Lessons Learned from Home Visiting Studies to Support Culturally Responsive/Sustaining Pedagogy

• In Event: Preparation for Equitable Family and Community Engagement That Leads to Culturally Responsive/Sustaining Pedagogy

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Perspectives
Fostering equitable family engagement requires schools and teachers to implement a repertoire of responsive practices. Home visiting (also “family visiting”) is one such family engagement practice. Home visiting is intended to center families’ stories and assets, build relationships between educators and families, and inform CR-SP (Authors, 2021, 2024; Moll et al., 1992; Venkateswaran et al., 2018). There is evidence that home visiting is associated with families’ increased involvement with school, children’s improved academic performance, and shifts in teachers’ beliefs and practices (McKnight et al., 2019; Meyer et al., 2011; Sheldon & Jung, 2018; Venkateswaran et al., 2018).
The primary theoretical frameworks that comprise CR-SP (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2014; Paris, 2012; Powell et al., 2016) articulate beliefs, dispositions, and pedagogical practices that center and honor students’, families’, and communities’ ways of knowing and being with the intended result of increasing historically marginalized children’s engagement and achievement in school. The research on the relationship between home visiting and teachers’ beliefs, dispositions, and practices lags considerably behind the practice of home visiting. This conceptual study asked: How does home visiting support and enable CR-SP? Which CR-SP beliefs, dispositions, and practices are not served by home visiting? What is left to know and do at the intersection of home visiting and CR-SP?
Methods & Data Sources
We employed qualitative content analysis techniques to systematically identify overarching categories capturing the key findings across studies on home visiting as they related to CR-SP tenets. This process yielded six themes: 1) home visiting informs differentiation of curricula, instruction, and assessment; 2) home visiting broadens teachers’ understanding of who children and families are and what they value; 3) training is necessary for most teachers if we want teachers to center families; 4) training, hands-on practice, and reflection are associated with increased self-efficacy for CR-SP; 5) teachers can leverage artifacts in families homes to elicit families’ stories. We created a matrix designed to evaluate the degree to which evidence from home visiting studies corroborates and supports CR-SP.
Results and Implications
We found evidence of alignment between the CR-SP framework and the themes above (see Table 1). Overall, evidence from the research literature to date indicates that home visiting affects teachers’ beliefs to a large extent and their dispositions somewhat. There is some evidence that home visiting supports teachers’ responsive discourse, but otherwise there is not yet a body of evidence demonstrating the impact of home visiting on teaching practice.
Significance
These findings indicate that home visiting can significantly enhance teachers' understanding of their positionality and self-efficacy for CR-SP and foster an ongoing process of self-reflection, all of which is crucial for implementing CR-SP. However, the limited evidence in promoting high expectations for academic success and the lack of evidence in developing sociopolitical consciousness, flexible curriculum adaptation, and deeper family collaboration highlight critical areas for further research and professional development. Addressing these gaps is essential for maximizing the impact of home visiting on educational equity and ensuring that family engagement practices comprehensively support diverse student populations.

Authors

• Judy Paulick, University of Virginia

• Natalia Palacios, University of Virginia