Beyond Traditional Family Engagement: Building Educational Communities to Foster Students' Academic Success and Social Cohesion

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium presents how the implementation of Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) enables schools to go beyond the traditional family engagement towards building a learning community including people traditionally excluded from academic settings (i.e. non-academic families). These educational strategies have been analyzed in INCLUD-ED (2006-2011), a 5 years large-scale project focusing on studying successful actions for inclusion and social cohesion. It has been the only SSH research included by the European Union in the list of ten success stories. SEAs presented here are no isolated best practices; they have resulted successful in raising children’s attainment and educational opportunities for their families in many diverse contexts. SEAs aim at finding solutions for social problems and create knowledge to improve education.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Family, School, Community Partnerships

Chair

• Sylvia Celedon-Pattichis, University of New Mexico

Papers

• Successful Family Participation in Schools: INCLUD-ED's Contributions to Family and Family Education - Rocio Garcia Carrion, University of Deusto; Gisela Redondo-Sama, University of Cambridge

• Engaging Family and Community Members to Foster Children's Mathematics Learning Using Tablets - Javier Diez-Palomar, Universitat de Barcelona; Silvia Molina Roldán, Universitat Rovira i Virgili

• Successful Participation of Roma in Family Education: Findings From the EduRom Project - Carme Garcia Yeste, Universitat Rovira i Virgili; Pilar Alvarez, Loyola University Andalucía; Fernando Macias, Universitat de Barcelona

• Roma and Moroccan Communities Together in a Diverse Democracy: Promoting Social Cohesion in the Neighborhood - Vladia Ionescu, Universitat Rovira i Virgili; Sandra Girbes, Universitat de Barcelona; Oriol Rios, Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Discussant

• Martha A. Allexsaht-Snider, University of Georgia