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Strong home-school partnerships consistently and substantially benefit children’s academic and social development. Home-school partnerships are considerably affected by the settings in which they take place (e.g., rural, urban, suburban), the characteristics of the partners (e.g., parents and teachers), and their relationships with one another (parent-teacher partnerships). In rural communities, supportive home-school partnerships promote young children’s success but have proven difficult to implement. African American families with young children residing in rural communities experience unique social and institutional challenges and benefits that are particularly salient for fostering home-school partnerships. Thus, the landscape of rural communities is an important and essential consideration for understanding the intersection between race and home-school partnerships. This chapter focuses on the promise of positive home-school partnerships for rural African American children, their families, and their schools. Home-school partnership as an essential component of children’s academic and social development is defined, and sample home-school partnership intervention programs are described. Finally, existing policy investments related to the facilitation of home-school partnerships are explored and policy recommendations that promote such partnerships are discussed.

This introduction chapter provides an overview of the key issues highlighted throughout this book. First, we tackle why it is problematic to only characterize Black children’s accomplishment in terms of the “academic achievement gap.” Second, we discuss the importance of the home-school environment connection. Finally, we discuss the changes that need to be made in terms of teacher preparation in order to ensure that the workforce can practice racial equity in the classroom. All these issues are woven together by a call for closing the education opportunity gap via “equity adjustments” that can target educational and health disparities facing the Black community.

This book provides a deeper understanding of what it means to promote social justice and equity work in schools and communities around the world. Throughout this book, narratives describe how authors continue to reshape the agenda for educational reform. They remind us of the significance meaningful relationships play in promoting and sustaining reform efforts that address the injustices vulnerable populations face in school communities. Their voices represent the need for engaging with obstacles and barriers and a resistant world through a web of relationships, an intersubjective reality (see Ayers, 1996). As authors engaged in thinking about addressing injustices, they describe how their thoughts transformed into actions moving beyond, breaking through institutional structures, attempting to rebuild and make sense of their own situations (see Dewey, 1938).

Inequalities in education have existed since the beginning of formal education. Educational disparities often emerge as you compare groups of students based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, and geography. This chapter seeks to stress the important role that early childhood experiences, including specific structures and processes during these foundational years play in potentially preventing the educational gaps of Black students. This requires intentional shifting from solely focusing on educational gaps to one that focuses on specific practices and policies that must be implemented to ensure that Black children are afforded the opportunities to meet their potential.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a case study of 93 parents’ attitude toward their involvement at various levels of school education in a special school. It also examines the relations between parents’ education backgrounds and different levels of parental involvement.

This study adopted quantitative research approach. A questionnaire composed of 30 items under six scales was developed with reference to Ng’s (1999) six-level Model of Home-School Cooperation which was adopted to frame the study.

The study indicates that parents’ inclined to be involved more outside the school including “two-way communication,” “supervision of children at home” and “participation in parent organizations and activities” than that inside the school such as “volunteering,” “providing advice on school policies” and “participating in decision making.”

In spite of its small scale in a case-study special school, the paper does not aim at generalization but illuminates how parental involvement was carried out.

The study carries implications for school management and policy makers when promoting and implementing parental involvement in special schools.

For the school personnel, a total and positive relationship could help enhance efficient and effective management of education. Second, more resources should be provided by the Education Bureau for special schools to educate parents and subsidize their involvement. Third, more training opportunities regarding knowledge and skills of parental involvement should be provided for frontline teachers.

The purpose of this paper is to report a qualitative study exploring how parents have been included in school governance in Hong Kong and in what ways their roles have been evolving in state education.

The qualitative method was adopted in this exploratory study, the findings of which help provide insights for conceptualization of phases of progression of the development of how parents have been included in state education in Hong Kong. The method of exploration is two‐fold. First, evidence was obtained through examining Hong Kong's educational policy documents with regard to parent‐school relations in the last two decades and taking reference to the literature and research studies on parent involvement in Hong Kong. Second, two focus group interviews were conducted with parents and teachers respectively, in order to obtain data of development of the relationship between home and school in times of reforms.

Derived from the findings, four phases of development of how parents are included in school governance are conceptualized. They are: parents as unwelcome guests – separate responsibilities; parents as volunteers – encouraging participation; parents as clients: accountability approach; and parents as school governors – shared responsibilities. The issue of whether including parents in school governance is reality or rhetoric emerging from the data was discussed.

The findings of this study contribute to the international studies on parent involvement in school governance, so as to formulate an effective policy that helps facilitate parents as “real” but not “rhetorical” school governors.

In this chapter we begin by discussing the concept of inclusion, with a particular focus on inclusion in literacy learning in the early years (birth to five) in Australia. We then consider the research evidence for the potential impact of home literacy practices in the early years on later school and life outcomes, and examine some early childhood family literacy initiatives that aim to help develop young children’s literacy learning. We describe how Better Beginnings, a universal family literacy programme, supports parents/carers and children to build their skills, knowledge and understandings of early literacy. We show how Better Beginnings has operated, adapted and expanded in response to longitudinal systematic evaluations and explain how new programmes have been created to address the specific needs of particular groups of families, with the long-term intent of maximising inclusion for all families of young children in Western Australia. We identify aspects of inclusion, through which diversity is constructed as the norm rather than the exception. We conclude by suggesting that establishing connections between family literacy practices and school literacy programmes which embrace inclusivity is one of the first steps towards ensuring that all children are able to reach their potential and become active participants in a literate society.

This chapter describes the Bornlearning ^® Academy (BLA), a school-based family engagement program predicated on the notion that families come to the table with knowledge and skills and can support children’s learning by building on what they are already doing. It takes place in a school building within the families’ school district, and it is a six-workshop series that utilizes materials available for free at bornlearning.org, a United Way Worldwide public engagement campaign. The goal of the BLA is to increase parents’/caregivers’ understanding of their role in the education process of their children and to facilitate familiarization and establishment of positive experiences with the school personnel and the school district for the children and their families. Survey data demonstrated that parents/caregivers from a range of backgrounds enjoyed and learned from various BLA workshops. Gains on content questions indicated the BLA attendees learned, and responses indicated that attendees both intended to use what they learned at the workshops in their own interactions with their children and actually followed through on those intentions.

The purpose of the study is to explore the perspectives of students, teachers, and parents in using Web 2.0 technologies.

This study is based on the focus group interview data collected from two groups of students, two groups of teachers, and one group of parents in a secondary school in Hong Kong.

The findings indicate that there is no divide in terms of access to computer hardware and the Internet. However, the results suggest that there are different types and levels of usage given to such technologies. The students were found to use Web 2.0 technologies very frequently but seldom for educational purposes. The parents appeared to know less about the Web 2.0 technologies although they are more concerned about the influence of such technologies on their children's development. The teachers used Web 2.0 technologies merely for observing students' online behaviors.

Due to limited sample participants and the weakness of the focus group interview research method itself, the authors could not suggest that these findings should reflect the whole scene because it was just a reflection of a case under a specific context. In the future, more empirical studies with a larger sample and both quantitative and qualitative research methods must be needed in the future to understand the problem well.

This study attempts to contribute to the literature on home‐school connection in education for the benefit of student development. Joint efforts must be made by school and home together to ensure the positive impact of Web 2.0 technologies on students.

These typologies draw attention to the ways how parents, students and teachers make use of Web 2.0 technologies.

This paper was an original research based on focus group interview data that fulfil an identified need to study how teachers, students, and parents are using the Web 2.0 technology.