Author: Alfredo G. Barrantes Santamaria
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communities of practice
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
Due to federal mandates, Title I schools now are being asked to implement parent involvement programs that meaningfully involve parents in the schools to increase academic gains. This action research study was based on three different concepts from the literature: a) critical pedagogy theory from Paulo Freire, b) parent involvement from diverse scholars including Epstein, Olivos, Mapp, Henderson, and Gonzalez-DeHass, and c) Wenger's communities of practice approach. The study was designed to determine whether a community of practice approach could provide the necessary conditions to meaningfully involve Latino Spanish-speaking parents in school. This innovation took place for 14-weeks, during which the community of practice approach was developed and utilized during meetings. Data were collected during each community of practice meeting at two schools. The data sources were surveys, audio video transcriptions of the meetings, journal, field notes, leadership meetings, and analytic memos. To add reliability and validity, mixed methods were applied to triangulate the data sources. Results indicated that through a community of practice approach Latino Spanish-speaking parents could become meaningfully involved in their children's schools. Parent participants reported that the community of practice allowed them to dialogue, contribute, learn, reflect, and become self-aware of their role in the schools. Data also showed that parent participants applied the community of practice approach to contribute to the solution of problems at their school. After participating in the study, parent participants realized their potential to impact in their children's school. Additionally, they started purposefully becoming more interested in participating and planning activities with the parent liaison. Based on the results, further cycles of action research are suggested.
Author: Andrea B. Bermúdez
Publisher: Eric Clearinghouse on Rural
ISBN: 9781880785119
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 92
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Book Description
Recognizing the failure of American schools to educate Hispanic and other minority students, educators are searching for new strategies and discovering the powerful role that parents can play in advancing educational goals. A growing body of evidence supports the belief that involving parents in their children's education works in the best interests of students, schools, and parents themselves. However, despite recent legislative support, few schools are involving parents in meaningful ways. Barriers that block collaboration between Hispanic parents and school personnel include work interference, low parent self-confidence, limited English proficiency, cultural differences, and teacher and administrator attitudes. Parent involvement encompasses a variety of patterns focused on home, school, or community. Successful school interventions to promote parent involvement include strategies that are social, informational, educational, supportive of the home, or leadership oriented. Appropriate training helps both teachers and parents establish an effective home-school communication network. Such programs train teachers to train parents and to learn from parents, and provide parents with an awareness of school practices and resources and the skills to support student learning at home. A successful four-way collaboration among Hispanic parents, university trainers, local businesses, and school district personnel is described that demonstrates ways to promote community support. An appendix outlines a model of integrated parent and teacher training within an inservice curriculum. Contains 129 references. (SV)
Author: Joyce L. Epstein
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1483320014
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 508
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Book Description
Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.
Author: Concha Delgado Gaitan
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 148336030X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 161
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Book Description
"Anyone involved in preservice training for future and present classroom teachers should read this book. Both the content and context of the book are practical, timely, and necessary as our country and classrooms become more diverse." Michele Dean, Principal Montalvo Elementary School, Ventura, CA Raise school attendance, reduce dropout rates, and improve academic performance of Latino students! Often marginalized by poverty, linguistic isolation, or prejudice, Latino students face many academic obstacles. And while research has shown that parental involvement plays a key role in academic achievement, most schools have failed to modify their parent involvement programs to address social and cultural realities of Latino families. Involving Latino Families in Schools provides tools and strategies for including Latino parents in developing sustained academic improvement. Sharing numerous first person success stories, author Concha Delgado Gaitan stresses three conditions of increased parental participation: connecting to families, sharing information with parents, and supporting continued parental involvement. Offering easily applied techniques for cultivating communication, this practical handbook examines Latino families and their educational aspirations for their children The communication systems needed between schools and Latino families How Latino families can assist their children at home Techniques to foster Latino parent involvement How to organize schoolwide parent involvement programs Through suggested activities, case examples, and vignettes, the author provides insights and instruction for planning, designing, and implementing parental participation programs that enhance the classroom curriculum and effectively engage Latino students. Designed primarily for elementary and secondary school principals and teachers, this innovative text is also an indispensable resource for district-level administrators.
Author: Pedro Reyes
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 9780807738306
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 484
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Book Description
This practical volume provides school administrators and teachers with the information needed to convert ordinary schools into high performing schools. It offers practices for teachers and school principals to foster academic success, and strategies for involving parents in their child's education.
Author: Marlene Batista
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Research indicates that children do better academically when their parents are directly involved in their education, but parents of ethnically and linguistically diverse students fail to participate in schools at the same level as families from the dominant culture. Over the past 20 years a number of parental involvement programs have been attempted in an effort to be more inclusive of Latino families, but they have not had sustainable effects in engaging these parents in the school community. Parent mentoring programs, in which parent mentors are used to facilitate classes and create a bridge between the school and Latino parents, are a promising new practice for creating long-term, collaborative relationships between Latino parents and schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of Latino parents and administrators involved with a parent mentoring program in an effort to understand how these types of programs might create more collaborative relationships between Latino parents and schools. This ethnographic case study took place at two elementary schools in Sunnydays Unified School District, a pseudonym for a suburban K-12 district east of Los Angeles in Riverside County. The study used a purposeful sample of nine Latino parent mentors, 11 Latino parent participants, two site administrators, and one district level administrator all involved with the parent mentoring program at two school sites. Data was collected utilizing semi-structured individual interviews, observations and focus groups. The theoretical framework used for this study was Bourdieu's (1977) theory of social and cultural capital. The findings from this study showed that their lack of social and cultural capital in the dominant culture hindered Latino parents from getting involved in their children's school. Parent mentoring programs helped address such barriers as the fractured relationship between the Latino parents and the school through the use of parent mentors as a bridge of communication and support. Parent mentors also played the important roles of teachers, advocates, and role models for the other Latino parents at the schools. Data revealed that administrative support was an important factor in the success of the parent mentoring programs, but that site administrators had not received professional development on Project 2-INSPIRE and therefore had not informed or trained their staff about the program. Thus, despite the best efforts of the parent mentors, the program was never given the opportunity to bring about a true collaboration between all stakeholders. Insights from this study could be helpful to school districts interested in increasing Latino parental involvement and engagement, particularly those school districts hoping to move away from traditional parental involvement programs and toward a parent engagement approach. The study also sheds light on the need for Latino parental involvement programs to focus not just on increasing parents' cultural capital, but rather creating the environment that will increase their social capital. This study showed that the relationships and network built between the parent mentors and other less involved Latino parents was the major factor in the success of the program and the increased involvement of Latino parents at the school. Recommendations for policy and practice include replacing traditional forms of parent involvement with programs that include a parent mentoring component; training administrators and school staff in collaborative parent engagement strategies; create warm and welcoming environments at schools that foster and appreciate diversity; and creating a space specifically designated for families in the school run by a bilingual parent/community liaison who can help in bridging Latino parents to the school.
Author: Elva Hernandez Mora
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education, Elementary
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
The middle school level years demand critical attention in educational reform. Culturally diverse students in the United States show levels of academic achievement which are lower then those of other students. Children from oppressed minority groups often show high rates of dropping out as well as poor academic achievement. They are often profiled as students who are unmotivated and who have parents that are unresponsive to their growth and development in terms of educational attainment. However, this conception of poor academic achievement and lack of parental involvement is unfounded since research indicates that culturally diverse parents value education and have high standards for academic excellence in student performance. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that promote Hispanic parent involvement at the middle school level. A triangulation analysis was used as a guiding methodology for the development of a conceptual framework for a Hispanic parent involvement model at the middle school level. The triangulation analysis was accomplished through a methodological mix by using strategies that identified the factors that promoted Latino parent involvement at the middle school level. Three goals were achieved in the triangulation analysis: (1) the current review of the literature was studied in order to analyze successful parent involvement models for Latino parents; (2) interviews were conducted with expert panel members in the content area and analyzed to yield themes that emerged from the study; and (3) Mexican and Mexican American parents participated in focus group interviews. Mexican and Mexican American parents were interviewed concerning their needs in the development of a Hispanic parent involvement. A collaborative Hispanic parent involvement model was developed. The results of the study showed that in order to implement a Hispanic parent model at the middle level, there were critical themes which emerged including parent development, communication development, cognitive development, decision making, and social and cultural processes. These critical components used can be applied to culturally diverse parent typologies. The development of a collaborative model for Latino parents engages students, parents, and staff members to become active constituents and become empowered in a democratic participatory process. Mexican and Mexican American parents become change agents in socio-political and cultural contexts for systemic change in order to improve educational reform. Epstein's typology of "overlapping spheres of influence of family, school, community on children's learning" has major impact in school improvement and in the effectiveness of reaching out to parents in home-school collaboration. The results of the qualitative study indicated that in order to work effectively with culturally diverse parents, educators need to understand and be aware of the socio-political and cultural aspects of culture sensitivity, family values, language, belief system, and traditions. Culturally diverse parents are unique constituents that are powerful stakeholders in their children's education. The basic implications for this study are that the collaborative model may be used as a practical application model at the K-12 grade level, to understand adolescent development, to improve and increase parent participation, and to empower parents to be partners in education. This Hispanic model can be used as a formative evaluation to improve the instructional services to all constituents since the model will have a profound impact on parental participation and a direct influence on student achievement.
Author: Anabel Serrano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 53
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Book Description
Latino communities in the United States consistently lag behind other ethnic groups in educational achievement. One factor in achievement is the involvement of parents in the school environment, as research suggests a strong correlation between highly active parents at schools and high levels of achievement in children. Other studies indicate that Latino parents are less likely to be active participants in schools than their counterparts in other ethnic groups. These low rates of involvement are often attributed to chronic socioeconomic difficulties Latino communities encounter in the U.S., regardless of geography. This study hypothesizes that geography is a factor in the rates of school-based parental involvement among Latinos, specifically in terms of the distribution of these communities throughout the city of Los Angeles. The question motivating this research is whether or not rates of parental involvement for Latinos are related to the density of the Latino population in a given neighborhood. To pursue this ix question, rates of involvement among Latino parents in elementary schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District were examined, with a focus on neighborhoods where Latinos were the overwhelming majority, a clear minority, or an intermediate population. The results indicate the possibility of a specific geographic component to Latino parental involvement in elementary schools. There were higher rates of involvement among Latino parents when they were a clear minority or intermediate population compared to when they were an overwhelming majority. While this is an exploratory investigation, the findings indicate compelling geographic patterns worthy of expanded study.
Author: Arlene Cruz Galapia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hispanic American children
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
Author: David Campos
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 1416612726
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
Reaching Out to Latino Families of English Language Learners provides teachers with a wealth of tools and strategies for communicating with the parents of Latino English language learners and learning more about their communities.
