qualitative case study project funded by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. The paper describes success stories of students and communities affected by poverty from a diverse sample of eleven elementary schools throughout the province of Ontario. Over the period of one school year (2007-2008) and…

A study conducted from 1996-2000 focused on the academic development of children within a statewide educational reform effort, including changing the organizational structure of the early years of schooling into nongraded primary programs (formerly age-based classrooms for kindergarteners through third grade). The multisite study involved children…

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, school leaders in a newly decentralized school system reached out to external organizations for partnerships--a job that had previously resided in the central office. The necessity of these contacts and the quantity of newly independent schools make a unique context for studying how school leaders…

This article draws on systems theory, complexity theory, and the organizational sciences to engage boundary dynamics in the creation of parent-school partnerships. These partnerships help children succeed through an emergent process of dialogue and relationship building in the peripheral spaces where parents and schools interact on behalf of…

This case study examines how the leadership of a principal in the worst elementary school in her district, located in what William J. Wilson describes as a socially dislocated African American community, worked to change the nature of an entire community by transforming how she and her faculty communicated with parents. Drawing on data gathered…

In the province of Quebec, there has been a movement towards creating community schools since the last education reform. School integrated services make a unique contribution to the creation of a community school, and some important challenges must be considered and overcome if the community school is to exist in Quebec as it currently exists in…

This article reports the challenges of race and social class in an action research project to facilitate educational change through community collaboration with African American parents, community organizations, and public schools. This project was undertaken in Charlotte, North Carolina to enhance the participation of African American parents in…

This paper describes a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation in which graduate and advanced undergraduate students from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines partnered with local science and mathematics middle school teachers in a large, urban school district serving mostly low-income minority…

This article utilizes a social capital perspective to explore the benefits and harmful effects of strong ties between parents and schools in enhancing college access for students. While focusing on social capital in the form of parental participation, the article goes beyond a functionalist approach of the social capital theory as adopted by…

The findings in this article will be presented in relation to developing and implementing processes of school, family, and community partnership programs in two primary and two secondary schools in Quebec from 2001 to 2005. The action research project was based on Epstein's (2001) comprehensive framework of six types of involvement: parenting,…

The general purpose of this study is to present post-funding Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) data to address the more lasting features of CSR programs, their relation to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and support of its requirements, and the impact of CSR on student achievement. For the schools included in this study, many of the components…

As teachers reach out to families in new ways, attempt to learn from them, and connect that knowledge to instruction, what do the teachers reflect on and consider? This article explores this question based on the experiences of two teachers involved in a multi-year study focused, in part, on school-family connections. Findings emerged from data…