Building Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships

Description

The second edition contains updated research and resources, as well as a deepened coverage of timely topics important to teachers today, including the challenges and strategies involved with each. The authors have increased content related to: greater crisis intervention, the effects of poverty on families and schools, child maltreatment and family violence, and collaborating with families.

• New Expanded coverage of the differing ways in which families respond to crises and the crisis intervention practices that educators can use. The new content in this edition will equip education professionals with the information, concrete strategies, and helpful resources needed when dealing with students and families who are experiencing significant crises that need special support. This information can be found in Chapter 5.

• New First-person stories depict families and their influence on children’s learning through a strength-based perspective. Readers will learn how to work effectively with culturally diverse families, challenging the deficit perspective often characterizing these families, and instead view these unique families through a strength-based framework. Please see Chapter 4 for this new information.

• New Content on the effects of poverty in children, their families, and schools. Chapter 6 helps readers gain a greater awareness of the overt and covert impacts of poverty on family-school relations.

• New Expanded coverage of early childhood family-school collaboration challenges and practices. Readers will gain an authentic perspective on how practitioners modify family-school collaboration practices to accommodate the varying levels of understanding of very young children and their families. Found throughout the text in this edition.

• New Deepened coverage of child maltreatment and family violence, the impact on children, and relevant intervention strategies. This new content will prepare educators in their need to know how to respond to child maltreatment and the possible resources available to respond effectively. Featured in Chapter 13.

• New Additional reflective exercises designed to allow readers to examine their own personal beliefs about families and their reactions to the text content. These reflective exercises help beginning professionals relate what they are learning from the key concepts in the text to themselves and their current practice, and to enhance their critical thinking skills. An increased understanding of the changes necessary to promote collaboration with families hopefully will be achieved as well. Every chapter in this edition features the reflective exercises.

• New Suggested activities and questions at the end of every chapter further anchor readers’ understanding of chapter concepts. Featured in every chapter.

• New Updated resources, including information on key organizations or websites allow readers to gain further information from innovative practitioners working with children and their families. Located in every chapter.

• Each chapter contains updated references and figures on the latest research and changing family and community demographics in the United States. These updated references synthesize the most current research data for the reader. Found in every chapter.

• Reflective Exercises.  Reflect upon and challenge yourpreconceived beliefs and assumptionsabout your involvement with families . To promote and increase awarenessof the attitude shift necessary to promote collaboration with families, reflective exercises are found in every chapter .

• Instructional methods to help link students’ home and school worlds include the presentation of authentic families, first-person accounts,and their influence on childhood learning through a strength-based framework .

• Case Studies provide an insight intocommon situations teachers are faced with daily . Case Studies, appearing in Parts 3 and 4, portray the common situations that educators face in which they interact with families, the emotional reactions, and a range of effective responses to each situation.

• Research-based strategies are included for avertingthe blaming endemic to many family-school interactions . In Chapter 11, the managing the conflict section gives great description to these useful strategies.

• Pedagogical tools support the reader, reinforce student learning, and aid in exam preparation. Pedagogical features include glossary terms, discussion questions, and suggested readings.

PART I Changing Family–School Roles and Relationships

Chapter 1 Connecting with Families: A Nice or a Necessary Practice?

Chapter 2 From Separation to Collaboration: The Changing Paradigms of Family–School Relations

Chapter 3 Building Culturally Responsive Family–School Partnerships: Essential Beliefs, Strategies, and Skills

PART II Understanding Families in Their Sociocultural Context

Chapter 4 From Family Deficit to Family Strength: Examining How Families Influence Children’s Development and School Success

Chapter 5 Understanding Family Stress and Change

Chapter 6 Equal Access, Unequal Resources: Appreciating Cultural, Social, and Economic Diversity in Families

Chapter 7 Understanding the Impact Communities Have on Children’s Learning

PART III Building Family–School Relationships to Maximize Student Learning

Chapter 8 Getting Acquainted with Students’ Families

Chapter 9 Using Families’ Ways of Knowing to Enhance Teaching and Student Learning

Chapter 10 Fostering Student and Family Engagement in Learning Through Student-Led Parent Conferences

PART IV Building Relationships Through Joint Decision Making and Problem Solving

Chapter 11 Engaging in Collaborative Problem Solving with Families

Chapter 12 Family-Centered Parent Involvement and Shared Decision Making in Special Education Classrooms

Chapter 13 Creating a Support Network for Families in Crisis

Chapter 14 Seeing the Big Picture: Creating a School Climate That

Strengthens Family–School Connections

For the Parents/Home-School Relations or Foundations of Home-School Relations courses in Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education.

In the context of the shifting demographic context of schooling in the United States, this research-based text examines how families, schools, and communities interact to influence children’s school success. Amatea’s collaborative paradigm, first-person accounts, case studies, and self-reflection exercises provide a contemporary choice for courses in family-school relations.

Taking into account economic and cultural diversity as well as exceptionality, Building Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships presents a collaborative approach for working with all students’ families to promote learning and resolve problems throughout the early childhood and elementary school years. The underlying premise is that teachers who embrace and adapt to shifting realities can work toward true partnerships between culturally diverse communities and the schools that serve them.

Grounded in research, this textbook balances theory and application by linking conceptual issues to practical methods in-service and pre-service educators can use–advising them how to take on the often intimidating, yet vital process of forging connections with families by describing specific culturally responsive instructional and non-instructional practices to build relationships characterized by trust, cooperation and motivation.

Amatea’s collaborative paradigm, first-person stories, case studies and self-reflection exercises set it apart from other textbooks on the market. It is an essential resource for all school-based practitioners, including teachers, school administrators, school counselors, and special education consultants.

A unique text with a fresh perspective: a successful collaborative approach.

Amatea’s collaborative paradigm, first-person accounts, case studies, and self-reflection exercises set it apart from the competition.

Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships, Second Edition, offers education professionals a collaborative approach for working with all students’ families—those from economic or culturally diverse backgrounds, and exceptional needs students as well—to promote learning and resolve problems throughout the early childhood and elementary school years. Beginning with a complete look at the shifting demographic context of schooling in the United States, this stellar text examines how families, schools, and communities interact to influence children’s school success. The text not only instructs but proves that educators and practitioners who embrace and adapt to shifting realities can work toward true partnerships between culturally diverse communities and the schools that serve them.

The second edition contains updated research and resources, as well as a deepened coverage of timely topics important to teachers today, including: crisis intervention strategies, the effects of poverty on families and schools, child maltreatment and family violence, and collaborating with families.

Hallmarks of the text include:

• Offers culturally-responsive instructional and non-instructional practices characterized by trust, cooperation and motivation for building stronger family-school relationships to help all children succeed in school demystify the often daunting process for educators.
• Research-based, it balances theory and application by linking key concepts with practical methods.
• Considers not only economic and cultural diversity, but exceptionalities as well.
• Reflective exercises in every chapter encourage future educators to examine their personal beliefs and assumptions about involvement with families and gain increased awareness of changes necessary to promote collaboration with families.
•   First-person stories in every chapter present families and their influence on childhood learning through a strength-based framework .
• Case Studies, appearing in Parts 3 and 4, provide insights into common scenarios in which educators interact with families, along with effective responses to these situations.

Ellen S. Amatea is a professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida. She is a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist, and maintains a private practice specializing in counseling children and adolescents and their families. She has authored two books, Brief Strategic Intervention for School Behavior Problems and The Yellow Brick Road: A Career Guidance Program for Elementary School Counselors and Teachers, and co-authored a third book, Love and Intimate Relationships, written chapters for other books, and written over fifty articles. Dr. Amatea’s research interests include: the process and outcomes of family involvement for the development of children and youth, particularly culturally and economically marginalized children and families; interventions for child and adolescent behaviors problems; and the preparation of educators to collaborate with families in the education of their children. Prior to arriving at the University of Florida, she was a school counselor and a vocational rehabilitation counselor specializing in working with low-income youth with special needs. Dr. Amatea teaches graduate courses in school counseling and marriage and family counseling. In addition, she teaches an undergraduate course in teacher education on family and community involvement in education.

Contributing authors to the second edition include: Linda Behar-Horenstein, Professor of Educational Administration & Policy at the University of Florida; Mary Ann Clark, Professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida; Maria R. Coady, Associate Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida; Kelly L. Dolan, university-school assistant professor at the P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida; Silvia Echevarria-Doan is an associate professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida; Heather L. Hanney, private practice of family therapy; Crystal Ladwig, assistant professor, St.Leo University; Teresa Leibforth; Sondra Smith-Adcock, associate professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida; Catherine Tucker, assistant professor of Counseling at Indiana State University; Franes Vandiver, Director of P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida; Cirecie West-Olatunji, Associate Professor of Counselor Education at the P,K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida.

Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships, Second Edition, is a unique text with a fresh perspective. It presents a successful collaborative approach for working with all students’ families to promote learning and resolve problems throughout the early childhood and elementary school years. The underlying premise is that teachers who embrace and adapt to shifting realities can work toward true partnerships between culturally diverse communities and the schools that serve them. Taking into account economic and cultural diversity as well as exceptionality, the text thoroughly describes culturally-responsive instructional and non-instructional practices that educators can use to build family-school relationships characterized by trust, cooperation and motivation to help all children succeed in school. Grounded in research, this book balances theory and application by discussing conceptual issues and linking them to methods educators can use–making it an essential resource for all school-based practitioners, including school administrators, school counselors, and special education consultants.