Studies

Australian Research conducted by the Family-School & Community Partnerships Bureau.

Parent engagement in children's learning

Parents As Partners In Indigenous Children’s Learning

Parental Engagement In Learning And Schooling: Lessons From Research

Survey Of Australian Parents

What Parents Say About Teachers, Schools And Family-School Partnerships

Parent Engagement Research Abstracts

A Qualitative and Quantitative Study

Effective Partnerships in Practice

Additional Australian research

How to Engage Parents – and How to Evaluate that Engagement
A background information and discussion paper for MindMatters “Health Promotion & Evaluation in School Settings” Seminar, Canberra, 27-28 July 2006. By Mrs Jo Lonergan AM, Senior Research Officer, Australian Parents Council & National Director, Families Matter.

Engaging With Parents, Families and Community: The Why and How of Effective and Sustainable Partnerships
A background information and discusssion paper for MindMatters “Health Promotion & Evaluation in School Settings” Seminar, Canberra, 27-28 July 2006. By Rupert Macgregor, Manager, Families Matter

Home, School and Community Partnerships to Support Children’s Numeracy
The federal Department of Education, Science and Training commissioned the University of Queensland to conduct a national research project to explore the links between home, school and community that support students’ numeracy development. Goos, Lincoln, Coco et al for the Numeracy Research and Development Initiative (2004).

Exploring the Dynamics of Effective and Innovative Family-School and Community Partnerships across Australia
A paper to the European Research Network About Parents in Education Conference in Oviedo, Spain on 16 September 2005 by Rupert Macgregor, National Project Manager “Families Matter” Initiative.

Families Matter: Working as Partners
A paper to the Tasmanian Parents & Friends Conference in Launceston on 20 August 2005 by Rupert Macgregor, National Project Manager “Families Matter” Initiative.

Families in Partnership: A Force More Powerful
A paper to the Parents Victoria Conference in Melbourne On 24 August 2005 by Rupert Macgregor, National Project Manager, “Families Matter” Initiative.

Professional Development for Family-School Partnerships: Revaluing Both Sides of the Coin
A discussion paper about the complementary developmental needs of both educators and parents as effective partners.

Why Families Matter!
A paper presented to the SAASSO Conference in Reynella SA on 28 May 2005 by Rupert Macgregor, National Project Manager, “Families Matter” Initiative.

An Analysis Of Parental Engagement In Contemporary Queensland Schooling
This thesis examines an instance of the failure of a parent-led bid for a new local school in Queensland at the end of the last millennium.
This parent-led and school-endorsed initiative failed despite a policy climate that appeared actively to encourage such initiatives from government funded school communities, (2006).

Parents And Schools In Partnership
Parents and teachers have more influence than peers: A University of Sydney study has found that getting on well with parents and teachers has a strong positive influence on adolescents’ academic outcomes – and a bigger influence than getting on with peers.=, (2009).

Social And Emotional Wellbeing Indicators Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth: Why is there so little nationally and internationally comparable data on the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people? How can Australia begin to benchmark the wellbeing of its own children and young people without such basic information?

International Research

Family Engagement in Positive Behavioural and Intervention Supports

(2017) Enhancing progress for meaningful Family Engagement in all aspects of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and Multi-Tiered Systems of support.

The Family Engagement Partnership: Student outcome evaluation

(2015) A new study links improvements in the performance of D.C. public elementary school students with Flamboyan Foundation’s Family Engagement Partnership, or FEP, where teachers and school leaders are trained and supported to build trusting relationships with the families of their students and to partner with families to support their children’s academic success. The study, by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, covered 12 D.C. public elementary schools and more than 4,000 students in the 2013-2014 school year. It found that students whose families received a home visit, one of the core strategies in the FEP, had 24 percent fewer absences and were more likely to read at or above grade level compared to similar students who did not receive a home visit.

Family engagement anywhere, anytime

Children learn anywhere, anytime. These learning experiences outside of K–12 schooling—whether online or offline or in early childhood centers, after school programs, summer camps, libraries or museums—give children the skills and experiences they need to develop to be successful in school and life. M. Elena Lopez, Margaret Caspe Harvard Family Research Project

Organizing schools for improvement
Research on Chicago school improvement indicates that improving elementary schools requires coherent, orchestrated action across five essential supports by Anthony S. Bryk. (2010).

Seeing Is Believing
Seeing is Believing: Promising Practices for How School Districts Promote Family Engagement spotlights how six school districts across the USA have used innovative strategies to create and sustain family engagement “systems at work”.
Their findings point to three core components of these successful systems:

• creating district-wide strategies
• building school capacity, and
• reaching out to and engaging families, (2009).

From Periphery To Center: A New Vision For Family, School, And Community
Written by Harvard Family Research Project’s Heather Weiss and Naomi Stephen, this chapter—which will appear in the Handbook of School–Family Partnerships, edited by Sandy Christenson, Ph.D. and Amy Reschley, Ph.D.—presents a comprehensive, integrated family, school, and community partnership framework that can help level the playing field for disadvantaged children and ensure that they have access to the parental involvement and community engagement practices of their more advantaged peers in order to enhance their learning, (2009).

Parent Engagement: Creating a Shared World
Debbie Pushor Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan, presented to the Ontario Education Research Symposium. Parents, feeling marginalized by the professional boundaries drawn around the school, seek ways to establish a voice and a place for themselves on the school landscape, (2007).

Partnerships in Learning: in the Interests of Children, Benefiting All
“This paper reviews the nature and scope of out of school learning, focussing upon the home as a learning milieu, and considers the complementarity of home and school-based learning”. By Professor Sheila Wolfendale, University of East London, (2007).

Effective Family Engagement in Children’s Literacy Skills Development: New Zealand – The Best Evidence
Literacy skills problems can deeply affect young people’s confidence and well-being; the New Zealand research shows families matter most of all here, from as early as possible, (2005).

Parental Involvement in Children’s Education
A survey of parents and carers of children aged 5-16 attending schools, in order to assess parents’ and carer’s levels of involvement of their children’s education – following an earlier survey carried out in 2001. Nick Moon & Claire Ivins: UK Dept for Education & Skills (2004).

The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parent Support and Family Education on Pupil Achievements and Adjustment: A Literature Review
A review of English language literature to explore research findings on the relationship between parental involvement and student achievement and adjustment in schools. Charles Deforges & Alberto Abouchaar, UK Dept for Education & Skills (2003).

A Vision of Home-School Partnership: Three complementary conceptual frameworks
Presented at the ERNAPE Conference (2001). By Dr Rollande Deslandes, Professor at the Universite du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada.