The context of Special Education is a privileged space to study participation. Most professionals and teachers have long assumed the participation and collaboration with families as a central tenet of their interventions. On the other hand, parents with children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) have also been described as being permanently…

Family involvement can no longer be considered a luxury but is rather a main component of early childhood programmes. The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of family involvement in early childhood programmes in Jordan. In total, 84 kindergarten principals and 276 teachers participated in the study. To achieve the study…

Throughout the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Region, teacher absenteeism has posed a long-standing challenge. This report draws on research literature from international contexts and case studies to identify the underlying factors that may relate to teacher absenteeism. Resources included in this report were selected with a focus on non-U.S. Pacific…

This toolkit is designed to guide school staff in strengthening partnerships with families and community members to support student learning. This toolkit offers an integrated approach to family and community engagement, bringing together research, promising practices, and a wide range of useful tools and resources with explanations and directions…

The positive impact of family-school relationships is well documented in the literature, as is the need for teacher education to prepare teachers to work positively with diverse families. This article reports the experiences and perspectives of candidates in an elementary urban teacher preparation program in the United States as they engaged in…

Using Schein's (1992) framework of cultural change, this study examined two institutions of higher education that have achieved or attempted a cultural change to understand if and how to develop a culture of work-life balance for faculty and staff. The results identified a narrative of eligibility that arose from the discourse of faculty…

Investigators interviewed 54 families of children with disabilities ages seven through nine to examine the expectations that families of young children hold for their child's teacher. Responses themes were examined to determine if a pattern existed between families of different groups of children. Results reveal many families expressed true…

This qualitative study examines the perspectives of eight exemplary African-American science teachers toward No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and their outreach to families and communities in the context of the USA. Data revealed that whereas these exemplary teachers applauded the general intent of NCLB, they were concerned with its overemphasis on…

This paper analyses the descriptions of families of children with disabilities as contained in introductory special education texts over the last 50 years. These text books are typically used in pre-service teacher education courses as surveys of the education of "exceptional children". The textbooks reflect the mainstream professional…

This paper examines the use of student planners (agendas) with elementary school students. It asks how teachers, students and parents in two classrooms engage in the literacy practice of using student planners. A literacy object originally introduced to manage schoolwork in and out of school for students with learning difficulties, planners are…

How individuals manage work/life boundaries when they live at the place they work, as opposed to working from home, is a gap in both work/life literature and in higher education literature. An obvious example from higher education is the resident life professional that lives in the residential facility that she or he oversees. Living in a…

This action research study addressed the need to increase student attendance at an elementary school. Previously, this school's Average Daily Attendance (ADA) has been 92%. With having nearly 900 students, there are approximately 70 daily absences, 1,400 monthly absences, and 13,000 yearly absences. To address the challenge, the researcher…

This qualitative study focuses on how beginning teachers attain skills to engage families in the educational process. Historical rationale, theoretical frameworks, and key research findings for family engagement training during the last three decades were reviewed, studied, and analyzed for themes. A review of scholarly literature is incorporated…

This study sought to examine the association of the various forms of capital on the developed achievement of Black males. As one of the richest longitudinal family economic data sets, the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used to estimate multilevel growth models of the math and reading achievement of Black…

This article describes what followed after a mother wondered if the school in her neighborhood was the right elementary school for her gender nonconforming young child. It includes collective and individual narratives from four key players: the mom and teacher educator (Slesaransky-Poe), the school's guidance counselor (Ruzzi), the principal…