Leadership for Authentic Family and Community Partnerships: Research Perspectives to Inspire Practice

• In Event: Roundtable Session 116

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

This session brings together complementary papers that address gaps in the literature on school leadership for partnerships with families and communities. There have been repeated calls for schools to pursue meaningful partnerships with stakeholders, yet many leaders are unprepared to do so and there are few empirical studies on the topic. After a conceptual paper on the place of partnerships in the leadership literature, presenters explore leaders’ role in authentic partnerships--respectful alliances that value relationship building, dialogue across difference, and sharing power. We offer a model for moving beyond more typical, limited partnerships and managerial approaches that control and contain stakeholders. We then present empirical studies of principals and parent participation in decision-making and of relations between community organizing groups and school leaders.

Sub Unit

• Division A - Administration / Section 4: School Contexts and Communities

Chair

• Susan Auerbach, California State University - Northridge

Papers

• Edging In: Locating a Focus on School-Family-Community Partnerships Within the Scholarship of Educational Leadership - Carolyn J. Riehl, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Conceptualizing Leadership for Authentic Partnerships: A Model to Inspire Practice - Susan Auerbach, California State University - Northridge

• Enlisting Collective Help: Urban Principals’ Encouragement of Parent Participation in School Decision-Making - John S. Rogers, University of California - Los Angeles; Rhoda Freelon, University of California - Los Angeles

• Target, Strategic Partner, Critical Friend? Relationships Between School Leaders and Community Organizing Groups - Sara McAlister, Annenberg Institute for School Reform; Michelle Renee, Brown University