Building Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships

A unique text with a fresh perspective: a successful collaborative approach.

Amatea’s collaborative paradigm, first-person accounts, case studies, and self-reflection exercises set it apart from the competition.

Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships, Second Edition, offers education professionals a collaborative approach for working with all students’ families—those from economic or culturally diverse backgrounds, and exceptional needs students as well—to promote learning and resolve problems throughout the early childhood and elementary school years. Beginning with a complete look at the shifting demographic context of schooling in the United States, this stellar text examines how families, schools, and communities interact to influence children’s school success. The text not only instructs but proves that educators and practitioners who embrace and adapt to shifting realities can work toward true partnerships between culturally diverse communities and the schools that serve them.

The second edition contains updated research and resources, as well as a deepened coverage of timely topics important to teachers today, including: crisis intervention strategies, the effects of poverty on families and schools, child maltreatment and family violence, and collaborating with families.

Hallmarks of the text include: Offers culturally-responsive instructional and non-instructional practices characterized by trust, cooperation and motivation for building stronger family-school relationships to help all children succeed in school demystify the often daunting process for educators. Research-based, it balances theory and application by linking key concepts with practical methods. Considers not only economic and cultural diversity, but exceptionalities as well. Reflective exercises in every chapter encourage future educators to examine their personal beliefs and assumptions about involvement with families and gain increased awareness of changes necessary to promote collaboration with families.   First-person stories in every chapter present families and their influence on childhood learning through a strength-based framework . Case Studies, appearing in Parts 3 and 4, provide insights into common scenarios in which educators interact with families, along with effective responses to these situations.