Christine M. McWayne – författare

How can we close opportunity gaps for young children affected by poverty and systemic racism—and build hope and resilience for children and their families? Research points the way forward, and in this timely volume, 40+ leading researchers identify new approaches, insights, and technologies that can promote educational equity and improve outcomes for children and families living in poverty.Building on the seminal work of researcher John Fantuzzo, this book focuses on identifying and expanding on child, family, and community strengths to address the urgent needs of the whole child and the whole family. The expert contributors examine the importance of 1) child-level strengths and social connections, 2) strengths-based intervention as an antidote to deficit framing, and 3) collaboration and data sharing across systems serving vulnerable children and families.Chapters cover research and recommendations for:implementing interventions that foster children’s social-emotional learning skillsdeveloping culturally and linguistically valid tools for measuring social-emotional developmentcreating more culturally inclusive preschool classrooms and practicesenhancing young children’s communication and language competence in home visiting programsusing partnership-based approaches to strengthen understanding between home and school settingsintegrating data across programs and agencies to inform early childhood policy and better address complex social issuesIn addition to reporting on current research projects, the contributors outline future priorities and explore how research can inform policy and practice to achieve positive, sustainable change. A foundational volume for current and future early childhood researchers, administrators, and policy makers, this forward-thinking book will light the path toward greater educational equity, reduced disparities, and better outcomes for children and families.

This book explores family-school partnerships and how they can be most effectively leveraged to ensure academic success for students from socioculturally diverse backgrounds. It presents an innovative framework for building collaborative learning partnerships with culturally diverse families, for improved student achievement and more meaningful ties between schools and their communities. It promotes understanding of familial and communal knowledge and recognizing families’ resilience in addressing academic, social, and linguistic barriers. Chapters reimagine family-school partnerships within a context of shared power and authority, examine a spectrum of interventions that support culture-based modes of learning, and emphasize the potential for transformative learning to occur when students’ out-of-school lives are understood and meaningfully leveraged in school. Chapters also discuss how to foster bridges between parents and teachers, provide teachers with access to the rich cognitive and cultural resources of families, and enable all parties to begin viewing families as truly equal partners in children’s education. The book concludes with a commentary chapter that identifies necessary areas for further research.Topics featured in this volume include:The contribution of racial and ethnic socialization to family-school partnerships during early childhood.Fathers and their role in family-school partnerships.The importance of Indigenous family engagement in systems of education.Home-school partnerships and mixed-status immigrant families in the United States.Family-school partnership research with the migrant and seasonal farm working community.The role of humility in working with families across international contexts.Interventions that promote home-to-school links.Ethnocultural Diversity and the Home-to-School Link is a must-have resource for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in education, child and school psychology, educational policy and politics, family studies, developmental psychology, sociology of education, and anthropology.