Closing the "word gap" between families and schools: An interpretation of perceptions on family engagement in preparing students for the future

Family engagement presents a myriad of perceptions from the different stakeholders in a school district. Researchers and practitioners have longed struggles over abandoning deficit perspectives that view family engagement in... [ view full abstract ]

Family engagement presents a myriad of perceptions from the different stakeholders in a school district. Researchers and practitioners have longed struggles over abandoning deficit perspectives that view family engagement in preparing students for the future as primarily programmatic. Rather, family engagement in preparing students for the 21^st century should be seen as a process. It is a platform where all stakeholders share a partnership and recognize that each play a vital role. More attention must, however, be given to ways in which stakeholders, especially families, are perceived as engaged so as to develop further investment in the educational process.

This research used a case study design. Through semi-structured interviews, observations, and document review, the results of the study revealed that families perceived their engagement as occurring all the time outside of the school context and in various forms. However, family engagement was perceived and defined differently by teachers, principals and other administrators. Additionally, the results revealed that while families may encounter barriers to being engaged in programs at the school level, they still had high aspirations for their children to be successful regardless of age of children, ethnicity or socio-economic status. An element of surprise in the findings was that families had low regards for programming around postsecondary and workforce readiness.

As stakeholders in the schools and school districts begin to understand and value the multiple representations of engagement, they will begin to co-construct meaningful partnerships that support postsecondary and workforce readiness for all students. Even though the term family engagement has circulated for many years, and there is a tendency to think that this may be just another buzz phrase, the terminology has broad implications. It is therefore imperative that the thinking expands by moving from parent involvement terminology to family engagement in order to build the capacity of families, schools, and school districts. By doing so, educational practices will become more inclusive and will begin to place value on all family members engaged in the educational and postsecondary process of students while retaining respect and trust in the roles of administrators and teachers. Educational practices will also realize that families continue to play a key role in students’ levels of preparation for postsecondary pathways regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education or cultural backgrounds.