NIUSI

part of the Education Reform Networks

Family Participation in Teaching & Learning

• Skilled Dialogue
  This paper is developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). When we interact with students, whether to assess or to instruct, we are in dialogue with them; that is, we are transmitting and exchanging meaning across the boundaries of their identities and our own.
• At the end of the day: Lessons learned in inclusive classrooms
  This book encompasses eight case studies featuring diverse children with varying disabilities - from preschool to high school - that show how including them in the classroom affects families, teachers, and other students. These case studies, combined with the latest research, enable educators to evaluate different methods for inclusion.
• The Academic Achievement of Minority Students: Perspectives, Practices, and Prescriptions
  This book presents a collection of papers by educators and researchers who discuss various methods of improving minority student achievement.
• Living (and Teaching) in an Unjust World: New Perspectives on Multicultural Education
  This collection of essays is a response to educators who limit multicultural education to "culture of the quarter" or "country of the week." The authors of these essays examined the issues of multicultural education deeply, exploring the just and unjust issues of schooling, the need to move beyond teaching about culture to facilitating self discovery, and the way classrooms mirror larger society.
• Inclusion of Students with Moderate or Severe Disabilities in Educational and Community Settings: Perspectives from Parents and Siblings
  The authors of this study used qualitative research methodology to investigate parent and sibling perspectives on the educational and community inclusion of school aged students with moderate or severe disabilities. Based on the interviews with parents from twenty-one families, they identified the type and extent of inclusive educational and community settings in which the student and his or her parents and siblings were involved.
• Creating Opportunities for Emerging Biliteracy
  The authors outline instructional principles upon which classroom practices in a fourth grade and in a kindergarten class are based that contribute to students' success, love of literacy, and emerging biliteracy. They discuss creating a socioculturally supportive learning environment that (1) affirms the cultural and linguistic resources of all students; (2) provides opportunities for inclusion and choice; and (3) involves parents in their children's learning.
• What Parents of Kids with Special Needs Think About Their Child's Educational Program?
  This paper is developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about parents' perspectives on special education programs.
• Immigrant Mothers Redefine Access to ESL Classes: Contradiction and Ambivalence
  The author argues that access to English-as-a-Second-Language classes is a complex issue, perhaps more personal and less amenable to solution than previously assumed. Examples are drawn from five individual life-history interviews with 19 non-English-speaking immigrant mothers of school children.
• Understanding Culture
  This paper was produced by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about developing a complex and dynamic understanding of culture.
• Perspectivas sobre las escuelas charter: Una resena para padres de familia (Perspectives on Charter Schools: A Review for Parents). ERIC Digest
  Recently, charter schools have gained popularity with parents, students, and others as alternatives to public schools, but what are charter schools and what effects are they having? This Spanish-language Digest defines charter schools and clarifies some of the administrative and legal details surrounding such schools.
• Multicultural Perceptions of 1st-Year Elementary Teachers' Urban, Suburban, and Rural Student Teacher Placements
  The authors investigated the effects of student teaching in urban, suburban, and rural settings on beginning teachers' attitudes about success, multiculturalism, and interactions with diverse parents. They noted the effect of a program for facilitating school-home relationships and improving urban education.
• Determining Policy support for Inclusive schools
  This document was designed to help teams of policy-makers, practitioners, and advocates implement inclusive practices. There are six sections in this guide, each representing a policy area.
• Do increased levels of parental involvement account for social class differences in track placement?
  The author of this report examined whether increased levels of school involvement among socially advantaged parents account for children's advantage in track placement in United States high schools.
  Download the document here .
• Parental school involvement and children’s academic achievement. .
  This article outlines some of the mechanisms through which parental school involvement affects achievement and identify how patterns and amounts of involvement vary across cultural, economic, and community contexts and across developmental levels.
• Voices of parents and teachers in a poor white urban school.
  This case study consists of interviews with teachers and parents about school/family relations in an all white urban school. Themes of separation between home and school, the function of parent volunteers, structural barriers to more family involvement, friendship between teachers and parents, service to the school, teacher attitudes about parents, and parent attitudes about teachers are explored.
• Pathways to Inclusive Practices:Systems Oriented, Policy-Linked, and Research-Based Strategies that Work
  This guidebook was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) for parents, practitioners,administrators, and policy-makers seeking to make schools and classrooms more responsive to the educational needs of all students,including those with disabilities.
  Download the document here .
• Swimming: On Oxygen, Resistance, and Possibility for Immigrant Youth under Siege
  Researchers have shown that in today’s fast changing world and globalized economies, bilingualism and hybrid cultural identities of immigrant students may make them more successful in the U.S. and around the world.
• Useful Practices of Inclusive Education: A Preliminary View of What Experts in Moderate to Severe Disabilities are Saying
  The authors examined the opinions of experts in the field of moderate to severe disabilities on useful practices for inclusive education across nine categories of practices: promoting inclusive values in the school; collaboration between general and special educators; collaboration between educators and related service providers; family involvement; choosing and planning what to teach; scheduling, coordinating, and delivering inclusive services within the school; assessing and reporting student progress on an ongoing basis; instructional strategies; and supporting students with challenging behavior.
• 10 Things Any School Can Do to Build Parent Involvement... Plus 5 Great Ways to Fail!
  Getting parents involved in their children's education is not just a "nice idea." Schools can't do their job without parents' help. This guide gives ideas for parent involvement work: in any school, with very little money, using proven , and tested ideas.
• Equity and Excellence: Providing Access to Gifted Education for Culturally Diverse Students
  The authors of this article maintained that the underrepresentation of diverse students in gifted education programs is due to a "deficit perspective" about culturally diverse populations. The authors' recommendations included identifying and serving underachievers and low socioeconomic-status students, providing educators and gifted students with multicultural education, and developing home-school partnerships.
• About Families and Schools as Partners
  This paper is developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about family and school collaboration.
• What we mean by "family and community connections with schools"?
  This paper is developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about family involvement.
• School Violence and Disruption: Rhetoric, Reality, and Reasonable Balance
  The authors of this article examined issues related to school violence and disruption. They discussed the sociocultural context within which school violence occurs, balancing educational rights within an orderly school environment, and the role of students with disabilities in school suspensions.
• Working with Asian Parents and Families
  The authors discussed how teachers can enhance the experiences of their Asian American students, examining the importance of understanding Asian American parents and families. They included the following suggestions for working with Asian American parents and families; respect immediate and extended family members, understand diversity within Asian ethnic groups, consider parents' English proficiency, combat stereotypes, and encourage children to be bicultural and bilingual.
• Becoming Culturally Responsive Educators: Rethinking Teacher Education Pedagogy
  This paper is one of the short practitioner-oriented pamphlets produced by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt). This practitioner brief deals with designing teacher education programs (TEPs) that are mindful of student diversity.
• Building cultural reciprocity with families: Case studies in special education
  See how the theory of cultural reciprocity becomes a reality with this engaging book! Actual case studies take you into the lives of eight families and show you how to apply this exciting technique to help strengthen your interactions with parents or caregivers. As you read each study, you'll develop a better understanding of your own culture as well as the unique culture of special education.
• Immigration Then and Now: Old Face, New Story
  This paper is one of the brief practitioner oriented pamphlets called On Points produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). The current wave of immigration is creating such an upheaval, and caught in this emotional jumble are first generation immigrant students.
• Teachers Leading Teachers: Enhancing Multicultural Education through Field-based Partnerships
  The authors argue that partnerships between early childhood teacher preparation programs and public school teachers will strengthen the discourse on multicultural education and its institutionalization. They present strategies for gaining a personal connection to multicultural education ideals, including developing cultural biographies, examining stereotypes and prejudices, examining the construction of a personal identity, and critically examining the media.
• School consultants working for equity with families, teachers, and administrators
  In this commentary, the authors summarized four major themes related to collaboration between school consultants and families with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds : (a) Consultation with minority families involves empowering parents to navigate the public education system, integrating cultural considerations into consultation and intervention, and educating families and school personnel; (b) a participatory process that brings together families, school personnel, and community stakeholders is critical to achieving educational equity; (c) a cultural mediator is necessary to assist stakeholders in bridging cultural gaps and achieving shared meanings; and (d) educational equity is a complex, long-term process involving numerous individual, relational, organizational, community, and societal factors. The authors pointed out school consultants can play a central role in facilitating inquiry, negotiation, consensus building, and individual and systemic change to achieve cross-cultural collaboration and educational equity.
• What High School Students Think about Their Families Being Involved in School?
  This paper is one of the brief practitioner oriented pamphlets produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). Schools are changing the way they understand and think about family involvement.