Family involvement has become increasingly recognized as essential to academic success. However, the racial and cultural gap between the teaching force and students in American schools is large and expanding, leading to increased challenges associated with relationship-building between families and schools. This is a study of teachers in a school…

The present study aims to explore the criteria which motivate and prevent teachers from engaging in the social and emotional guidance of rural elementary school students in Malaysia. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 teachers using purposive sampling technique and they are from 15 rural primary schools within the Sarawak…

Families are their children's first educators. From birth, families nurture their children to be healthy and successful in school and in life. Head Start and Early Head Start program staff share these goals and partner with families as they work to meet these goals. There are unique ways in which these partnerships matter for children who speak…

This report presents data on students in the United States attending kindergarten through grade 12. The focus of the report is on parent and family involvement in the students' education during the 2018-19 school year, as reported by the students' parents. It includes the percentage of students who participated in selected family activities.…

Long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put Latino families, and other racial and ethnic minority groups, at increased risk of contracting COVID-19. The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the Latino community threatens to undermine the educational progress of more than 13 million Latino students and five million English…

Strong collaborative partnerships between families, schools, and communities are essential to promote successful postgraduation outcomes for students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and are a key feature of a new Transition Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation (TPIE) framework. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the…

Public libraries are ideal contexts for supporting child development and family involvement (Families and Work Institute, 2015; IMLS, 2013). Families with children often attend public libraries to participate in educational programming and experiences, yet university-based developmental scientists who study how people develop and adapt across the…

This study investigates how moral virtues create purpose for ethical leadership. Four exemplary principals, two from Estonia and two from Finland, were interviewed to study their perceptions of critical incidents in their work and how moral virtues are manifest in their reflections. The results of qualitative content analysis showed that the…

Rural teachers and educators are increasingly called upon to build partnerships with families who use languages other than English in the home (US DOE, 2016). This is equally true for rural schools, where the number of multilingual families is small, and the language and cultural backgrounds of students differs from those of school. This article…

Undergraduate minority retention and graduation rates in STEM disciplines is a nationally recognized challenge for workforce growth and diversification. The Benjamin Banneker Scholars Program (BBSP) was a five-year undergraduate study developed to increase minority student retention and graduation rates at an HBCU. The program structure utilized a…

Collaboration and building common ground between schools and their communities are central to developing family and community engagement practices that work. This includes resolving issues faced by communities of color who have been historically excluded by traditional parent engagement models. This literature review by IDRA presents the latest…

According to Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000), children's early development and learning are influenced by multiple systems, including the microsystem (e.g., family poverty level), mesosystem (e.g., home-school partnership), exosystem (e.g., community type, early education policies), and macrosystem (e.g.,…

"Literacy Strong All Year Long: Powerful Lessons for Grades K-2" equips educators of young children with engaging lessons that motivate students and help them develop the solid foundation of literacy skills essential to learning. Thoughtfully designed lessons linked to specific literacy standards create a seamless flow of learning…

Family and Community Partnerships: Promising Practices for Teachers and Teacher Educators, offers a fresh new look at the competencies, strategies, and practices that effective educators develop to build strong partnerships with families and communities. Written by leaders in the field, the book is an outgrowth of a cutting-edge initiative led by…

Otitis Media (OM) is an important global issue that can have a long-lasting impact on a child's life. There is no easy fix! For a family who has a child with OM, the ramifications can be short term and have minimal consequences, or they can be very complex and involve medical, educational, behavioural and wellbeing issues, and may even be…