Abstract
Introduction
School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools, Third Edition, was written by Joyce L. Epstein and Steven B. Sheldon, who are researchers in the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University, USA. The book is aimed at preparing educators to design and implement programs that foster the involvement of family and community in schooling, through effective school, family, and community partnerships. This book guides the readers in thinking and talking about, studying and understanding, as well as acting on and improving school, family, and community partnership as an essential component in a school organisation and an educator’s work. Through various readings on theories, research, policies, and practices, this book was designed as a resource for undergraduate and graduate courses – especially in education, psychology, and/or sociology disciplines – by providing a solid foundation of knowledge about the development, directions, problems, and possibilities of school, family, and community partnerships. The changes in this third edition included: (i) shortened, edited, and new reading materials; (ii) comments, discussion topics, debates, and classroom or homework activities to encourage reflection and thinking; as well as (iii) interview activities as a guide for readers to hear the voices of currently practising educators, parents, students, and community members. Hence, this book may serve as a useful resource for anyone interested in school, family, and community partnerships.
Major themes and content
Chapter 1: Rationale
The fact that students live with their families in communities implies the tremendous effects families and the community have on students’ development. Hence, educators need to work with the whole child – not just the school child or the home child – in order to maximise students’ outcomes as members of the home, school, and wider community settings. Partnerships allow parents, educators, and community members to share the responsibilities of guiding and supporting students’ learning and development. Therefore, educators need to know how to engage families and community members through partnership programs to provide opportunities across the three settings that promote students’ development. Unfortunately, there are currently only a few university courses that offer training for educators to promote family and community engagement. This book serves to help academics design courses to train future educators in school, family, and community partnerships.
Chapter 2: Theoretical frameworks
In this chapter, the authors invite readers to steer away from the ‘old’ ideas of separate responsibilities of families and schools in educational matters, to ‘new’ thinking which is centred on ‘coordination, cooperation, and complementarity of schools and families’ to promote communication and collaboration, and achieve a common goal in education and socialisation (Epstein & Sheldon, 2023, p. 23). There was great emphasis on the theory of Overlapping Spheres of Influence which posits that children’s development is impacted by influences from and interactions with the school, family, and community across time. The influences are dynamic in nature, and the degree of overlap or separation is determined by the amount of mutual interests, goals, and practices shared across the three settings – the greater overlap, the greater influence the school, family, and community have on children’s developmental outcomes. In this chapter, the authors encourage educators to adopt the ‘new’ thinking, by emphasising that sharing responsibilities for student success with families, schools, and the community is an essential component of a good school organisation, providing frameworks for practices that are effective in engaging parents in working with schools and community members and encouraging educators to build equitable – not just equal – partnerships, which enable all partners to be involved in supporting students even when they face barriers (e.g. language barriers and time or resource limitations, among others).
Chapter 3: Research
This chapter includes nine articles that report on the results of school-based partnership programs. These studies looked at: (i) teacher reports on their practices of parent engagement or involvement; (ii) teacher reports on the problems and possibilities of parent involvement; (iii) parent reports in teacher practices of family engagement; (iv) parent-teacher interactions with single parents; (v) teacher reports on parent practices of involvement; (vi) homework practices and family engagement; and (vi) student reports on teacher practices of parent involvement. The articles used a variety of study designs (e.g. longitudinal or cross-sectional), methods (e.g. surveys, experimental and quasi-experimental intervention studies, interviews, or focus groups) and participants (i.e. parents, teachers, or students). Overall, the studies indicated that the patterns of family engagement differ across grade levels and across the student, parent, and teacher reports. The authors indicate that there may still be inconsistencies in the understanding and expectations of parent involvement. The authors also imply the importance of accounting the varying perspectives held by educators, parents, and students to identify any gap. Nevertheless, it should be noted that despite the book’s focus on school, family, and community partnerships, the chapter only included articles that looked at family-school partnerships, without the involvement of community members.
Chapter 4: Policies
This chapter focuses on the influence of policies at the federal, state, district, and school levels for school, family, and community partnerships. The chapter points out that although policies have been put in place, there is still a lack of incentives for implementation and a lack of consequences for poor implementation. Moreover, the policies often only tell educators to engage families, but do not specify how to start and improve such partnership. As a result, the policies have not been enacted optimally. The series of readings included in this chapter lay out several actions that may be necessary to help the implementation of policies for school, family, and community partnership. These actions include: (a) establishing a department specifically focusing on facilitating the partnership, with a district leader that is an expert in the area and an adequate staff members; (b) making a plan with scheduled activities; (c) ensuring adequate funding to cover the costs of the activities and the staff members; (d) conducting professional development trainings for district and school leaders, as well as the school team; (e) evaluating the partnerships and engaging in research to improve the quality of the partnerships; (f) developing partnership tools and guidelines, such as those that would be helpful in facilitating communication; (g) connecting community members with families and schools for the partnership; and (h) establishing a committee with representatives from the schools, families, and community to inform leaders about the advice or feedback on the partnerships.
Chapter 5: Practical framework
This chapter moves away from theory, research, and policy and focuses on school practices. More specifically, the authors present the structures and processes that may serve as a guide for the readers to engage families, by establishing a strong and well-functioning team to implement equitable and sustainable partnership programs. The authors reiterate the theory of Overlapping Spheres of Influence and emphasise that the effectiveness of the partnership lie on the notion that students will more likely internalise the importance of school, work hard, and stay in school when such same values are received from the home, school, and community. The authors also emphasise that school, family, and community partnerships cannot force students to behave in a certain manner but can only guide and help students to feel cared for and supported, which may lead to students shaping their behaviours based on the values imparted by the school, family, and community. Partnerships among the school, family, and community need to be built on a sense of respect and trust, and need to be equitable and responsive to the needs of the partners. The authors also include a list of activities and possible challenges in implementing the six types of parental involvement (i.e. parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making and collaborating), which may be used as a guide in forming school, family and community partnerships. A guide on establishing Action Team for Partnerships can also be found in this chapter, including: (a) who would become members of the team; (b) the need to secure funding; (c) determining needs, expectations, and goals for the partnerships; (d) writing the plan; and (e) the need to continue planning, evaluating, and improving the programs.
Chapter 6: Summary
This chapter concludes the book by putting together some themes that emerge across the readings on the research, policy, and practice of school, family, and community partnerships. The themes include: (i) Organise a program that is structured and stable to make continuous progress; (ii) Engage all families to uphold equitable family engagement; (iii) Focus on students as main actors and active partners in the planning and implementation of school, family, and community partnership programs; and (iv) Produce results to evaluate and investigate which engagement activities best promote which outcomes. In addition, the chapter sets out eight essential elements observed in strong school, family, and community partnerships: (1) leadership; (2) teamwork; (3) annual plans for leadership; (4) responsive implementation; (5) evaluation; (6) adequate funds; (7) collegial support; and (8) networking. The implementation of these elements has also been linked to progress overtime, effective and equitable partnerships through goal-linked activities, and redefinitions of professional development and shared responsibilities to include all members of the partnerships (e.g. teachers, principals, parents, other family members, community partners, and students) – which are characteristics of strong and sustainable partnership programs.
Critique
Overall, the authors present the content in a comprehensive manner that is easy to understand for readers who may not have prior knowledge on the topic. The authors use existing research findings to explain the theoretical concepts and practical components of school, family, and community partnership, along with the necessary policies and guidelines for implementation. As the authors unpack school, family, and community partnerships from multiple approaches, the book may meet the specific interests and needs of educators with differing roles. For instance, Chapter 3 of the book may be specifically useful for educators who are practitioner researchers, as the chapter provides some ideas of how and what types of data can be collected to analyse and evaluate school, family, and community partnerships, or for educators who wish to understand the results of previous partnerships or research evidence behind such partnerships. Chapter 4 of the book may be particularly useful for educators holding leadership or administrative positions with the capacity for initiating or improving school, family, and community partnerships at the policy level. Chapters 5 and 6 of this book may be useful for a wider group of readers as the chapters focus on practical steps of implementation for the differing roles involved in the partnership – for instance, the types of parental involvement, funding for the initiatives and the professional development for educators, among others. This book also includes prompts for activities – such as for discussion, reflection, planning, and interview – which would encourage readers to think and hear from others in the field. Course coordinators who use this book as a resource may find the activities helpful when preparing for their classes, as they could choose and conduct the activities listed in the book that they find useful. This current version has also been updated to allow readers to be equipped with relevant readings, examples, and references. Further, the book will likely be a great resource for a university course in preparing educators to establish school, family, and community partnerships.
