Toward equitable family engagement: Using professional learning to impact teachers' beliefs and practices amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Leigh Ann Alford-Keith (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Brandi N. Hinnant-Crawford
Abstract: Family engagement is crucial to academic achievement. However, family engagement practices in schools are inequitable and do not reach Families of Color. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed both further inequities in education and an undoubtedly critical need to partner with all families for student success. This improvement science initiative was designed to address four critical causes of inequitable family engagement practices in an urban district: limited training for educators on family engagement, a narrow school-centric definition of engagement, deficit beliefs that educators hold about families, and lack of trust between families and schools. To address these causal factors, the scholar-practitioner conducted a professional learning a cohort of educators from Title I Elementary schools. Focus groups and interviews with teachers and families, combined with a weekly practical measure, provided for qualitative and quantitative analyses of the initiative. The immediate aim of the initiative was that family engagement activities implemented by the teachers will reach more Families of Color. The ultimate aim was to increase partnership between schools and Families of Color to allow schools to better serve Students of Color and reduce opportunity gaps. Educator feedback shows that the professional learning was beneficial in expanding their definition of family engagement, providing training in making family engagement activities more equitable, positively impacting their beliefs about families, and promoting trust between the educator participants and the families they work with. Families feedback indicate that more work is to be done to construct equitable partnerships that allow them input on school improvement and decision-making.
Toward equitable family engagement: Using professional learning to impact teachers' beliefs and practices amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
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Created on 3/1/2022
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2022
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, equity, family engagement, improvement science
- Subjects
- Academic achievement
- Equality
- COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
- Racial justice