NIUSI

part of the Education Reform Networks

Family Participation in Teaching & Learning

• "Grandma's Place": An Intergenerational Literacy Center
  Describes a literature conference for the Harlem community on choosing and using self-affirming books for African American children. Describes Grandma's Place, a literacy and parent support center with an array of multicultural literature.
• 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 article gives ideas for parent involvement work: in any school .
• A Comparison of Family Environment Characteristics among White (Non-Hispanic), Hispanic, and African Caribbean Groups
  To investigate differences in the family environments of different cultural groups, the Family Environment Scale and a clinical interview were administered to 153 college students from White (non-Hispanic), Hispanic, and African Caribbean backgrounds. A multivariate analysis of covariance and post hoc comparisons revealed significant differences between the groups on the Expressiveness, Independence, and Moral-Religious Emphasis subscales.
• A World of Difference: Readings on Teaching Young Children in a Diverse Society
  As teachers encounter a wider variety of children and families than ever before, dealing with all the differences can be demanding. This book provides a collection of 45 readings reflecting the strong, continuing current of thoughtful work on teaching young children in a diverse society to help teachers and prospective teachers respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by classroom diversity.
• About a Recent Review of Research on Family/School Linkages?
  Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships Between School Personnel & the Families of their Students Adapted from a report by Anne Henderson & Karen Mapp, National Center for Family & Community Connections with Schools.This report reviewed 80 research studies and literature reviews. The book provides details on 51 of these studies.
• About Families and Schools as Partners
  Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships between School Personnel & the Families of their Students Adapted from J.E. Funkhouse.
• About Four Ways to Increase Parental Efficacy?
  When parents feel like they can make a positive difference in their children's lives, they are said to have a high level of "efficacy". Parental efficacy is a belief in one's skills, abilities and resources to parent effectively, including the ability to protect children from negative influences and improve the family's school and community.Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships Between School Personnel & the Families of their Students by Anne Stilwell & Dianne Ferguson.
• About Homework and Families?
  Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships Between School Personnel & the Families of their Students By Dianne Ferguson & Anne Stilwell.Homework seems to have been part of school forever. Teachers assign it.
• About Successful Strategies for Involving Migrant Families?
  Migrant farm workers and their families are among the most socially marginalized and academically vulnerable populations in the country. They are more at risk of not completing school or missing a good deal of school because of their frequent moves, extreme poverty, health issues related to harsh working conditions in the fields, and social/cultural isolation.
• About the Difference Between "Parent Involvement" and "Family/Community Linkages"?
  Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships Between School Personnel & the Families of their Students.School personnel have long talked about the need for "parent involvement". In recent years the language has shifted slightly to "family involvement" in order to honor that many other family members-siblings, aunts and uncles, even close friends and neighbors- support and nurture children and youth and may play significant roles in their education.
• About the role of "cultural capital" for families?
  School personnel in urban schools often talk about the fact that some parents seem to be ?involved? and others not. Some parents come to meetings and events, respond to school phone calls and invitations, and help their sons and daughters with homework.
• Adolescent Violent Behavior: An Analysis across and within Racial/Ethnic Groups
  Analysis of data from a national longitudinal study of adolescent health found that adolescent involvement in four types of violent behaviors was related to race/ethnicity, gender, and family structure. Family cohesion was a protective factor against all types of violence.
• Adult Role Models: Needed Voices for Adolescents, Multiculturalism, Diversity, and Race Relations
  Examines parents', teachers', and administrators' beliefs about positive race relations and multiculturalism. Interview data indicate that parents and school role models are working to model acceptance of all cultures, and they understand that contacts and interactions with people of all races are necessary to make children better persons, lessening prejudice and biases not suitable in a diversified society.
• Altar-ing Family Communication: The Shrine/Altar Project in the Family Communication Course
  This paper describes an assignment originally designed for a course in family communication now being taught at the upper undergraduate level at a state university in the southwestern United States.
• Assessing Dispositions toward Cultural Diversity among Preservice Teachers
  Assessed preservice teachers' attitudes toward cultural diversity prior to entering into multicultural education courses at an urban university. Respondents indicated strong support for implementing diversity issues in the classroom and high levels of agreement with equity beliefs and the social value of diversity.
• At the end of the day: Lessons learned in inclusive classrooms.
  Uses eight case studies featuring children with varying disabilities—from preschool to high school—that show how including them in the classroom affects families, teachers, and other students. Enables educators to evaluate different methods for inclusion.
• Best Practices for High School Classrooms: What Award-Winning Secondary Teachers Do
  This book provides guidance on high-impact teaching practices, offering first-hand accounts of award-winning teachers.
• Bridging Cultures between Home and School: A Guide for Teachers--With a Special Focus on Immigrant Latino Families
  This book focuses on how to meet the challenges of education in a pluralistic society, presenting the Bridging Cultures framework, which is designed for understanding differences and conflicts that arise in situations where school culture is more individualistic than the home value system. Six sections examine: (1) "The Bridging Cultures Framework" (e.g., what culture is, the dynamic nature of culture, individualism and collectivism, and strands of multicultural education); (2) "Parent Involvement: Recommended but Not Always Successful" (e.g., minority parent involvement, parent-school partnerships, and finding common ground); (3) "The Cross-Cultural Parent-Teacher Conference" (e.g., the tradition of parent-teacher conferences, using cultural knowledge to enhance communication, and improving parent-teacher conferences); (4) "Learning What Works" (e.g., understanding parents' points of view, evaluating the messages schools send, and developing closer personal relationships with families); (5) "Teachers as Researchers" (e.g., action research, inquiry and reflection, and ethnographic inquiry); and (6) "Conclusion: The Challenge of Coming Together" (e.g., the need for cultural knowledge, how Bridging Cultures fits into the big picture of school reform, and what is to be gained).
• Bridging Cultures in Our Schools: New Approaches That Work. Knowledge Brief
  This publication describes how teachers can begin to gain understanding of diverse students and families and their cultural values, behavioral standards, and social ideals. It presents specific examples of cross-cultural conflicts and illustrates strategies for resolving them.
• Building cultural reciprocity with families: Case studies in special education. .
  By employing a posture of cultural reciprocity to build a framework for relationships between professionals and parents or caregivers educators and professionals will be more prepared to meet the needs of every student while respecting individual beliefs, even when these beliefs conflict with the culture of special education.
• Children's Literature in a Time of National Tragedy. ERIC Digest
  This digest is intended to guide parents and teachers in helping children deal with the attacks of September 11, 2001 through the use of literature. It begins with suggestions, guidelines, and strategies which parents and teachers can use to help children deal with the tragedy, and it discusses the role of literature in helping children at a time of national disaster.
• Creating Opportunities for Emerging Biliteracy
  Outlines 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. Discusses 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.
• Cultural Competence for Transracial Adoptive Parents
  Provides a clear conceptual definition of cultural competence for transracial-cultural adoptive (TRA) parents based on an extensive review of the literature and feedback from experts and parents. A three part definition of cultural competence for TRA parents includes: racial awareness, multicultural planning, and survival skills.
• Cultural Factors and the Achievement of Black and Hispanic Deaf Students
  Examines cultural factors affecting black and Hispanic deaf students' achievement, discussing socioeconomic status and single parent families, parent educational levels, non-English speaking environments, inadvertent effects on the deaf child, family view of disability, and parent-school interactions. Notes strategies for developing parents as authentic partners in education and discusses how educators can bridge the educational gap.
• Curriculum Development for Multicultural and Multilingual Students
  Addressed the need to train teachers to work with culturally/linguistically diverse students, using a classroom case and online feedback from the case teacher and building a database of adapted lessons. Although cases were useful in promoting application of knowledge and skills, feedback and opportunity for reflection were essential.
• Desegregation in a Diverse and Competitive Environment: Admissions at Lowell High School
  To comply with the district desegregation plan, the San Francisco Unified School District previously required higher scores for Chinese American applicants to its academic magnet high school than for more underrepresented groups. Examines the admissions debate, suggesting that exclusion of Asian and Latino concerns in district policymaking led to a lawsuit by several Chinese parents.
• 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 article examines whether increased levels of school involvement among socially advantaged parents account for children’s advantage in track placement in United States high schools.
• Education and cultural capital: the implications of changing trends in education policies.
  The article discusses the impact of policies that empower parents through school choice options, gifted & talented programs and parental involvement in general. The concept of cultural capital is discussed as a perpetuator of economic advantages for privileged parents and exacerbating class inequalities in lower income families.
• Education for students with special needs: The judicially defined role of parents in the process.
  The new or revised congressional initiative gave parents an expanded role in how elements of this statute can be carried out for the betterment of students with special needs. The information must be shared for all involved.
• Equity and Excellence: Providing Access to Gifted Education for Culturally Diverse Students
  This article maintains that the underrepresentation of diverse students in gifted education programs is due to a "deficit perspective" about culturally diverse populations. Recommendations include identifying and serving underachievers and low socioeconomic-status students, providing educators and gifted students with multicultural education, and developing home-school partnerships.
• Estrategias para mejorar los resultados academicos para las latinas (Strategies for Improving the Educational Outcomes of Latinas). ERIC Digest
  The educational experiences of Latinas are affected by the interaction of many factors, including poverty, racism, sexual harassment, and lack of English language proficiency. This Spanish-language digest presents a range of strategies that schools can employ to promote the academic achievement of Latinas.
• Exploring connections between the construct of teacher efficacy and family involvement practices.
  The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between teachers’ level of self-efficacy and the degree of family involvement practices reported by teachers in their classrooms. The theoretical framework was based on Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale.
• Exploring Multiple Serendipitous Experiences in a First Nations Setting as the Impetus for Meaningful Literacy Development
  An Aboriginal teacher engaged her non-Native students in the historical study of a Secwepemc child's experiences of residential schooling. Pedagogical practices included reading a novel based on remembrances of residential schooling, journal writing to stimulate critical thinking and engagement with the text, author interview, and a field trip by students and parents to the former residential school.
• Families and schools: the effect of parental involvement on high school completion.
  This study used data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NIELS) of 1988 and Higher Linear Modeling to examine the impact of parent involvement on high school graduation rates for European American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American families. The findings reflected that different types of parental involvement were important in a student’s high school completion, depending on ethnicity.
• Family-School Partnership Increases School Readiness
  Highlights components of an early intervention program for preschool children and families that operates in the multicultural community of Miami (Dade County) Florida. (GCP).
• Genograms and Family Sculpting: An Aid to Cross-Cultural Understanding in the Training of Psychology Students in South Africa
  Describes a specific training method developed in a family therapy course at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, where genograms and family sculpting were used to improve cross-cultural understanding among psychology masters students. Discusses the theoretical implications of the group training process for the training of psychologists in multicultural contexts.
• Home Literacy Experiences and Their Relationship to Bilingual Preschoolers' Developing English Literacy Abilities: An Initial Investigation
  Forty-three Puerto Rican mother-child dyads in Head Start programs, grouped according to whether the children had learned Spanish and English from birth (n=28) or Spanish from birth and English in Head Start (n=15) participated in a study of home literacy experiences and emerging English literacy abilities. Results found that literacy development would benefit from increased exposure to literacy materials and events.
• How Many Students Live with Extended Family Members and What That Might Mean?
  According to the same census information, 9 percent of all children live with at least one grandparent. African American children and youth are more likely to live with a grandparent (9 percent), compared with 6 percent for Latino children and only 3 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander children.
• Immigrant Mothers Redefine Access to ESL Classes: Contradiction and Ambivalence
  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.
• Immigration Then and Now: Old Face, New Story
  The current wave of immigration is creating such an upheaval, and caught in this emotional jumble are first generation immigrant students. These students are being raised and educated in the United States and are developing understandings of their place within the nation and what it means to be an American.
• Immigration, Ethnic Cultures, and Achievement: Working with Communities, Parents, and Teachers
  Addresses immigrant advocates who work both inside and outside of schools, calling on them to use comprehensive language; foster U.S. loyalty and citizenship; be proud of individual ethnicity; seek leaders among immigrants themselves; promote parents' roles; and guide the children of immigrants to consider teaching as a career in order to become mediators among cultures and leaders and role models for future generations.
• Implementation Strategies for Creating an Environment of Achievement
  Convinced of the educational benefits of campus diversity, Mt. Holyoke College (Massachusetts) developed policies and practices to foster the academic and social skills needed for success in a diverse society.
• Inclusion of Students with Moderate or Severe Disabilities in Educational and Community Settings: Perspectives from Parents and Siblings
  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. Interviews with parents from twenty-one families identified the type and extent of inclusive educational and community settings in which the student and his or her parents and siblings were involved.
• Influences on Children's Sharing in a Multicultural Setting
  Examined various potential contributors to sharing (parenting styles, context of identified versus anonymous sharing, and gender) among Caucasian and Asian second graders at an international school, also noting variables known to relate to sharing in young children (moral reasoning and empathy). Parenting styles, gender, and context all influenced children's sharing behavior, as did culture and moral reasoning.
• Keeping the Faith & Climbing One Mountain at a Time:Reflections of Two Mothers on their Children’s Educational Journeys
  In this OnPoint we share the accounts of two mothers who have faced many challenges posed by schools and other human services agencies. Despite these challenges, discouragements, and setbacks, these two families, like many others of their “generation,” have endured, met the challenges, and developed a remarkable resiliency.
• LEP Parent Involvement Project: A Guide for Connecting Immigrant Parents and Schools
  This guide is a set of materials developed for use in adult education settings such as English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes, community-based organizations, and parent groups for the purpose of helping immigrant parents see themselves as active participants in their children's learning.
• 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 essays examine 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.
• Multicultural Aspects in the Education of Children and Youth with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities: Introduction to the Special Issue
  This introductory article discusses cultural considerations in the design and delivery of services to families whose children have a moderate to severe disability. It calls attention to the lack of consideration of culturally and linguistically diverse families in the current research and summarizes the following articles.
• Multicultural Perceptions of 1st-Year Elementary Teachers' Urban, Suburban, and Rural Student Teacher Placements
  Investigated the effects of student teaching in urban, suburban, and rural settings on beginning teachers' attitudes about success, multiculturalism, and interactions with diverse parents. Noted the effect of a program for facilitating school-home relationships and improving urban education.
• Multicultural Perceptions Of 1st-Year Elementary Teachers' Urban, Suburban, and Rural Student Teaching Placements
  This study was designed to determine the effects student teaching in four settings (urban Comer, urban non-Comer, suburban, and rural) had on 1st-year teachers' (a) perceptions of success in general, (b) success as it relates to their perceptions of the multicultural needs of students, and (c) perceptions of success in their interactions with parents from a variety of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 2002
  This issue of "Multiple Voices" contains the following articles: (1) "A Self-Study of Diversity: Preservice Teachers' Beliefs Revealed through Classroom Practices" (Donna M. Sobel and others), which presents the results of seven preservice teachers' self-study that reveals ways in which the teachers' beliefs regarding diversity issues were realized in their classroom interactions, practices, and observations; (2) "African American Parents' Involvement in Their Children's Special Education Programs" (Courtney Davis and others), which examines the empirical literature on parental involvement and finds insufficient reporting of sample selection, data collection, and data analysis procedures; (3) "Effects of Failure Free Reading on Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students with Learning Disabilities" (Grace England and others), which presents findings that indicate using the Failure Free Reading Program improved letter and word identification, word attack skills, and reading comprehension; (4) "Native Americans and Augmentative and Alternative Communication Issues" (Sheela Stuart and Howard P.
• Multiracial Children and Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Brazil: Some Preliminary Observations
  This paper focuses on differences in Brazil and the United States in attitudes toward multiracial and multiethnic children and developmentally appropriate practice in education and child rearing. Child rearing in Brazil is characterized by a generally permissive approach with a high degree of patience, although parent-child relationships among the very poor are more direct and more punitive.
• Our Souls To Keep: From Surface to Deep in Literary Representations Regarding Race
  Presents literary reviews that reveal deeper issues to consider when exploring beyond the surface and reflecting on the racial schisms pervading the United States. The literature examines: a conference on the relationship of education and African American self-concept; the role of black mothers in raising their sons; slave novels; a critical review of speaking; and the Ebonics debate in education.
• Parent involvement in elementary school and educational attainment.
  Used data from the Chicago Longitudinal study to investigate the association between parent involvement in elementary school and success in high school. Results indicated that even after controlling for background characteristics and risk factors, parent involvement in school was significantly associated with lower rates of high school dropout, increased on-time high school completion, and highest grade completed.
• 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.
• Pathways to Inclusive Practices:Systems Oriented, Policy-Linked, and Research-Based Strategies that Work
  This guidebook was developed 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 .
• 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.
• 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 digest defines charter schools and clarifies some of the administrative and legal details surrounding such schools.
• Pinunuuchi Po'og'ani: Southern Ute Indian Academy
  Describes the Pinunuuchi Po'og'ani, the Southern Ute Indian Academy, providing Montessori education for Southern Ute tribal members ages 6 weeks through 10 years and reviving the use of the Southern Ute language and culture among young students and their families. Describes how the program supports families, students, and staff, and incorporates Montessori-style materials covering Ute language, history, culture, arts, timelines, and traditional games.
• Predicting parental involvement in children’s schooling within an economically disadvantaged African American sample.
  Predictors of parental school involvement were examined within a sample of 159 economically disadvantaged, African American parents living in an urban setting. School involvement was defined in terms of parent activity within the school.
• Reading Researchers in Search of Common Ground
  Investigating what 11 eminent literacy scholars with diverse philosophies could agree to regarding contexts and practices for teaching reading, this book presents comprehensive analyses of these findings, dubbed the "Expert Study," and their implications. It includes a reprint of the 1998 article "Points of Agreement: A Display of Professional Unity in Our Field," which provides background on the Expert Study; the voices of experts who took part in the study, along with additional distinguished literacy scholars who have specialized experiences and vantage points from which to view the Expert Study; and recommendations for use of the Expert Study findings.
• School Violence and Disruption: Rhetoric, Reality, and Reasonable Balance
  This article examines issues related to school violence and disruption. It discusses 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.
• School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators, and improving schools
  Examines how teachers and administrators can prepare themselves to create positive relationships and productive partnerships with families and communities. *Available at http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/westview/ .
• Site-level predictors of children’s school and social competence in the Chicago Child–Parent Centers.
  Examined the influence of individual and site-level factors from the Chicago Child–Parent Centers (CPC) early educational program on four competence outcomes for 1539 minority youth in the Chicago Longitudinal Study.
• Skilled Dialogue
  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. Skilled Dialogue© is a relational approach to communication and interactions that stems from the evidence-based premise that three qualities characterize cultural competence: respect, reciprocity, and responsiveness.
• Social and Emotional Distress among American Indian and Alaska Native Students: Research Findings. ERIC Digest
  Many American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth are repeatedly exposed to opportunities to participate in self-destructive and illegal behaviors. This digest examines risk factors associated with four contexts: peers, family, school, and community.
• Social, Political, Educational, Linguistic and Cultural (Dis-)Incentives for Languages Education in Australia
  Examines the extent to which the shifting ideological discourse on multiculturalism in Australia affects the personal attitudes and perspectives of bilingual and bicultural Australian born and educated parents of Hellenic background with regard to the education of their children. (Author/VWL).
• Strategies for Improving the Educational Outcomes of Latinas. ERIC Digest
  Latinas' educational experiences are affected by the interaction of many factors, including poverty, racism, sexual harassment, and lack of English language proficiency. With guidance from educators, Latina adolescents can make fulfilling educational choices.
• Strengthening the linkages between schools and families of children with disabilities.
  Challenges the assumptions long held by professionals about the attitudes, roles, emotional adjustments, needs, strength and competence of families of students with disabilities.
• Supporting Multiracial and Multiethnic Children and Their Families. Viewpoint
  Discusses ways early childhood programs can support all children and families, especially multiracial and multiethnic children and their families. Asserts that early childhood professionals need to consult with interracial and interethnic families as well as seek advice and leadership from other early childhood professionals involved in these relationships.
• Teachers Leading Teachers: Enhancing Multicultural Education through Field-based Partnerships
  Argues that partnerships between early childhood teacher preparation programs and public school teachers will strengthen the discourse on multicultural education and its institutionalization. Presents 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.
• Teaching Asian American Students
  Uses data from interviews with parents of Asian American students, observations, and literature reviews to identify cultural and language issues that must be considered in teaching this population. The paper discusses the history of Asian immigrants, attitudes toward education among Asians, the relationship between teaching styles and Asian culture, and suggestions for teachers working with Asian American students.
• 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.
• The rewards of parent participation.
  Focuses on the benefits of parental involvement in the School Development Program; identifies factors that intimidate undereducated and parents from low-SES communities.
• The Transition of Gambian Children to New York City Public Schools
  The paper describes the typical school life of a Gambian child and notes that most students finish schooling at the age of 16. The deplorable conditions in boarding school are also described.
• The Use and Role of Multiethnic Children's Literature in Family Literacy Programs: Realities and Possibilities
  Reviews the recent professional literature on family literacy programs, with a focus on the use and role of children's literature, specifically multiethnic texts, within those programs. Describes children's literature in family literacy and discusses the role of multiethnic literature in family literature.
• Understanding Culture
  Understanding culture is critical for educators because our individual cultural orientation is present in every interaction. Too often, we make assumptions about a person?s beliefs or behaviors based on a single cultural indicator, particularly race1 or ethnicity, when in reality, our cultural identities are a complex weave of all the cultural groups we belong to that influence our values, beliefs, and behaviors.
• Useful Practices of Inclusive Education: A Preliminary View of What Experts in Moderate to Severe Disabilities are Saying
  We 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.
• Using Popular Films To Challenge Preservice Teachers' Beliefs about Teaching in Urban Schools
  Discusses myths about urban education and education in general that are illustrated in three popular films about inner city schools, focusing on myths about learning, specifically about questions and answers, authenticity, and motivation; teaching, specifically about the center of the learning process; relationships with students, parents, and the institution; and culture. Proceeds from a constructivist approach to learning.
• 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.
• Waking the Sleeping Giant: Engaging and Capitalizing on the Sociocultural Strengths of the Latino Community
  A family literacy program for Salvadoran refugees and other Latinos in Arlington (Virginia) is analyzed from a sociocultural perspective as exemplifying an educational project designed and implemented by grassroots organizations in an increasingly diverse, multicultural/multilingual community. The program addresses the educational needs of poor illiterate families while drawing on parents' culture and extensive life experiences.
• What High School Students Think about Their Families Being Involved in School?
  Schools are changing the way they understand and think about family involvement. The changes they are making help to develop relationships with families and other community members that benefit both the school and the community.
• What Parents of Kids with Special Needs Think About Their Child's Educational Program?
  Parents of special-needs kids have a unique perspective on the programs and services that schools provide. They know first-hand what works and doesn?t work about special education, and they are coming from a different mindset than the policy-makers and educators who design and implement special education programs.Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships Between School Personnel & the Families of their Students By Anne Stilwell
  Download the document here .
• What we mean by "family and community connections with schools"?
  When some people think of family involvement, they think of parents volunteering in their child?s classroom and attending parent-teacher conferences.Family School Linkages Project: Building Better Relationships between School Personnel & the Families of their Students Research Brief November 2002 from the National Center for Family & Community Connections with Schools.
  Download the document here .
• Where in the Oregon Trail Is Carmen Sandiego? A Commentary on Software and Its Sensitivity to Diversity
  Addresses cultural biases, language biases, cultural sensitivity, and the authenticity of educational software for children, critiquing several popular educational programs and revealing the pitfalls of software design and the problem among software engineers (lack of training and lack of cultural knowledge). Proposes tips to help parents and educators choose culturally relevant, appropriate educational software packages for their children.
• White Mothers of Non-White Children
  Results of nine qualitative interviews with White (Pakeha) mothers of non-White children in New Zealand are provided, as are excerpts from personal narratives of biracial persons. J.
• Working with Asian Parents and Families
  Discusses how teachers can enhance the experiences of their Asian American students, examining the importance of understanding Asian American parents and families. Suggestions for working with Asian American parents and families include: 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.