Special issue of Educational Review titled "Asset-based parent engagement in education: Reimagining partnerships between parents and educators"
Team
Dr Max Antony-Newman (Lead)
CenTCS
University of Glasgow
Professor Brianna L. Kennedy
CenTCS
University of Glasgow
Abstract
Parent engagement in children’s education is seen as crucial for the academic achievement, social wellbeing, and sense of belonging of students from early years to the end of secondary school and well into the undergraduate years. Policymakers have been encouraging parents to be engaged more in their children’s education, participate in school choice, and help increase academic achievement at the local and national levels. Prior research shows that parent engagement is not a neutral practice but is shaped by social inequality in education and society in general. As a result, the engagement practices of parents from socioeconomically, culturally, and racially dominant groups (intensive parenting, school-centric involvement including fundraising and school governance) provide better returns on investment for this group of parents. On the other hand, parents with working-class, racialised, and immigrant backgrounds, and parents of children with additional support needs are seen through a deficit lens, “hard to reach” or “uninvolved.” Parents in this group have to participate in advocacy work and show leadership to ensure that their children receive the education they deserve. Deficit approaches to parents are present in diverse education systems, although they take distinct forms based on historical, political, and cultural contexts. They are especially evident in settings where parents are seen as passive recipients of information and guidance, rather than active partners in the education of their children. To counterbalance the widespread deficit view of parents, this special issue calls for submissions that will help to foreground an asset-based approach to parent engagement, where parents and families are seen as capable actors in children’s education, their strengths highlighted, and funds of knowledge built on to ensure inclusive and socially just education for all students.
Keywords
parent engagement; asset-based approaches; funds of knowledge; community cultural wealth