Edging In: Locating a Focus on School-Family-Community Partnerships Within the Scholarship of Educational Leadership

• In Event: Roundtable Session 116
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership for Authentic Family and Community Partnerships: Research Perspectives to Inspire Practice

Abstract

Edging In: Locating a Focus on School-Family-Community Partnerships
within the Scholarship of Educational Leadership

Carolyn Riehl, Teachers College, Columbia University

This analytic review of over 80 publications considers whether two important domains within leadership research can incorporate a focus on leadership for family/community partnerships. It is significant because most research on leadership for partnerships is located within partnership research and there is little articulation with dominant themes in leadership research. Partnerships are difficult to institutionalize if leaders do not consider them part of their routine responsibilities.
Most current theories of leadership specify what leaders do to keep their organizations functioning smoothly. Empirical research derived from these models has not yet produced many analyses of leadership effects on student outcomes; the few that exist say little about how leaders work with families and communities to impact learning.
Among the examples discussed is Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, and Easton (2010), which may be a harbinger of good things to come. They analyzed data from Chicago to show that strong family/community ties to schools led to stronger instruction and ultimately higher achievement. This longitudinal work demonstrated the importance of leadership as a driver of change, leveraging stakeholder involvement to benefit schools and students.
A second domain of leadership research, with a value orientation towards inclusion, equity, and social justice, is highly compatible with a focus on leaders’ work with families and communities. Theories and studies of transformative leadership for social justice tend to treat families not just as clients but as partners in learning. Leaders who work proactively with families and communities enact reforms so that the social and cultural capital that diverse students bring to school is valued and incorporated into culturally responsive instruction (e.g., Foster, 1989; Leithwood & Riehl, 2005; Shields, 2010; Skrla & Scheurich, 2001; Theoharis, 2007). Because much of the empirical work on transformative leadership is qualitative, efforts to establish causal linkages among leadership, partnerships, and achievement are just developing.
A first pathway towards greater convergence between research on leaderships and on partnerships could be to pay more attention to the boundary spanning roles of leaders, especially as they link families and communities to schools. A second approach would be to incorporate emotional aspects of leadership practice more fully into leadership theories since these are key to building trusting, productive relationships with stakeholders. Convergence may also emerge with greater personalization of instruction as parents become partners in determining student needs, mentoring, and monitoring learning. Distributed leadership presents a fourth possible avenue for linkages by demonstrating the value of sharing leadership with non-school partners.
Success in developing these lines of research will depend on our ability to articulate clear theories and then find ways to document conditions and processes of interest and measure their effects on student learning.

Author

• Carolyn J. Riehl, Teachers College, Columbia University