SAGE Journal Articles

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Fults, R. C. & Harry, B. (2012). Combining Family Centeredness and Diversity in Early Childhood Teacher Training Programs. Teacher Education and Special Education: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children, (35)1, 27-48.

Family-centered care and responsiveness to diversity are issues of great import for early childhood special education teachers. Nevertheless, the research for these related areas is divided throughout the field. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a master’s-level course designed to integrate instruction in family-centered care and diversity responsiveness. In this study, the authors briefly outline the key issues in the intersection of family-centered practice and collaboration with culturally and linguistically diverse families, offer a review of how these issues have been addressed in teacher preparation programs, and provide a description and three-tiered evaluation of this particular course. The authors aim to provide useful information on the potential of such a course for positive attitude change. Results indicate that students saw the course as having a positive effect on their understanding of issues regarding family-centered practice and diversity responsiveness.

Kremer-Sadlik, T. & Fatigante, M. (2015). Investing in children’s future: Cross-cultural perspectives and ideologies on parental involvement in educationChildhood, (22)1, 67-84.

Drawing on two ethnographic studies of everyday middle-class family life in Los Angeles and Rome, this cross-cultural study examines parents’ practices of and beliefs about involvement in children’s education. It analyzes parents’ interviews and naturalistic video recordings of parent–child interactions at home to access parents’ perspectives on and ways of enacting involvement in school-related activities. Findings indicate that while the LA and Rome parents engaged in similar practices, their involvement in their children’s education was experienced differently and motivated by different assumptions. The article argues that differences in parents’ perceptions and practices reflect and reproduce marked cultural preferences and expectations within the local education systems and reveal distinct ideologies regarding childhood. Drawing on Halldén, the study proposes that LA parents tended to treat childhood as a period of ‘preparation’ for adulthood where there is more deliberate shaping of a child’s path, displaying a belief that children’s future much depends on present actions. Rome parents tended to view their child less as a project that they needed to work on, leaving room for children’s autonomy and freedom. Finally, the study argues that the examination of local sociocultural and institutional contexts offers a more comprehensive and situated interpretation of Italian and US parents’ choices and actions.

Lowenhaupt, R. (2014). School Access and Participation: Family Engagement Practices in the New Latino DiasporaEducation and Urban Society, (46)5, 522-547.

This article describes how schools shape family engagement practices in the context of the New Latino Diaspora. Building on critical scholarship that has called for more culturally appropriate definitions of family engagement, this study seeks to develop a theoretical understanding of how school practices influence immigrant families’ access to and participation in schools with little tradition of serving immigrant communities. Drawing on a statewide survey of practice in schools serving the New Latino Diaspora in Wisconsin, analysis includes descriptive statistics and textual analysis of survey comments from school principals and teachers working with immigrant students. Findings illustrate how considerable efforts to ensure access to Spanish-speaking families through interpretation and translation fall short of increasing family participation in key aspects of schooling. Given the influx of immigrants to new destinations across the United States, this work offers important insight into how schools receive newcomers in these contexts and identifies implications for research and practice.