1st Edition

Handbook of School-Family Partnerships

Edited By Sandra L. Christenson, Amy L. Reschly Copyright 2010
    544 Pages
    by Routledge

    544 Pages
    by Routledge

    Family-school partnerships are increasingly touted as a means of improving both student and school improvement. This recognition has led to an increase in policies and initiatives that offer the following benefits: improved communication between parents and educators; home and school goals that are mutually supportive and shared; better understanding of the complexities impinging on children’s development; and pooling of family and school resources to find and implement solutions to shared goals. This is the first comprehensive review of what is known about the effects of home-school partnerships on student and school achievement. It provides a brief history of home-school partnerships, presents evidence-based practices for working with families across developmental stages, and provides an agenda for future research and policy.

    Key features include:

    • provides comprehensive, cross-disciplinary coverage of theoretical issues and research concerning family-school partnerships.
    • describes those aspects of school-family partnerships that have been adequately researched and promotes their implementation as evidence-based interventions.
    • charts cutting-edge research agendas & methods for exploring school-family partnerships.
    • charts the implications such research has for training, policy and practice especially regarding educational disparities.

    This book is appropriate for researchers, instructors, and graduate students in the following areas: school counseling, school psychology, educational psychology, school leadership, special education, and school social work. It is also appropriate for the academic libraries serving these audiences.

    Section I: The Backdrop: Theoretical and Empirical Bases of Partnerships

    1. Application of a Developmental/Ecological Model to Family-School Partnerships, Jason T. Downer and Sonya S. Myers

    2. Motivation and Commitment to Family-School Partnerships, Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey, Manya C. Whitaker, and Christa L. Ice

    3. Elements of Healthy Family-School Relationships, Brandy L. Clarke, Susan M. Sheridan, and Kathryn E. Woods

    4. Diversity in Families: Parental Socialization and Children's Development and Learning, Lynn Okagaki and Gary E. Bingham

    5. Culturally-Based Worldviews, Family Processes, and Family-School Interactions, Nancy E. Hill

    Section II: Partnerships Across Children’s Development/Schooling Levels

    6. The Home Learning Environment and Achievement during Childhood, Eric Dearing and Sandra Tang

    7. Parent Involvement in Early Education, Arthur J. Reynolds and Rebecca J. Shlafer

    8. Partnering to Foster Achievement in Reading and Mathematics, Marika Ginsburg-Block, Patricia H. Manz and Christine McWayne

    9. A School–Family Partnership: Addressing Multiple Risk Factors to Improve School Readiness and Prevent Conduct Problems in Young Children, Carolyn Webster-Stratton and M. Jamila Reid

    10. Family-Centered, School-Based Mental Health Strategies to Reduce Student Behavioral, Emotional, and Academic Risk, Elizabeth Stormshak, Thomas Dishion, and Corrina Falkenstein

    11. School-Family Partnerships to Promote Social and Emotional Learning, Michelle I. Albright and Roger P. Weissberg

    12. School Connectedness and Adolescent Well-Being, Clea McNeely, Janis Whitlock, and Heather Libbey

    13. Family-School Partnerships and Communication Interventions for Young Children with Disabilities, Ann P. Kaiser and Alacia Trent Stainbrook

    14. Creating School-Family Partnerships in Adolescence: Challenges and Opportunities, Brenda J. Lohman and Jennifer L. Matjasko

    Section III: Driving the Research Agenda to Inform Policy and Practice

    15. Debunking the Myth of the Hard-to-Reach Parent, Karen L. Mapp and Soo Hong

    16. Family-Centered Helpgiving Practices, Parent--Professional Partnerships,

    and Parent, Family and Child Outcomes, Carl J. Dunst and Carol M. Trivette

    17. Mapping family-school relations in comprehensive school reform models and charter school designs: A call for a new research agenda, Claire Smrekar, Lora Cohen-Vogel, and Jie-Eun Lee

    18. Future Directions in Family-School Partnerships, Cindy Carlson

    19. Methodological Issues in Family-School Partnership Research, S. Natasha Beretvas, Timothy Z. Keith, and Cindy Carlson

    20. From Periphery to Center: A New Vision and Strategy for Family, School, and Community Partnerships, Heather B. Weiss and Naomi C. Stephen

    21. Moving Forward in School-Family Partnerships in Promoting Student Competence: From Potential to Full Impact, Patrick H. Tolan and Samantha C. Woo

     

    Biography

    Sandra L. Christenson is Birkmaier Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Minnesota.

    Amy L. Reschly is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology & Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia.

    "This is a valuable compilation of writings highlighting the conceptual, empirical, historical, and practical issues related to involving families in children’s education and advancing the associated research agenda....if the ideas in the Handbook are implemented, school-family partnerships will be more cohesive, more affirming, and-most importantly-more effective in propelling children to greater academic success." - The School Community Journal

    "The editors and contributors address many of the questions, tensions, and controversies in contemporary early childhood education through the synthesis of research in developmental science. A powerful overall theme framed by the editors and echoed by the contributors is that science and education would be served well by more and better engagement; educators would more effectively support children's learning with better understanding of child development theory and research, and researchers would be more adept at defining and studying problems when informed by children in classrooms. This recommendation is more than abstract, however, as each chapter contains specific recommendations based on research evidence....Researchers, graduate students, teacher preparation faculty, and administrators of educational systems would likely appreciate and benefit from what the Handbook has to offer." - Julia Torquati, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 3, May-June 2010