What makes partnership valid? Home-school communication and parent-school partnerships

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Liddicoat ◽  
Glenda Shopen

Abstract Recent work in literacy has emphasised the partnership between parents and schools in furthering children’s literacy development. This paper discusses the nature of this partnership in late primary school and early secondary school learning in Australia and the ways in which information is communicated between the partners. It is argued that, while schools devote a lot of attention to communicating with parents, this communication does not typically become true dialogue. Instead, the communication is always monodirectional with the school communicating messages to parents, but rarely receiving (or attending to) messages from parents. As such, parents come to be viewed by the schools as junior partners in their children’s literacy development and the school view of partnership focuses on moving parents into the school’s framework. At the same time some parents do not see the partnership in the same way as the school and instead locate responsibility for developing basic skills with the school. Attempts to include parents may then be seen as getting parents to do the school’s work. The study concludes that in current practice there is not actual partnership between school and home in the group investigated.

Author(s):  
Maria Cahill ◽  
Anne McGill-Franzen ◽  
Dawn Peterson

This chapter provides a rationale for using digitally Enhanced Picture Books (EPBs), electronic texts which pair text narration with animated pictures, with young children in the classroom and as a home-school connection tool. First, we synthesize the research on shared reading with young children. Next, we detail the research literature in the area of digital text use with young children. We suggest substantive variables to consider when selecting EPBs. Finally, we recommend practices for integrating EPBs into the primary and early childhood classroom in a manner that will advance young children’s literacy development.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Samantha Brinn

This chapter will explore the concept of home school partnerships within British early years education. The advantages of effective relationships between home and school will be briefly outlined before the historical development of the concept discussed. It will be argued that home school interactions are historically situated within a deficit paradigm, wherein a desire to overcome social inequality is paramount. Consequently, enhancing learning through continuity and cohesion between home and school learning practices dominate professional perspectives on school-home relationships. Due to the growing influence of social constructivism, the relative position of parents within this exchange has changed over time and led to the inception of partnership working. Nonetheless, partnership working between home and school remains fraught with practical and conceptual complexities and may necessitate the mutual renegotiation of the constructs of ‘parent’ and ‘professional’. In turn, any renegotiation may require an understanding of the habits of thought underlying these constructs, as well as the time and space for renegotiation. Finally, overcoming inequality, the driving force behind current patterns of partnership working, may depend on systemic change, beyond enhancing the home learning environment, which the emphasis on partnership working may disguise.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Lilly Steiner ◽  
Christina Cassano

This study examines the results of a family literacy intervention to teach teachers to build on families’ home literacy practices. A quasi-experimental design was used to study effects on: (1) the use of home-based literacy practices at school; (2) teachers’ beliefs about the family's role in children's literacy development; and (4) first-graders’ literacy achievement. The study was conducted in two first-grade classrooms with culturally diverse student populations. In the treatment classroom, the teacher learned practices for building home-school partnerships. This teacher incorporated specific opportunities to involve parents in children’s literacy learning that led to an increase in parent-teacher collaboration. A combination of teacher and parent participation in the intervention resulted in statistically significant differences in students’ scores on the Concepts About Print (CAP) assessment compared to students in the control classroom. This study is small; yet, it provides a timely and relevant model to promote parent involvement, which is particularly important given the renewed emphasis on building effective home-school partnerships.


1997 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Serpell

The value of a partnership between teachers and parents in the promotion of children's literacy appears self-evident. It symbolizes both the school's accountability to the community it serves and the complementary responsibility of families to support the school's agenda of empowering their children with the tools of civilization. Many parents and teachers across the world perceive, however, that there is something amiss with the relations between them. On the one hand, they share an interest in the literacy development of the same children, and in some sense, they subscribe to an implicit contract to share responsibility for promoting it. Yet, disagreement frequently arises about how this contract is to be executed in practice. In this eclectic review of research, I consider three complementary ways in which the nature of the connection between children's homes and the schools they attend can be problematized, each focusing on a different criterial dimension for evaluating the home-school connection: (a) congruence of family life with the agenda of schooling, (b) intimacy, or depth of understanding, between teachers and parents, and (c) sociocultural productivity of the interaction between the school and its students' home communities.


1976 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 319-333 ◽  

Joseph Proudman was born on 30 December 1888 at Thurston Fold Farm, Unsworth, near Bury in Lancashire. His father was then a farm bailiff; from 1898 to his death in 1943 he was a small tenant farmer at Bold, near Widnes in Lancashire. Joseph Proudman attended primary school at Unsworth from 1894 to 1898, and at Bold from 1898 to 1902. From 1902 to 1907 he was a pupil-teacher at Farnworth primary school between Bold and Widnes. He tells us that in 1902 his salary was £6 10s. Od. per year, and in 1907 it was £24 per year. His secondary education was begun by the headmaster, A. R. Smith, who gave him a lesson each morning from 8 to 8.45 before the school opened at 9. During the winters of 1902-4 he attended evening classes at the Widnes Technical School, studying art, mathematics and physiography. From 1903 to 1907 he only taught for half of each week; the other half he attended classes at the Widnes Secondary School. This was an excellent school, and it was here that the mathematical bent of his life was determined. From that time onwards his chief recreation became reading, especially the reading of history. One result of this interest was the writing of the unusually full autobiographical papers, of which the present writers have made much use.


Author(s):  
Agnieszka Świętek ◽  
Wiktor Osuch

Education in regional geography in Poland takes place at public schools from the earliest educational stages and is compulsory until young people reach the age of adulthood. Reforms of the Polish education system, resulting in changes in the core curriculum of general education, likewise resulted in changes in the concept of education in the field of regional geography. The subject of the authors’ article is education in regional geography in the Polish education system at various educational stages. The authors’ analysis has two research goals. The first concerns changes in the education of regional geography at Polish schools; here the analysis and evaluation of the current content of education in the field of regional geography are offered. The second one is the study of the model of regional geography education in geographical studies in Poland on the example of the geographyat the Pedagogical University of Cracow. Although elements of education about one’s own region already appear in a kindergarten, they are most strongly implemented at a primary school in the form of educational paths, e.g. “Regional education – cultural heritage in the region”, and at a lower-secondary school (gymnasium) during geography classes. Owing to the current education reform, liquidating gymnasium (a lower secondary school level) and re-introducing the division of public schools into an 8-year primary school and a longer secondary school, the concept of education in regional education has inevitably changed. Currently, it is implemented in accordance with a multidisciplinary model of education consisting in weaving the content of regional education into the core curricula of various school subjects, and thus building the image of the whole region by means of viewing from different perspectives and inevitable cooperation of teachers of diverse subjects. Invariably, however, content in the field of regional geography is carried out at a primary and secondary school during geography classes. At university level, selected students – in geographical studies – receive a regional geography training. As an appropriate example one can offer A. Świętek’s original classes in “Regional Education” for geography students of a teaching specialty consisting of students designing and completing an educational trail in the area of Nowa Huta in Cracow.


2018 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Esteban-Gonzalo ◽  
Anne I. Turner ◽  
Susan J. Torres ◽  
Irene Esteban-Cornejo ◽  
José Castro-Piñero ◽  
...  

AbstractThe present study examined the association between high-quality diet (using the Mediterranean diet (MD) as an example) and well-being cross-sectionally and prospectively in Spanish children and adolescents. Participants included 533 children and 987 adolescents at baseline and 527 children and 798 adolescents at 2-year follow-up, included in the UP&DOWN study (follow-up in schoolchildren and adolescents with and without Down’s syndrome). The present study excluded participants with Down’s syndrome. Adherence to an MD was assessed using the KIDMED index. Well-being was measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and the KIDSCREEN-10 questionnaire. Associations between MD adherence and well-being were assessed using multi-level, mixed-effects linear regression. At baseline, MD adherence was positively related to health-related quality of life in secondary school girls and boys (β=0·41,se0·10,P<0·001;β=0·46,se0·10,P<0·001, respectively) and to positive affect in secondary school girls and boys (β=0·16,se0·05,P=0·006;β=0·20,se0·05,P<0·001, respectively) and in primary school boys (β=0·20,se0·08,P=0·019). At 2-year follow-up, MD adherence was negatively related to negative affect in secondary school adolescent girls and boys (β=–0·15,se0·07,P=0·047;β=–0·16,se0·06,P=0·019, respectively), and MD adherence was associated with higher positive affect scores in secondary school girls (β=0·30,se0·06,P<0·001) and in primary school boys (β=0·20,se0·09,P=0·023). However, MD adherence at baseline did not predict well-being indicators at 2-year follow-up. In conclusion, higher MD adherence was found to behave as a protective factor for positive well-being in cross-sectional analysis.


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