Session Information
10 SES 01 D, Preparing Pre-School Teachers for Family School Partnerships: International perspectives
Symposium
Contribution
We know from decades of research that effective home-school relationships are important for students’ well-being, academic achievement and socio-behavioural development (Desforges and Abouchaar 2003; Castro et al. 2015; Epstein 2013; Jeynes 2007; Uludag 2008), yet teachers - and in particular preservice teachers - rarely feel sufficiently prepared for this task. Several studies indicate that initial teacher education (ITE) programmes struggle to address issues of family-school partnerships (FSP) (Epstein and Sanders 2006; Epstein 2013; Evans 2013; Willemse et al. 2016). As a result of these concerns we assessed, as part of a wider project, to what extent national ITE frameworks in seven European countries enabled or constrained effective FSP preparation for preservice teachers. Our data, drawn from document analysis and national surveys, suggests that, despite the importance officially attributed to FSP at both governmental and ITE institutional levels, no single country presents a satisfactory picture in terms of FSP provision within their ITE programmes or in the extent to which preservice teachers are prepared to deal with the issue. Regardless of the existence (or not) of a national curriculum and variations, both in terms of legally-required competences and the amount of attention given to FSP in ITE programmes, it appears that simply making FSP compulsory is not the solution. Nor do national frameworks, in themselves, really appear to shape and direct the provision offered. Essentially FSP preparation still seems to depend upon the proclivities and expertise of individual teacher educators.
This symposium will consider the similarities and differences in four different settings, three selected from the wider project and focussing on individual country contexts within Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and England) and the fourth drawing on a wider international perspective ( a related study from the United States of America).
The overarching research questions for the symposium are:
i. what is the impact of ITE frameworks on FSP preparation for preservice teachers and
ii. what specific approaches are being adopted internationally to address the needs of preservice teachers in this area?
The papers being presented will address questions such as:
· what are the particular features of FSP provision in the four country-specific contexts?
· to what extent does curriculum development in relation to FSP follow policy initiatives or the interests of individual programme planners?
· what initiatives are currently being undertaken and what is their effect?
· what future direction might FSP provision for preservice teachers take?
The symposium discussant will be invited to comment on what common themes emerge from these cases and what might be the reasons for any differences.
References
Castro, M., Expósito-Casas, E., López-Martín, E., Lizasoain, L., Navarro-Asencio, E., & Gaviria, J. L. 2015. Parental involvement on student academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 14, 33-46. Desfourges, C., and Abouchaar, A. 2002. The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education on Pupil Achievements and Adjustment: A Literature Review. Nottingham: Department for Education and Skills. Epstein, J. L. 2013. Ready or not? Preparing future educators for school, family, and community partnerships. Teaching Education 24: 115–118. Epstein, J. L., and Sanders, M. 2006. Prospects for change: Preparing educators for school, family, and community partnerships. Peabody Journal of Education 81: 81–120. Evans, M. P. 2013. Educating pre-service teachers for family, school and community engagement. Teaching Education 24: 123–133. Jeynes, W. H. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relation of parent involvement to urban elementary school student academic achievement. Urban Education 40 (3): 237–269. Uludag, A. 2008. Elementary preservice teachers’ opinions about parental involvement in elementary children's education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(3), 807-817. Willemse, T.M., Vloeberghs, L., de Bruïne, E.J. and Van Eynde, S. 2016. Preparing teachers for family-school partnerships: A Dutch and Belgium perspective. Teaching Education 27 (2): 212-228.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.