Handbook of School-Family Partnerships

Family-school partnerships are increasingly touted as a means of improving both student and school improvement. This recognition has led to an increase in policies and initiatives that offer the following benefits: improved communication between parents and educators; home and school goals that are mutually supportive and shared; better understanding of the complexities impinging on children’s development; and pooling of family and school resources to find and implement solutions to shared goals. This is the first comprehensive review of what is known about the effects of home-school partnerships on student and school achievement. It provides a brief history of home-school partnerships, presents evidence-based practices for working with families across developmental stages, and provides an agenda for future research and policy. Key features include: provides comprehensive, cross-disciplinary coverage of theoretical issues and research concerning family-school partnerships. describes those aspects of school-family partnerships that have been adequately researched and promotes their implementation as evidence-based interventions. charts cutting-edge research agendas & methods for exploring school-family partnerships. charts the implications such research has for training, policy and practice especially regarding educational disparities.This book is appropriate for researchers, instructors, and graduate students in the following areas: school counseling, school psychology, educational psychology, school leadership, special education, and school social work. It is also appropriate for the academic libraries serving these audiences.

"This is a valuable compilation of writings highlighting the conceptual, empirical, historical, and practical issues related to involving families in children’s education and advancing the associated research agenda....if the ideas in the Handbook are implemented, school-family partnerships will be more cohesive, more affirming, and-most importantly-more effective in propelling children to greater academic success." - The School Community Journal"The editors and contributors address many of the questions, tensions, and controversies in contemporary early childhood education through the synthesis of research in developmental science. A powerful overall theme framed by the editors and echoed by the contributors is that science and education would be served well by more and better engagement; educators would more effectively support children's learning with better understanding of child development theory and research, and researchers would be more adept at defining and studying problems when informed by children in classrooms. This recommendation is more than abstract, however, as each chapter contains specific recommendations based on research evidence....Researchers, graduate students, teacher preparation faculty, and administrators of educational systems would likely appreciate and benefit from what the Handbook has to offer." - Julia Torquati, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 3, May-June 2010 , "This is a valuable compilation of writings highlighting the conceptual, empirical, historical, and practical issues related to involving families in children’s education and advancing the associated research agenda....if the ideas in the Handbook are implemented, school-family partnerships will be more cohesive, more affirming, and-most importantly-more effective in propelling children to greater academic success." - The School Community Journal"The editors and contributors address many of the questions, tensions, and controversies in contemporary early childhood education through the synthesis of research in developmental science. A powerful overall theme framed by the editors and echoed by the contributors is that science and education would be served well by more and better engagement; educators would more effectively support children's learning with better understanding of child development theory and research, and researchers would be more adept at defining and studying problems when informed by children in classrooms. This recommendation is more than abstract, however, as each chapter contains specific recommendations based on research evidence....Researchers, graduate students, teacher preparation faculty, and administrators of educational systems would likely appreciate and benefit from what the Handbook has to offer." - Julia Torquati, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 3, May-June 2010

Sandra L. Christenson is Birkmaier Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Minnesota.Amy L. Reschly is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology & Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia.