Special education teacher collaboration with families is essential to supporting students with disabilities, yet such partnerships often fall short in practice, and teachers report they are not adequately prepared to work with families. In order to prepare competent teachers for working with families, a Family Collaboration Project was…

This article reports on the development of preservice teachers' knowledge, comfort, and beliefs about family engagement in elementary mathematics. Nine traditional undergraduate female participants, who were involved in the delivery of 21st century mathematics learning workshops for families, completed both a pre- and post-assessment consisting of…

Latino families highly value education and are committed to their children's educational success; however, Latino students often experience educational challenges. Well-designed family involvement programs can encourage Latino families, especially new immigrants or monolingual Spanish-speakers, to increase their involvement resulting in positive…

Parent and professional communication is at the helm of effective special education practice. This article suggests ways to increase and expand mutually preferred communication methods among families of students with disabilities and educational teams. First, it aims to provide accessible methods for educators to enhance their ability to…

This study examined the role of school personnel on the education of immigrant Latino families and their children in North Central Indiana. An ethnographic research design was used to examine the relationship between a Midwestern U.S. school district and immigrant families and its impact on the education of Latino children. Specifically, over the…

Reflecting decades of research documenting the essential role families play in the education of children, the standards published both by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC) include a focus on the importance of the relationship with the…

This study examined how school leadership for school and family partnerships is related to the percent of teachers in a school that engage families in their children's education. Using data collected from over 380 schools nationwide, we examined the roles principals played to establish school-family partnerships. Structural equation modeling…

Academic achievement for African American and Latino students is lower than for White and Asian students. To help overcome the achievement gap, policymakers and social scientists have focused on the relationships between student outcomes and family, community, and schools. Family, church, and community have always played significant roles in…

A growing international interest in family-school collaboration is also seen in the United States, with teachers increasingly asked to take responsibility for partnering with parents. Yet, little is known about how teachers develop an understanding of supportive family-school or teacher-parent interactions. I conducted a thematic analysis of 44…

A community-based, multisite study using mixed methods examined the experiences and perspectives of Latino students and families in a low performing urban school district in New York State. This research project was spearheaded by a Latino Education Task Force which brought together multiple stakeholders in a collaborative effort to counteract…

This six year follow-up study to the previously published quasi-experimental study on this group of children and their migrant families examines the effects of a parent involvement program on kindergarten children's families. Parents in the original study participated in sessions available throughout their child's kindergarten year that helped…

The present exploratory study examined the involvement of 77 Mexican-origin fathers in their school-age (grades 4-6) child's education. Fathers were classified into one of three groups based on their linguistic acculturation status. The three groups were predominantly English-speakers (n = 25), English/Spanish-speakers (n = 27), and predominantly…

Two groups of teacher candidates completed a survey based on the Parent Teacher Association's National Standards for Family-School Partnerships at the start and end of the semester of a general methods course and corresponding fieldwork (practicum) experience. One group of participants (N[subscript "S"] = 60) completed their clinical…

This is a report from the field, where an immigrant mother journaled about her Yemeni American daughters (ages 7 and 13, born and raised in the U.S.) visiting museums for the first time. Her diary documented how mother-child and sibling interactions in museum education contributed to building cognitive and affective skills required for academic…

This article explores an action-oriented research study designed to provide better understanding of ways to leverage school and community partnership through family engagement, focusing on the development and enactment of an approach to nurture family-school partnerships. Specifically, in partnership with seven school districts, a team of…