Family, school, community engagement, and partnerships: an area of continued inquiry and growth

Abstract

This article responds to the theme issue by providing a glimpse of the historical and contemporary efforts in the area of developing school, family, and community partnerships, a long-standing area of need and inquiry in the literature. It reports on the collective learning from these articles where implications of the findings pointed to the importance of elevating the importance of these partnerships. Implementation ideas of strong family, school, and community partnerships are considered along with areas that require continued attention including, but not limited to providing professional development learning opportunities, inviting voices from all stakeholders involved, shifting the paradigm of family and community involvement from a deficit model to a resource-rich model, and promoting a more free flowing sharing of research-based practices between the research community and those who are in the frontlines of these partnerships.

Keywords:

• family
• school
• community partnerships
• family involvement
• community involvement