(Re)framing teachers’ family engagement practice as cultural work

ABSTRACT

Family engagement in children’s learning is an evidence-based approach supporting student learning. This study examines four primary school teachers’ family engagement practice, within a non-dominant community. Utilising the framework of Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), the teachers examined their partnerships with families, identifying barriers to family engagement. The teachers began to act as cultural workers as they changed their homework practice to strengthen non-dominant families’ connection to their children’s school learning. Through the theory of practice architectures, the teachers’ language (sayings), activities and resources (doings) and relationships (relatings) with families were considered. Data were collected through transcripts from reflective practice meetings, reflective practice tools and semi-structured interviews undertaken throughout the CPAR process. The theory of practice architectures underpinned data analysis, identifying practice conditions which support teachers to (re)frame family engagement as cultural work. The resulting practice framework scaffolds how schools can critically examine their own family engagement practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Family engagement
• primary school
• teachers as cultural workers
• critical participatory action research (CPAR)
• theory of practice architectures (TPA)

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the school and teachers for their participation in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was granted for the study from Deakin University Ethics Committee (HAE-17-018; granted 21/2/17) and from the Victorian Department of Education and Training (2017_003301; granted 23/3/17).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.