The Need for Community: Building Capacity and Coalitions to Benefit Schools and Families

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Building Capacity in School and Community Alliances

Abstract

The pandemic has placed a spotlight on the necessity of strong family, school, and community partnerships and has illuminated areas where those partnerships may be lacking. Community partners play a unique role in family-school-community partnerships as they serve specific needs of families outside of school contexts and have access and ties to communities distinct from schools’ access and ties. In this paper, the authors explore the ways in which a statewide family engagement center has facilitated coalition building among community partners that are focused on family engagement in education. The authors describe the outcomes of a collaborative working group process and propose follow-up interviews to understand the process’s impact on partners and how it might be refined for the future.

Authors

• Theresa Harrison, University of South Carolina - Columbia

• Ashlee A. Lewis, University of South Carolina

• Jiali Zheng, University of South Carolina - Columbia