Introduction to the Special Issue: Selected Papers from the 21st Roundtable of the International Network (INET) on School, Family, and Community Partnerships

In April 2024, the International Network (INET) on School, Family, and Community Partnerships conducted its 21st Roundtable in Philadelphia. Researchers from nine countries (i.e., Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, and USA—21 states and the District of Columbia) presented studies on many aspects of school, family, and community partnerships.

INET meets every other year at the start of the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Since about 1990, INET has convened social scientists in education, sociology, and psychology to report new and on-going research using original and secondary data sets. They use quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods analyses to explore the design, development, and results of family and community engagement for students, families, teachers, and ways to improve school programs.

At INET 2024, over 40 papers were presented on several broad themes:

• Toward Greater Equity in Partnerships;
• Student, Parent, and Teacher Voices on Family Engagement;
• Follow Up: COVID Effects on Family Engagement and Student Learning;
• Preservice and Inservice Education on Partnerships;
• Partnership Program Organization, Implementation, and Measurement.

At the end of the meeting, we invited presenters to submit completed papers for a Special Issue of Social Sciences providing that (a) their work was not under review or published in any journal; (b) they gave a near-final copy to the Guest Editors for a pre-review with guidance for submission; and (c) they understood that Social Sciences conducts external peer reviews on all submissions and authors must respond to reviewers’ suggestions before their work could be accepted for publication.

The nine articles in this Special Issue are connected to each other only by their attention to an aspect of school, family, and community partnerships. Some articles in this disparate collection broaden the knowledge base on family and community engagement by introducing a new topic that had little or no attention before. Other articles deepen the knowledge base by addressing or reviewing questions that were not fully answered in prior studies. The field of studies on family and community engagement in education is growing wider and deeper as researchers and graduate students build on and improve extant studies and open new questions for research.

In this overview, we discuss the contributions of articles in the Special Issue and how they contribute to the development of the field of research on school, family, and community partnerships. You—the reader—may build on these contributions to continue to improve research, policy, and practice.

1. Topic: Impact of COVID-19 and School Closures on Teachers, Families, and Students

In March 2020, just about all schools in the U.S. closed their doors and required students to “learn from home.” Globally, UNESCO (n.d.) estimated that nearly 200 countries closed schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the U.S., schools provided free meals to those who received breakfast and lunch at school. Teachers developed and assigned lessons, conducted online classes, and collected and graded students’ work. Students and families responded in varied ways. Some students had advanced technology at home and could easily attend online classes and do their classwork and homework. Other students lacked computers or internet access, or shared equipment with siblings and parents, and could not participate easily or at all.

Researchers conducted studies—small and large—of how COVID-19 changed the ways that teachers and parents interacted to support student learning and development. In this Special Issue, two studies explore the implications of COVID-19 on teachers’ work and student learning.

In a small, exploratory study, Glickman and Labs explored the impact of COVID-19 on teachers’ responsibilities. Teachers experienced an imposing increase in non-teaching responsibilities (e.g., communicating with parents about students’ assignments; answering parents’ questions). At first, teachers were stressed and uncomfortable with the new requirements. However, they also reported that the changes had some benefits including helping them gain important information about their students and families. Despite the challenges, the teachers reported that they felt a deep sense of purpose in teaching under difficult conditions and formed closer connections with families and students, who also felt stressed.

Some students disengaged from school and suffered serious learning losses. In response, Vermont education policy leaders planned to adopt a Community Schools model to address student and family needs, and to try to prevent similar distress in the future [See Glickman and Labs (2025)].

In a large survey of school-based partnership teams in districts in several states across the country, others found similar results to Glickman and Labs. Teachers were stressed by changes due to COVID closures but reported that they learned more than before about their students’ families. They agreed—almost unanimously across all locations—that their schools would continue to conduct meetings and activities with parents in hybrid modes—with in-person, online, and recorded options—as they did during COVID closures. Quite simply, they found that they reached more and different parents than when only in-person meetings were conducted.

Hine, Sheldon, and Abel compared the impact of COVID-19 over 4 years on student achievement test scores in traditional and community schools in a large urban district. This may be confusing because all schools say they serve students and families in their communities. Some community schools, however, receive state recognition, funding, and extra staff (e.g., community-school managers).

The authors compared the well-documented learning loss of students during and after the COVID-19 years in reading/language arts and math in the contrasting schools within the district. They reported that, on average, students in all schools lost some skills, but those in community schools had smaller learning losses than students in regular schools in both subjects. From the qualitative data gathered, the authors surmised that the smaller losses may have been influenced by extra resources and opportunities for students in community schools.

This was a large study with data from 110 schools (99 traditional schools), but new studies are needed that include more community schools for more standard comparisons of the effects of school programs. Future studies—small and large—also need to have better measures of whether and how students’ experiences with specific school and community resources motivate learning in reading and math (Olivos 2019; Sanders and Galindo 2021). There are always more questions that must be asked in new studies to clarify, confirm, or question findings [See Hine et al. (2025)].

2. Topic: Program Development: Improving Teachers’ Practices of Family Engagement

Peltier and several coauthors wanted to learn if educators gained ideas to improve family engagement programs and practices by reading and discussing a book focused on family strengths—family assets. Often, school programs engage families in ways that support a school topic and ignore the talents and resources that parents and family members bring to the table (Pushor 2019). The authors conducted a virtual book club—a professional development course using a Community of Practice model—to enable participants to read and reflect on their perceptions and experiences with family and community engagement.

The authors guided 34 educators to read and discuss practices of partnerships in the book Partnering with Families for Student Success: 24 Scenarios for Problem Solving with Parents (Edwards et al. 2019). The text presents a framework that guides educators to learn how power, prestige, positioning, and access shape the interactions of families and educators. Using pre- and post-questionnaires, they found that educators took the readings and four group discussions to heart. They increased their positive opinions of asset-based family engagement activities, and reported that they would use the ideas in practice.

An important finding of this study was that many participating teachers shifted from thinking that parents should initiate family engagement activities to agreeing that schools must take responsibility for organizing, implementing, and continually improving programs of partnership that engage all families in productive ways. The educators recognized that family engagement is a component of good school organization, which others have found is at the heart of all effective programs of school, family, and community partnerships (Bryk et al. 2010; Chrispeels 1996; Crosnoe 2009; Davies 1991; Deslandes 2019; Epstein et al. 2019; Frew et al. 2013; Jeynes 2012; Mapp and Kuttner 2013; Mapp et al. 2022; McNeal 2014; Sheldon and Van Voorhis 2004; Swap 1993).

Can guided book reading change educators’ abilities to conduct responsive partnership programs? The participants’ self-reports are important, but studies will be needed to document whether readings and discussion change teachers’ actual practice, and to learn if and how families respond [See Peltier et al. (2025)].

3. Topic: Program Development: Increasing Equity in Family Engagement for Those with Low- and High-Incomes

Gabriella Pusztai at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, and her coauthors were aware of the well-documented finding that, all other things being equal, parents with more formal education are more actively engaged with their children and schools than those with less formal education (Hill and Craft 2003; Lareau 2011; Sibley et al. 2019). And, on average, children with engaged parents do better in school. These two social facts are the main reasons to improve school programs to engage all families—including those with low incomes—so that their students benefit from a parent’s support and encouragement for success in school (Castro et al. 2015; Domina et al. 2005). A persistent question is which policies and practices are most effective in engaging families who are, typically, less engaged and less connected to their children’s schools.

Pusztai and her colleagues answered the question with data from about 1000 families in schools in three countries in central and eastern Europe. Overall, the expected pattern prevailed—on average, parents with more formal education and parents of young children were more engaged with their children’s education at school and at home. However, deeper analyses revealed some important information.

The authors addressed challenging questions about which engagement activities captured the interest and commitment of families with low incomes. They found that parents’ views of the quality of their child’s school partnership practices helped explain the extent of their engagement, more than just their socioeconomic background. That is—what schools did to organize partnership activities to engage all families increased parents’ engagement and resulted in fewer distinctions between families with high and low incomes. In schools that welcomed parents, conducted two-way communications, community development, and parent decision-making, more and different families were engaged, including those who would not typically become involved on their own. The authors conclude that strong partnership programs can equalize the engagement of parents with more and fewer years of formal education and with low- and high incomes [See Pusztai et al. (2025)].

4. Topic: Program Development: Engaging Unique Populations of Families and Students

Velázquez explored a rarely studied aspect of family engagement. Transfronterizx students and their families cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day for academic, economic, social, and cultural reasons. The families live and work in Mexico but enroll their U.S.-born children in U.S. public schools. Velázquez explored the experiences of transfronterizx public school students, families, and educators. She reports that district and school policies are in place that prepare teachers to understand and work with these students and families. She discusses conditions and strategies that support and foster effective family engagement for this unique group.

Velázquez presents several themes that propel family and student behaviors. For example, she notes that fear is endemic among transfronterizx students and families, as crossing borders can be unpredictable or dangerous. Persistence pays off. She examines and explains that students and families have various kinds and amounts of valued capital that drive and support their behaviors. These include driving forms of navigational, social, resistant, and endurance capital and enriching forms and degrees of aspirational, familial, and linguistic capital (Lewis et al. 2025). These resources may help transfronterizx students and families gain “know how” and “know who” to help them adapt to daily challenges.

The study highlights parents’ dedication and sacrifice in pursuit of education for their children over many years. The article provides a base on which to build new research, including results for transfronterizx students’ learning of different forms and degrees of capital and types of family engagement [See Velázquez (2025)].

5. Topic: Welcoming New Parents to Schools and Communities

Hobbs and co-authors explored whether 10 training workshops influenced how Community Navigators (CNs) assisted “newcomer” families in feeling welcome in their schools and communities. The authors used pre- and post- program questionnaires to identify changes in CNs self-reported behaviors to orient and support parents and families who moved into a school and community. After the workshops, CNs reported that they were more confident and more active in their connections with newly arrived families.

CNs are one way to organize a cadre of guides for new, immigrant families in a school and community. Some schools and communities also organize volunteer welcomers, paired parent partners, and school-based partnership teams to orient and assist new arrivals. The different kinds of welcome committees vary in cost, supervision, training, and follow up.

The study opened up a line of questions for future research. Which “welcoming” guides are most active, cost-effective, and well-received by newcomers? How much and what kind of training do guides need? This is an important, under-researched, and deceptively complex topic on family engagement. Every school—everywhere—every year—has new students and families. Some are new immigrant families; others just moved from another location; still others are transitioning to new schools and grade levels. Longitudinal data are needed to know whether and how newcomers are guided and whether they feel welcome, obtain needed information, and create and strengthen connections with their schools, communities, and other parents [See Hobbs et al. (2025)].

6. Topic: New Measure of Family Engagement in Summer School Programs

Nathans and Guha developed a measure of family engagement in the summer when “regular” school is out, but some children attend summer learning programs (e.g., summer school, tutoring, enrichment programs). There is a long history of questionnaires on school, family, and community partnership for parents, teachers, and students during the school year (Becker and Epstein 1982; and see surveys developed since 1993 at: https://nnps.jhucsos.com/publications-products/surveys/ (accessed on 5 September 2025) for questonniares for parents, teachers, and students). These surveys do not focus on family engagement during the summer.

In their exploratory study, Nathans and Guha tested, revised, and retested a 20-item questionnaire with over 50 parents of students in a summer learning program. The authors found that most parents were interested in and supported their child’s learning activities at home during the summer. They found that parents were most engaged with students in summer reading activities (e.g., reading aloud, talking about stories). Few parents volunteered to assist at the summer school location, but most agreed they were comfortable talking with teachers in the summer programs. Most requested more information about the summer program, their child’s progress, and specific ideas of how to help at home. These patterns echo family engagement during the regular school year for busy parents. Evidence will be needed in future studies on the validity of this or revised questionnaires. For example, are the patterns of family engagement linked to student learning? Can teachers use the data to improve the organization and conduct of the summer programs?

Nathans and Guha took the first step in the right direction. There are gaps in current measures of family engagement that need to be filled—including parent, teacher, and student engagement activities and results in summer learning programs. Summer programs for students are very different from each other—e.g., summer school for remedial skills, the arts, science studies, and more. Measures of family engagement in the summer will need to identify specific programs and participants. These and other researchers will have to continue to test their questionnaires on summer family engagement with larger and more representative samples to conduct the required advanced analyses and validity studies to support a new measure.

Summer programs have the same expectations for family engagement as programs in the school year: students with involved parents will do better in summer school, have less “learning loss,” and need less remedial instruction at the start of the new school year. Data on family engagement should help district and school leaders improve summer programs and communications of home, school, and community [See Nathans and Guha (2025)].

7. Topic—Parent Views of School Quality and Inclusion

Kristin Vogel Campbell studied another aspect of community schools. In a district that organized five community schools, leaders wanted to know what students’ parents thought of the new school organization, and whether they felt they were partners in their children’s education. Campbell conducted 12 listening sessions with groups of parents and caregivers. They reported that the schools were working to strengthen a sense of belonging. They appreciated the schools’ after-school programs, attention to family languages, and other community services for families.

Parents also identified a few challenges that needed attention including class size, low expectations for students receiving special education, some persistent language barriers, funding disparities, and insufficient training for staff working with students with disabilities. Across schools, parents were most concerned that their children receiving special education services were separated from students in general education. This contradicted the school’s emphasis on “inclusion,” a goal of community schools.

Importantly, parents who felt included as partners were more likely to say that their school had a joyful, welcoming climate; students were making academic and social progress; and there were good family involvement activities—also goals of community schools [See Vogel-Campbell (2025)].

8. Topic: Preservice Education/Teacher Preparation for Engaging Families in Children’s Learning

Sandra Ryan and co-authors followed students from a college course on family engagement to their student teaching placement in schools in Ireland. Few researchers have been able to do this, as it is difficult for college professors to coordinate schedules and program plans with the school principals and teachers who support their student teachers.

There still are too many colleges in the U.S. and other countries where future teachers have no course, class, or field experience to learn how to engage students’ families in positive, goal-linked ways. Most new teachers are, then, unprepared or underprepared to start their teaching careers understanding that connections with parents are part of their professional work (de Bruïne et al. 2014; Epstein and Sheldon 2023; Willemse et al. 2015, 2018). Ryan et al. knew that student teaching is a good place to see if and how course content on family engagement finds its way into actual teaching practice.

In this study, student teachers and parents worked together to conduct hands-on science explorations with third grade students in three Irish elementary schools. The student teachers reported that they overcame their fears of working with parents, learned more about parents’ challenges, and saw the important role that parents played in their children’s learning. In short, their coursework translated to positive connections with parents on STEM learning. By moving from coursework to school placements, the student teachers activated positive attitudes toward and collaborative behavior with parents to help students explore science.

The authors suggest ways that other professors of education can follow student teachers from college coursework to school placements. This small study poses many questions that can be confirmed or corrected in new research, including how parents reacted to working with student teachers, and how students experienced the lessons that were conducted [See Ryan et al. (2025)].

9. Discussion

The nine articles in this Special Issue focus on a basic overarching question on school organization that must be answered: Which structures and processes promote family and community engagement and improve students’ opportunities to learn in any school organization? In different ways, the articles add new information to address the question, but more work is needed in large and small, quantitative and qualitative studies to answer that important question.

The articles also reveal a few important conditions that slow progress in moving from research to school improvement.

• The challenge of low or no budgets. Most researchers (i.e., graduate students and faculty) have no or low budgets. This restriction leads many to conduct small qualitative or mixed-methods studies with a few focus groups or a small number of interviews. Specialists in qualitative methods report that samples of 20 people (or as few as 9) create a saturation point for researchers to identify important themes and to adequately cover the range of participants’ perceptions, reflections, and experiences (Guest et al. 2006; Morse 2015). The small studies may open new questions for larger, more representative studies using quantitative and qualitative methods to learn if and how emerging ideas affect schools, students, and/or families in diverse communities. The next-stage studies, however, often require substantial funding from government or philanthropic sources.
• The requirement to contribute something new to the knowledge base. All researchers must make an original contribution to the literature in their dissertations and publishable articles. This important requirement may lead those with no or low budgets to select a clear—but marginal—question that was unanswered in a prior study due to limitations of data. A small, focused study can contribute something new to the knowledge base, but by itself cannot be applied broadly to improve school programs. Quantitative studies also are needed that test hypotheses with large representative and diverse samples to determine if, how, and for whom strategies for programs of school, family, and community partnerships have been adequately tested and proven in practice. Combined with the previous budgetary challenge, the field is left with a wide range of initial promising findings in need of confirmation and/or further investigation.
• The need for more opportunities for graduate students in the social sciences to specialize in quantitative methods to test hypotheses with large, representative samples. Although both quantitative and qualitative methods are important for exploring important questions in education research, recent accounts suggest qualitative methods are becoming more prominent in the social sciences. Many PhD programs and most EdD programs do not require students to take more than an introductory course in advanced quantitative methods, and few students specialize in these methods. Yet, these skills are needed to analyze data with large samples of educators, parents, and/or students across grade levels in diverse locations to identify successful programs and practices for widespread school improvement. This is true for all topics in social research including school, family, and community partnerships to establish and sustain programs of family engagement that contribute to student success in school.
• The need for programmatic research to improve school programs and practices of family and community engagement—the RD&D agenda. In programmatic research, one study leads to the next—always with clearer and more critical questions. Programmatic research includes quantitative studies with large and diverse samples of students, teachers, and parents, and qualitative research with small samples to learn about participants’ perspectives and experiences. Both methods can support longitudinal studies that measure and report results over time. Programmatic research on family and community engagement must add up across many studies to yield convincing and generalizable results on the structures, processes, and results of programs and practices that promote and guide school improvement.

Each of the studies in this Special Issue represent a step or stage in programmatic research on school, family, and community partnerships. In some cases, the study introduces a new topic for future work. In other instances, the same or different researchers have been working on the topic of family and community engagement for some time. Their contributions show an evolution and integration of ideas and evidence for widespread application.

For more than 40 years—starting with a statewide survey in 1981 and continuing with fieldwork in over 5000 schools since 1987, colleagues at Johns Hopkins University have been conducting programmatic research on basic and advanced topics of school, family, and community partnerships (Becker and Epstein 1982; Epstein et al. 2019; Epstein and Sheldon 2023). Many scholars in more than 30 countries in INET, in the Family, School, Community Partnership Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and in the European Research Network about Parents in Education (ERNAPE) have been conducting studies that increase knowledge and may guide more equitable and excellent programs of family and community engagement.

The nine articles in this Special Issue of Social Sciences and the conditions of research they reveal tell us that education research is not a quick or easy process. The studies do their part to widen or deepen knowledge on various topics of school, family, and community partnerships, but all authors are clear about the limitations of their data. Each one outlines the next questions for new studies to clarify and extend understanding and results. Many studies—large and small, using quantitative and qualitative methods—programmatic research—will be needed to continue to improve programs and practice of family and community engagement in all schools, with all families, for the success of all students. We learn, again, that no study is perfect—ever.

As you—the reader—engage with these and other studies of school, family, and community partners, you may reflect on points of synergy with your own research. You may identify gaps that still exist in our knowledge and application of school, family, and community partnerships. More and better information is needed on how specific practices of family and community engagement can measurably increase student learning in each academic subject at every grade level, and in children’s overall—real-life—success. There always are ways to improve prior research when opportunities and resources for the next study come together.