Abandoning a discourse of poverty to develop equitable educational practices through family school partnerships

ABSTRACT

A discourse of poverty can influence teachers’ perceptions towards and ways of supporting parents’ engagement in their children’s learning. In 2021, Goodall invited us to examine the discourse surrounding a culture of poverty and seek ways to engage with parents so that we might dismantle systemic inequities. This study explored four primary school teachers’ consideration of how they could adapt their own practices to strengthen families’ engagement in their children’s learning. Data collection incorporated transcripts from reflective practice meetings and semi-structured interviews utilised throughout a two-cycle process of Critical Participatory Action Research. The theory of practice architectures framed analysis of the teachers’ language (sayings), activities (doings) and relationships (relatings) within parent engagement and the specific conditions which support and hinder practice. Within this study the participating teachers perceived that parent engagement is more achievable in a dominant community. Within the nondominant community where the teachers worked, social and cultural factors were perceived to problematise parent engagement. This paper advocates for schools to routinely embed reflexive practices which support teachers to examine and address systemic impediments to parent engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Parent engagement
• Family engagement
• Critical participatory action research

Introduction

In contemplating ways in which a culture of poverty influences approaches to parental engagement in children’s learning, Goodall (2021a) invites researchers, practitioners and policy makers to critically examine how and why this discourse features within education. Indeed, to wonder about what and whose purpose is served by perpetuation of a culture of poverty. Through such an inquiry, scrutiny of social, cultural and political contexts underpinning schools’ parent engagement practices is crucial to understanding how educational policies, practices and processes might be implemented in ways which empower rather than problematise parents (Goodall, 2021a). As a lead academic in the field of parent engagement both within the UK and globally, Goodall’s extensive publications provide schools with a strong evidence-base from which to approach family school partnerships (Goodall, 2018a, 2018b, 2021a, 2021b, 2022; Goodall & Montgomery, 2014). This paper specifically responds to Goodall’s (2021a) theorisation of a culture of poverty, by using research data to explore how teachers’ deficit-based views of families influence family engagement practices.

This study focuses on four primary school teachers’ Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) (Kemmis et al., 2014) inquiry about how to strengthen families’ engagement in their children’s learning. The teachers’ school served primarily nondominant students, herein defined as students whose cultural and linguistic, socio-economic or immigration status undermined their access to education supports more readily available to students from higher socio-economic and monocultural backgrounds (Mapp & Bergman, 2021). This paper examines a finding that the participating teachers believed it to be easier to engage dominant parents (for example, affluent English language speakers) in their children’s learning, rather than nondominant parents (for example, low-income non-English language speakers). In considering the teachers’ initial hypothesis and the way it changed though the CPAR experience, this paper explores how schools can be supported to understand and respond to educational inequity rather than perceiving parent and family factors to be fixed barriers to families’ engagement in their children’s learning. Through such discussion this paper responds to Goodall’s (2021a) question, “how can we support parents to engage with learning – and others to engage with parents – in ways that challenge, if not dismantle, systemic inequities?” (p. 108).

Australia, like many developed nations world-wide, continues to experience inequitable education outcomes for students within nondominant communities (Chzhen et al., 2018; Council, 2019). Systemic responses to educational inequity tend to assume that nondominant communities are the primary sites for redress, rather than investigating dysfunction within the education, social and political systems serving these communities (Goodall, 2021a; Gorski, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 2006). Accordingly, education reform measures can fail to address perceptions of low family engagement within nondominant communities, overlooking ways in which schools and the wider education system contribute to issues within these family school partnerships (Goodall, 2021b).

Dialogue contemplating a culture of poverty is extensive within academic writing, encompassing debate about whether a discourse which labels low socio-economic communities with generic features, serves to liberate or further repress those living in poverty (Gorski, 2008; Harrington, 1966/1997; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Lewis, 1961). Harrington’s (1966/1997) influential commentary of a culture of poverty discusses factors which negatively impact the living conditions and life chances of poor communities within the United States of America (USA), such as inequitable access to housing, education, employment and health services. Notions of a culture of poverty, however, are critiqued for their inaccurate representation of a single experience of poverty, where beliefs, attitudes and experiences are thought to be universally shared (Gorski, 2008). Within school settings this can manifest as stereotyping of nondominant families, for example, teachers may presume that nondominant parents categorically have low educational aspirations for themselves and their children. Accordingly, parent absences from school events may be perceived as parents’ disregard for schooling, rather than indicating that school events may be inaccessible to families (Mapp & Hong, 2010). Through presenting poverty as comparable, diversity is effectively deemed to be irrelevant and social identifiers such as gender identity, race, language, culture, religion, disability and social class are ignored (Teemant et al., 2021). Schools may overlook the diverse needs of families and fail to provide the required resourcing needed for families to overcome barriers to engagement in their children’s learning, for example provision of childcare, transport or language translation services (Hornby & Blackwell, 2018).

Furthermore, a culture of poverty can reinforce deficit discourses which assume that nondominant parents do not have the necessary skills, values or material resources to support their children’s school learning within home and community contexts (Boethel, 2003; Davis & Museus, 2019; Souto-Manning & Swick, 2006). Teachers may presume that nondominant parents are incapable of contributing to their children’s homework or providing home learning experiences, due to language barriers (Baxter & Kilderry, 2022). Seeing parents as deficient can influence teaching practices (Geneva, 2010), with findings showing that teachers engage with nondominant families less frequently due to teachers’ perceptions that they are hard to reach (Berthelsen & Walker, 2008; Mapp & Hong, 2010; Vincent, 1996). School culture and teachers’ own practices have also been found to have a significant impact on families’ engagement in their children’s learning (Auerbach, 2007; Hornby & Lafaele, 2011). Schools, rather than parents, tend to control and influence how family engagement is understood, organised and implemented (Ashton & Cairney, 2001; Harris & Goodall, 2008). Therefore, teachers may measure parents’ connection to their children’s learning in isolation from nondominant families’ own experiences of engagement in their children’s learning (Scribner et al., 1999). Due to a mismatch between teachers’ expectations for family engagement and ways in which families themselves encounter their children’s learning, teachers can incorrectly label families as disengaged (Souto-Manning & Swick, 2006).

To contextualise misconceptions of a culture of poverty, Ladson-Billings (2006) astutely flips the concept, declaring a poverty of culture (p. 104) within teacher education. Based on years of working with pre-service teachers, Ladson-Billings (2006) describes how nondominant teachers can struggle to recognise a culture of their own due to presupposing that culture exists outside boundaries of normative dominance. Factors which teachers recognise as distinguishing nondominant students from the mainstream (such as race and poverty), however, are assumed to permeate culture. In this regard, stereotypical markers such as ethnicity have inaccurately established culture “as a code word for difference and perhaps deviance in the world of teacher education” (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p. 107). An Australian study which examined how school students understood cultural diversity, found that teachers repeatedly maintained white cultural values as a normative benchmark (Walton et al., 2018). As an example, while the teachers recognised school students as being Australian regardless of having culturally diverse backgrounds, their fundamental perceptions of what is meant by being Australian focused on depictions of white, Anglo appearance and behaviours (Walton et al., 2018). This finding has implications for ways in which teachers may subsequently perceive nondominant students and their families as adverse to the norm.

The methodology of CPAR (Kemmis et al., 2014) was utilised within this study to investigate family school partnerships at a primary school, within a nondominant community in Victoria, Australia. The research question guiding this study is:

• How do primary school teachers support family engagement in children’s learning through family school partnerships, within nondominant communities?

A theoretical premise of CPAR is that sustainable practice change requires consideration of contextual features, named practice architectures, which feature within the language, activity and relational aspects of practice. Through analysis of the ways in which teachers discuss, act and behave within family school partnerships, the structures of CPAR facilitate critical examination of broad ranging factors which both support and undermine families’ engagement in their children’s learning. The participatory nature of CPAR enabled the teachers to reflect on their own experiences of partnering with parents and how they might work to overcome perceived barriers to families’ engagement in their children’s learning. (Kemmis et al., 2014)

Materials and methods

Based on the work of Kemmis et al. (2014), this study incorporated two cycles of Critical Participatory Action Research as a collaboration between Chief Investigator Baxter and four teacher participants. With an emphasis on critical reflection through shared dialogue, CPAR guides practitioners through processes of “studying, reframing, and reconstructing social practices” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 19). CPAR scaffolded a local investigation into how students, teachers and families can partner together in student learning. The participating teachers reflected on their current family engagement practices and contemplated opportunities to strengthen families’ engagement in their children’s learning by changing the learning conditions at their school. Through the framework of CPAR, this study closely considered the language (sayings) which the teachers used to discuss family engagement, the activity and actions (doings) teachers undertook within family engagement and how the teachers were in relationship with their students’ families (relatings). Practice architecture arrangements were also contemplated to examine the contextual features of students, teachers and families’ interactions. For example, whether the teachers spoke about families in strength-based or deficit manners connects to cultural-discursive arrangements; whether teachers approached family school partnerships reactively or proactively (including resourcing) relates to material-economic arrangements and the nature of the teachers’ relationships with families pertains to social-political arrangements (Kemmis et al., 2014).

The research site

The research question focussing this study, centres on family engagement occurring within a nondominant community. For this purpose, the term nondominant is used to acknowledge the “race or ethnicity, culture (including language), and socioeconomic status” (Boethel, 2003, p. v) of families perceived to have low engagement in their children’s learning. The Index of Community Socio Economic Advantage (ICSEA) (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2013) was utilised to identify schools with low socio-economic advantage, whereupon a score of 1000 is an average benchmark. An ICSEA value is calculated based on parent occupation and education levels combined with school factors such as geographical location and enrolment of Indigenous students (ACARA, 2013). Additionally, the MySchool website (ACARA, 2017) was consulted to determine the cultural diversity of students at specific school sites, demonstrated through percentages of students with Language Backgrounds Other Than English (LBOTE). Both information sources were cross-referenced to create a list of twenty-seven schools which satisfied the following criteria:

• Schools with an ICSEA value of close to 1000 or lower

• Schools with a percentage of students with a LBOTE above 58%

• Geographical accessibility to the authors (within a proximity of 65 km).

Identified schools were first invited to participate in the study through written communication, followed-up by phone communication. Once the research site accepted the opportunity to participate in the study, no further schools were contacted. This study occurred throughout the 2017 school year, within a government primary school in the west of Melbourne, Australia. The research site had an ICSEA ranking of nine hundred and thirty-nine (939) with 78% of the four hundred students speaking languages other than English.

Participants

Four classroom teachers from the Grade 3 & 4 year level (students aged 8–10) at Wattle View Primary School participated in this study: Jack, Nate, Scarlett and Julie (pseudonyms used). The teachers had a wide range of teaching experience, varying between less than six months to greater than twenty years. Purposive sampling took place to recruit teachers from this specific year level. The rationale for this sampling choice was based on Australian research findings that family engagement in children’s learning, for families from nondominant communities, declines between Grade 1 to 3 (Daniel, 2015).

Data collection

This research examined how four primary school teachers worked to strengthen families’ engagement in their children’s learning, within a nondominant school community. Two cycles of CPAR occurred between May 2017 and December 2017. An initial observation period (one day a week, over a four-week period) took place to gain an historical understanding of family engagement practices occurring at the site, to build relationships with the teachers and to establish a common understanding of the research process. The participatory perspective of CPAR positioned Chief Investigator Baxter and the teacher participants as co-researchers, where everyone’s experiences were equally valued. Five reflective practice meetings occurred throughout the research, whereupon a variety of reflective tools (for example, perception surveys and reflective practice templates) were used to stimulate conversations about family engagement, identifying current practices and opportunities for practice change.

The first reflective practice meeting occurred over a whole day, to provide time to examine an evidence base for family engagement, incorporating the teachers’ own perceptions and experiences of partnering with families. An explicit social justice lens features within CPAR, prompting participants to identify any inequitable or unsustainable features of practice and to leverage practice change as a means to address cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political concerns (Kemmis et al., 2014). Within this study, the teacher participants established their own “felt concerns” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 85), articulating perceived problems and limitations within family engagement at their school. Through the supportive scaffold of facilitated planning (Chief Investigator Baxter), the teachers developed two inquiry questions which framed their approach for strengthening families’ engagement in their children’s learning. The teachers wondered:

1. How can we use the students’ cultural backgrounds to engage their families in school learning?

2. How can informal learning at home support formal learning at school?

To explore these questions the teachers developed a plan to change their homework approach from tasks which students completed independently, to interactive home learning activities which students could do with family members. This approach was designed to facilitate more accessible opportunities for parents’ engagement in their children’s learning through a focus on family relationships. Data collection comprised of a self-reflective research journal (Chief Investigator Baxter), transcripts from five reflective practice meetings, the “Connecting Learning at Home and at School Perception Surveys 3 & 4” (DEECD, n.d.) (Teacher Participants), reflective practice templates (Teacher Participants) and semi-structured in-depth interviews with the teacher participants.

Data analysis

Data were considered through deductive thematic analysis, underpinned by the interpretation of Clarke and Braun (2017). The technique of thematic analysis provides a flexible approach to qualitative data, which enabled this study to utilise elements of CPAR within coding. Stringer’s (2007) method for “categorising and coding” (p. 98) was utilised within first round coding and “analysing key experiences” (p. 103) was followed during second round coding. To begin with the practice structures of sayings, doings and relatings as well as practice architecture arrangements: cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political (Kemmis et al., 2014) were used as deductive codes. Thereafter, analysis of key experiences (Stringer, 2007) was implemented to draw upon the teachers’ own descriptions, ideas and insights, within the coding process. This analysis structure was advantageous to centre the teachers’ lived experiences within analysis. Both manual processes and computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (NVivo) were utilised simultaneously within this study. Coding decisions and observations were documented within NVivo memo notes and Chief Investigator Baxter’s research journal. Research ethics approval was granted from Deakin University’s Faculty of Arts and Education, Human Ethics Advisory Group (HAE-17-108) and from the Victorian Department of Education and Training (2017_003301).

Results

In its entirety, this study documented the participating teachers’ CPAR journey. The processes of reflexive practice supported the teachers to change how they understood parent engagement and developed new ways of supporting families’ engagement in their children’s learning (see Baxter & Kilderry, 2022; Baxter & Nolan, 2022). This paper, however, specifically responds to Goodall’s (2021a) provocation, “how can we support parents to engage with learning – and others to engage with parents – in ways that challenge, if not dismantle, systemic inequities?” (p. 108). Opportunities for schools to challenge or dismantle systemic inequity within family engagement are contemplated through discussion of the teacher participants' perception that engaging parents from their school’s low socio-economic, culturally and linguistically diverse community (nondominant) is more problematic than engaging parents from affluent, predominantly white communities (dominant). Data excerpts from the teachers’ collegial conversations occurring throughout reflexive practice meetings and the teachers’ individual interviews, are now discussed to consider their beliefs about parent engagement.

Within instances where the teachers described their school community, they used phrases such as, “in this area” (Julie, 27/7/17 RPM Morning, p. 10), “with this diverse community” (Scarlett Interview, 5/12/17, p. 1), “within this sort of community” (Scarlett Interview, 5/12/17, p. 4) and “especially in low socioeconomic [areas]” (Jack, 27/7/17 RPM Morning, p. 5). These descriptions are now considered to explore ways in which a discourse of poverty appears to have influenced the teachers’ family engagement practices. Scarlett’s descriptions of her school community highlight difficulties encountered from families’ lifestyles:

Within this sort of community I mean, yeah like I said, they’ve [students] got large families, parents are out working. Like I had one [student] out today that I wanted to bring a form back and she said ‘oh sorry, Mum couldn’t sign it because she has to get up at three o’clock [in the morning]’. (Scarlett Interview, 5/12/17, p. 4)

With this diverse community … it’s difficult because the kids, they have parents that are busy, they have parents with large families, parents that don’t speak English very well. They have parents who don’t read English so they can’t be supported in them doing homework, set homework, structured curriculum-based homework. (Scarlett Interview, 5/12/17 p. 1)

Scarlett’s observations of her students’ families fixate on parents’ lack of time for school administration tasks (for example, signing forms or being involved in homework tasks) due to work and family commitments and parents having low levels of English language and literacy. Scarlett’s comments appear to homogenise parents within her school community, characterising challenges such as a lack of time as specific issues for nondominant families rather than a typical issue impacting many families. The phrase, “within this sort of community”, implies that there are features of communities which differentiate one community from another. In this instance, Scarlett distinguishes her students’ community through a focus on deficit features without recognising that there may be positive aspects of having a large family, working hard and speaking languages other than English. Also absent is acknowledgement that the issue of parents’ long work hours is problematic mainly because this clashes with school operating hours, typically not accommodating parent contact outside of standard business hours. Instead of recognising a shared responsibility for mediating communication between parents and schools, families’ lack of availability remains the central focus.

A perception of difference between teachers and families figures within Julie’s discussion about working within a low socioeconomic community: “In this area, the family does give their kids over to the school and say ‘it’s your job, I can’t do it [I can’t teach my children], so you need to do it [you need to teach my children]’” (27/7/17, RPM Morning, p. 10). Julie describes families as temporarily surrendering their children, assigning the school responsibility as experts in education due to parents’ inability to help their children themselves. The phrasing, “give their kids over to the school” describes a transaction of sorts, where parents relinquish the child to school until the day's end. The language used within, “it’s your job, I can’t do it so you need to do it”, implies imbalanced power dynamics between families and school. This representation of parents and school having unequal footing reinforces an assumption that parents are unwilling or incapable of partnering equally. Furthermore, by narrowly focusing on families’ personal characteristics to explain disengagement from their children’s learning, there is no consideration of ways in which the school could support family engagement, for example, through utilising language interpretation and translation services to strengthen communication between school and families. As the teachers participated in further reflective practices, they continued to contemplate issues impacting family school partnerships within their school community.

Within a whole day reflective practice meeting (27/7/17) the teachers watched a short video titled “Engaging Parents and Carers”, from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s Illustration of Practice Series (AITSL, 2017). This video depicts teachers and leadership staff modelling family engagement practices. The community featured within this video was recognised by the participating teachers as an affluent part of Melbourne, Australia and is hereafter referred to as Affluent Town. Prior to watching, the teachers were advised that the video was not an example of best practice, rather a stimulus for discussion about family engagement. The teachers quickly noticed that the video footage of Affluent Town featured no visible cultural diversity, with families and children depicted as Anglo-Celtic Australians with middle to high socioeconomic status. Comments made by the teachers showed clear perceptions of difference between Affluent Town and their own school community. Jack commented: “Look at the kids in the class. I wonder what the language barrier is there!” Nate readily agreed, stating: “Oh look there’s Jane and Vanessa, I don’t see any Sarpas and Laconoos” (27/7/17, RPM Morning, p. 25). Nate and Jack’s comments surmise that students and families in Affluent Town will readily speak English, thereby avoiding the perceived language barriers that teachers from their own school community encounter.

Scarlett observed the resources featured within the Affluent Town school: “they mostly have access to computers, if you can afford to live in [Affluent Town] then you can afford [internet] access” (27/7/17, RPM Morning, p. 27). Despite recognising that students in Affluent Town are privileged to have internet access, Scarlett doesn’t remark on any social or political failure to distribute educational resources equitably to her own students. Instead, through piecing together observations of lack of cultural and linguistic diversity and higher socioeconomic status shown in Affluent Town, the teachers appear to conclude that family engagement is simply more achievable in an affluent community. Jack surmises:

It’s funny that you know [the teacher is] saying that we’re meeting the parents and we’re doing this but the parent engagement is already there. Like watching that video it seems like they’ve already achieved parent engagement and it’s more the strategies they’re doing now to make it a habit, not like you know – like how they got it. Like their families are not low socioeconomic so if I’m someone in [Affluent Town] I know that I want my child to succeed. (27/7/17, RPM Morning, pp. 27–28)

The teachers’ comments highlight an understanding that their school community is different to that featured within Affluent Town. Students who speak English as their first language and whose socioeconomic status guarantees them access to resources such as the internet, are recognised by the teachers as advantageous factors for student learning. Furthermore, a conclusion seems to be drawn that affluent parents automatically want to engage in their children’s learning and have innately high expectations for their children’s academic success. Depictions of stark contrasts between affluence and poverty, appear to relegate the teachers’ nondominant school community as being outside desired educational norms and ideals (Freire, 2005).

Jack also highlights differences between himself and teachers working within affluent communities, through the following discussion:

We have to keep trying, to get pushing and getting [parents] doing more and more and more because unfortunately you can’t keep playing catch up. You’ve got to try and jump on board what [approaches] a school is doing in [Affluent Town]. You’ve got to be doing that [pedagogical practice] now, because if you’re doing it [pedagogical practice] in 10 years’ time then they’re going to be doing something different in 10 years’ time so you’ve kind of got to like jump on board. Get [parents] to know that like if you really want your child to succeed you are going to have to get involved with their learning, you can’t take the passenger seat, you’ve really got to be there experiencing it with them. (Jack Interview, 5/12/17, p. 5)

Jack refers to himself and his colleagues as “we” and “you” as he expresses a sense of urgency for those working within nondominant communities to act on the same pedagogical practices used in affluent schools, to raise nondominant students’ learning outcomes. Jack seems to assume that the best way to address achievement gaps is by replicating teaching practices from Affluent Town within his own school, without regard for how relevant such practices may or may not be to his students’ community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005). This example highlights how Jack’s belief influences his perceptions of pedagogy and how he should act as a teacher. Indeed, Jack’s suggestion is that his role as a teacher within a nondominant community is to “push” parents to be more involved in their children’s learning, to match learning and teaching occurring within dominant communities.

Jack’s concern for students who are not meeting external academic standards, however, appears to stem from a perception that it is the responsibility of assumed to be reluctant or incompetent families to change their behaviours. Jack’s descriptive language of “playing catch-up” and trying to “jump on board” initiatives from affluent schools, emphasises the effort he perceives teachers must undertake in trying to bridge student achievement gaps between dominant and nondominant communities. Furthermore, by describing his students’ parents as taking a “passenger seat”, Jack implies that parents are choosing an inactive role in their children’s learning. Jack seemingly fails to consider whether there are school-based opportunities to address structural barriers (for example, inequitable access to learning resources) undermining families’ capacity to drive their children’s education in ways he expects.

The participating teachers’ appraisal of inequitable learning dynamics occurring between their school community and those observed in Affluent Town leads this paper to contemplate how a culture of poverty can misrepresent socioeconomic disadvantage as a fixed problem within nondominant communities, limiting parents’ capacity to support their children’s school learning. Teachers may presume that family engagement in learning is simply easier to achieve within more affluent communities due to there being less systemic barriers to overcome. In this regard, a false connection can be drawn between perceived deficit features of families (for example, parents not speaking or being literate in English and having demanding employment and family lives) and an acceptance that these factors unequivocally undermine parents’ engagement in their children’s learning. Unless such rhetoric is challenged, teachers can overlook ways in which school practices and policies contribute to systemic inequity and most importantly, schools may fail to recognise their own capacity to overcome inequitable learning conditions in partnership with families.

Despite identifying numerous factors undermining families’ engagement in their children’s learning within their own school community, through the scaffolded processes of CPAR the participating teachers did change their practice. Within a whole day reflective practice meeting, the teachers considered family school partnerships research and practice examples and critically reflected on their own partnerships with families. The teachers embraced evidence highlighting that parents’ connection with their children’s learning within their own homes and communities (parent engagement), has a greater impact on student learning outcomes than parents’ involvement in school-based activities (parent involvement) (Emerson et al., 2012). In response to this new knowledge, the teachers established a self-directed inquiry into how to use students’ cultural backgrounds to engage families in their children’s learning by merging informal learning (home and community based) with formal learning (school-based). The teachers adapted their approach to homework to create learning at home tasks which encouraged family interactions focussed on sharing of knowledge and experiences. Students were encouraged to lead interactive and experiential activities with their families (for example, cooking a meal, researching family experiences and sharing in cultural practices). The teachers spent time within team planning meetings to talk and reflect on their students’ home learning experiences and collaboratively adapted activities based on what they observed to be working well or not working well; “ … we discussed [home learning] as a team and listen[ed] to how each other was implementing things” (Scarlett Interview, 5/12/17, p.7). The teachers offered each other encouragement and shared ideas when they faced difficulties, such as when some students lacked confidence to lead conversations with their parents about school learning. Overall, the teachers considered their practice change to be successful:

home learning is still curriculum based and connected to what [students are] doing at school but it’s easier for the students to take that home and connect it with their parents … and it’s diverse in that it can be suited to any culture. (Scarlett Interview, 5/12/17, p. 1)

Notably, the teachers encouraged their students to share home learning experiences through whole class reflections, where students fielded questions and received feedback from their peers and teachers. Nate described home learning as being “user friendly” and “something that families can do” (Nate Interview, 5/12/17, p. 1). In this regard, home learning shifted some of the educational practices that previously disempowered students and their families. Furthermore, through recognising cultural and linguistic diversity as a point of connection with parents, rather than a problematic end point, the participating teachers recognised opportunities to listen to and learn from students and their families. This study, therefore, serves to highlight the importance of providing opportunities for schools to work through deficit-based misconceptions of families. It proposes ways in which educational practices and policies can be adapted to support family engagement, rather than expecting parents to “jump on board” dominant cultural models for family engagement.

Discussion

As a rejoinder to Goodall’s call for action (2021a), “how can we support parents to engage with learning – and others to engage with parents – in ways that challenge, if not dismantle, systemic inequities?” (Goodall, 2021a, p. 108), this paper encourages schools to abandon discourse of poverty rhetoric which positions teachers as hopeless and helpless to strengthen family school partnerships within nondominant communities. Through open dialogue with students and their families, schools can position themselves as change makers within family school partnerships, rather than impassive observers to systemic inequity. Ladson-Billings (2017) describes poverty as:

a social condition created by the decisions of the powerful. Who lives where, who has access to which schools, who gets which jobs, who is policed in certain ways, who gets access to representation both in the political order or a court of law – all are aspects of structural inequity, not elements of culture. (p. 82)

Aligned with this appraisal of poverty, schools can reject the idea that nondominant parents are personally responsible for poverty circumstances resulting in inadequate access to healthcare, housing and other social services. Furthermore, schools can relinquish fixed mindsets that parents’ socioeconomic status necessarily impacts their capacity to partner in their children’s learning. Within the current study, the participating teachers contemplated opportunities for families’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds to strengthen home learning, rather than viewing cultural differences as simply problematic. By moving past a school-centric view of education where schools determine how parents can contribute to student learning (Goodall, 2018a), the participating teachers tried to recognise parents’ own ways for communicating and learning together as a family. By embracing the lived experiences of nondominant families, schools can create opportunities to learn with students and their families, thereby establishing strength-based partnerships.

Teacher professional learning is a significant platform for identifying and addressing misconceptions within family engagement in learning (Brooks et al., 2021; Goodall, 2018b). Within reflective practice meetings, the four teachers from this study shared with each other factors they had observed to support and undermine families’ engagement in their children’s learning. When focussing solely on barriers to family engagement which the teachers attributed to personal characteristics of families (for example, parents working long hours and not speaking English), the teachers found it difficult to recognise a role for themselves in overcoming the identified issues. Through reflective dialogue, however, the teachers were able to broaden their perspectives of family engagement beyond this narrow focus on parents’ social and cultural circumstances. In so doing, the teachers contemplated contextual features of their practice, critically reflecting on how they communicated (cultural-discursive arrangements), worked (material-economic arrangements) and interacted (social-political arrangements) with families (Kemmis et al., 2014). The theory of practice architectures provided a framing which helped the teachers consider the interconnected nature of practice, whereupon they identified a role for themselves within family engagement and actions they could take to make school learning more accessible to families.

Without a practical scaffold of collaborative and critically reflective professional development, however, the effectiveness of challenging embedded rhetoric is limited. Termed a “pretense pedagogy” (de los Ríos & Souto-Manning, 2015, p. 288), policy that claims to advocate for transformative change in practice but fails to contextualise practice within culturally diverse frames of reference, can instead serve to reinforce ways of working which privilege dominant groups (de los Ríos & Souto-Manning, 2015). Researchers de los Ríos and Souto-Manning (2015), have based their concept of pretense pedagogy around education systems’ historical unwillingness to engage in critical self-reflection. Inspired by the work of Freire (1970), these authors remind us that “any critical education worthy of its name must begin and end in honest dialogue” (de los Ríos & Souto-Manning, 2015, p. 273). Accordingly, any genuine approach to supporting teachers to engage with parents in ways that challenge systemic inequity, should foster critical dialogue to identify limitations of current family school partnership practices and ways that schools can adapt their own practices to strengthen families’ engagement in their children’s learning. To facilitate such rich and contemplative critiques of current educational practices, transformative paradigms can be drawn upon which challenge traditional perceptions of schooling within nondominant communities.

An equity framework for family, community, and school partnerships has been developed by Teemant et al. (2021), providing a structure and approach for schools to recognise educational inequity impacting students, their families and the wider communities in which they live. Underpinned by sociocultural and critical theories, the Equity Framework's explains the significance of mutual respect, democratic participation, critical consciousness and sustainability as essential elements within family school partnerships (Teemant et al., 2021, pp. 34–35). Additionally, the framework defines educational equity and outlines key considerations to help schools authentically partner with nondominant parents. Within the current study, the teachers described how some parents relied on them to educate their children as they saw themselves as unable to help their children with their school learning due to their lack of English language proficiency or schooling experiences. The teachers also initially saw limited opportunities for non-English speaking parents to support their children’s learning, due to perceiving English language proficiency as integral for engagement in children’s learning. By focussing on educational equity, however, teachers and parents can re-define deficit parameters for family school partnerships and partner together as “agents of equity” (Teemant et al., 2021, p. 33) to address factors undermining families’ engagement in their children’s learning.

Real-life examples of inequitable learning conditions can be examined through a process called “problem posing” (Teemant et al., 2021, p. 36). Through collaborative dialogue, students, families and schools can share concerns, values, experiences and ideas. Honest self-reflection and a willingness to listen to others underpins the problem-posing process. Evidence of problems is collected, reviewed and interpreted to distinguish relevant issues. Thereafter, community organising can shape an approach to address the identified issues, collaboratively acted upon by students, families and schools (Teemant et al., 2021). Problem posing rejects notions that students and their families are personally responsible for education achievement gaps and instead focus is turned to the education system and broader socio-political systems to identify how school policies, practices and resources may be adjusted for more equitable application within nondominant communities. The Equity Framework’s values of mutual respect, democratic participation, critical consciousness and sustainability (Teemant et al., 2021, pp. 34–35) are now used to reframe some of the family engagement “problems” identified by the participating teachers within this study. These “problems” are re-contextualised through an equity lens to consider how students, families and schools might collaborate as “agents of equity” within family school partnerships. Through this appraisal, this paper responds to Goodall’s (2021a) question: “how can we support parents to engage with learning – and others to engage with parents – in ways that challenge, if not dismantle, systemic inequities?” (p. 108).

Mutual respect

The notion of fostering mutual respect between families and schools can present as a straight-forward and basic expectation, however, the Equity Framework's highlights that it is essential for stakeholders to accept and appreciate each other’s differences (Teemant et al., 2021). Within the current study, when describing their school community the teachers more readily recognised deficit features of families which foregrounded perceptions of low family engagement in children’s learning due to parents’ social, cultural and linguistic characteristics. Through a lens of mutual respect, however, the framework encourages schools to surrender all deficit-based language and judgements of students, families, and the communities in which they live. In adopting a strength-based approach to family engagement, the teachers from this study could shift their focus on negative family attributes (for example, parents are busy with large families, don’t speak English and work long hours) to an appreciation for families’ plurilingualism, strong work ethic and family-centred focus. This shift highlights and promotes the many ways that families’ lifestyles do foster engagement in children’s learning (Goodall & Montgomery, 2014).

Studies into plurilingual education have shown that embracing children’s cultural and linguistic identities as a central focus within school learning fosters increased student agency through utilising knowledge and skills originating within students’ families and communities (Chen et al., 2022). Indeed, within this study the teachers’ changed practice of home learning centred around families’ daily living such as religious and cultural observances. Students’ family responsibilities such as caring for siblings and contributing to family chores present further opportunities to connect with school learning in the form of literacy and mathematics concepts within meal preparation and family storytelling. By foregrounding the lived experiences, insights and knowledge of nondominant families, schools can (re)frame deficit perceptions of families and instead welcome parents as “empowered partners” in their children’s learning (Miller, 2019, p. 9). With mutual respect at the core of family school partnerships, family school partnership challenges become opportunities to collaborate with families in developing alternative ways to connect and partner in children’s learning.

Democratic participation

Creating processes for schools and families to share in two-way communication is essential within democratic participation, which emphasises that school learning and governance need to be transparent to students, parents and teachers. Creating accessible ways for parents to share feedback and contribute to decision-making are significant within a democracy of family school partnerships (Teemant et al., 2021). This study found, however, that the participating teachers recognised parents’ low English language proficiency as a family engagement limitation but did not proactively seek to overcome this structural barrier which privileged English as a dominant language. Such a finding highlights that schools may need support to recognise their role in overcoming communication differences between teachers and plurilingual families. Plurilingual pedagogy, for example, helps teachers to incorporate students’ home languages and cultural backgrounds within school learning, embracing students’ cultural identities as learning assets. Through this lens, communication barriers between families and teachers are re-contextualised as access and inclusion issues impacting students’ learning and wellbeing (Lau & Van Viegen, 2020). A wider education system response is likely needed to fund schools’ use of interpreter and translation services to facilitate ongoing dialogue between teachers and parents.

Critical consciousness

Building upon a foundation of democratic participation, where issues undermining parents’ capacity to connect with their children’s school learning are identified and addressed, schools need also to explore concepts of critical consciousness. Teachers’ own understanding that schools are impacted by the social, economic and political influences of the communities in which they exist, is a fundamental aspect of critical consciousness (Freire, 2005). This includes recognising that students and their families may face discrimination which impacts children’s education based on race, language, socio-economic status, gender, religion or sexuality (Teemant et al., 2021) in addition to well-documented barriers to family engagement (Hornby & Blackwell, 2018). While the teachers within this study did recognise that students and their families experienced social, financial and cultural challenges, they were seemingly acquiescent and unclear about how to address such issues within their role as teachers. The Equity Framework's, however, provides an outline for schools to move on from merely acknowledging student experiences of inequity, to actively looking for opportunities to change inequitable learning and teaching conditions. Within the context of the current study, this could present as the participating teachers’ engaging in community organising to access technology resources for their students, equivalent to those seen in Affluent Town. Furthermore, rather than envisioning that their role as teachers is to “push” parents to take an active role in their children’s learning, the teachers could invite parents to reflect on any concerns or frustrations which they may have about their children’s education and collaboratively contemplate what needs to change to strengthen student learning.

A number of studies have shown that teachers benefit from scaffolded processes for collaborative, critical reflection and adaptation of family engagement practices (Baxter & Toe, 2021; Goodall, 2018b). An Australian study, Engaging Parents in Inquiry Curriculum (Willis & Exley, 2022), profiles examples of teachers changing their pedagogical approaches to strengthen families’ engagement in their children’s learning. Through collaborative reflection the teachers used evidence-based pedagogies to strengthen parent engagement. Pertinent within teachers’ practice change was their capacity to recognise and value parents’ unique role within their children’s learning. One teacher stated:

… students are products of their homes and they are products of their families, values, beliefs, and opinions. And it’s so good now to respect that … to value that a little bit more, to demonstrate to the students that I value the homes that they come from and the parents that support them. (Willis & Exley, 2022, p. 46)

While there are innumerable family school partnerships resources developed, for example research syntheses and practice guides, (Barker & Harris, 2020; NAFSCE, 2022), in-school staffing to build teachers' and school leaders’ capacity for family engagement tend to be less readily available (Pushor & Amendt, 2018). Increased resourcing supporting teachers to explore their own localised contexts for family school partnerships, may help to mediate teachers’ deficit-based expectations, for example where Jack described the need to push nondominant parents to do “more and more and more” (Jack Interview, 5/12/17, p. 5) to match learning outcomes in dominant communities. Instead of perpetuating the myth that achievement gaps will be remedied if students, families, and schools within nondominant communities just work harder, a way forward in addressing systemic inequity is to openly refute a discourse of poverty.

Sustainability

The Equity Framework emphasises the significance of investing in a sustainable approach to family school partnerships to ensure that equity initiatives can be embedded into school culture over time (Teemant et al., 2021). Within the current study, the teachers acknowledged that being provided opportunities to spend time reflecting on family school partnerships (for example, during reflective practice meetings and regular team planning) was crucial in enabling them to implement and adapt family engagement practices. Sustainability of family school partnership practices is particularly pertinent within school contexts given the ever-changing dynamic of new staff, student and family groups. Accordingly, for equity focussed family engagement to be implemented authentically within school communities, schools require ongoing funding allocation. Ultimately, the Equity Framework (Teemant et al., 2021) outlines values and processes which schools can utilise to re-construct problematic learning and teaching practices found to undermine or inhibit families’ engagement in their children’s learning. Through proactively recognising that systemic inequities can exist within schools, students, parents and teachers can collectively pursue practical and localised solutions together.

Conclusion

World-wide evidence of continuing inequity between students from dominant and nondominant communities has triggered important debate about how to address educational achievement gaps. Goodall (2021a) posed significant provocations to those working in the family school partnerships field, with this paper addressing: “how can we support parents to engage with learning – and others to engage with parents – in ways that challenge, if not dismantle, systemic inequities?” (p. 108). Our key contention is that equity focussed family engagement is achievable within nondominant communities: teachers can support parents to engage with their children’s learning and parents can partner with schools. The proviso for achieving equity focussed family engagement, however, requires schools to wholeheartedly abandon a discourse of poverty. This study shows how (the poverty) discourse can actively work against family engagement. More optimistically, however, it presents an example of how teacher professional learning programmes can support teachers and school leaders to recognise and problem-solve challenges to family school partnerships.

The in-depth nature of CPAR provides a framework from which teachers can investigate the complex practice conditions occurring within their schools, which can be used to stimulate meaningful discussion of equity issues within family school partnerships. This study highlights that strategies to address systemic inequity should be both practical and purposeful, specifically designed for the unique circumstances of students, families and teachers within individual school settings. Through greater awareness of how system features contribute to perceptions of low family engagement in children’s learning within nondominant communities, schools and teachers can become empowered facilitators of practice change. Furthermore, by utilising transformative paradigms which amplify the perspectives and lived experiences of nondominant communities, schools can partner with families to develop culturally responsive practices.

Limitations of this study

A limitation of this study is the small sample size (single school with four teacher participants). Nonetheless, the methodology of CPAR is designed for localised analysis and application rather than broad generalisation (Kemmis et al., 2014). CPAR provides a framework for exploring the practice conditions that both enable and hinder families’ engagement in their children’s learning. Accordingly, this study acts as a reflective stimulus for schools to establish practice insights about their own family school partnerships.

Acknowledgements

We would like to show appreciation for the teachers and school who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

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