Parenting in Context: Family Engagement in Promoting Child Development
A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 September 2026 | Viewed by 93
Special Issue Editors
Interests: special education; family–professional partnerships; self-advocacy; resilience; teacher education
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Children’s development is shaped not only by parenting practices but also by the broader contexts in which families live. Social, cultural and economic conditions influence how parents interact with their children, either facilitating or hindering healthy development. Family engagement has consistently been shown to play a vital role in fostering resilience, educational achievement and long-term well-being. This Special Issue emphasizes parenting in context, highlighting how families engage with schools, health systems, social services and community resources to promote children’s growth. We seek to bring together a scholarship that examines family engagement across diverse cultural and socioeconomic settings, identifies strategies to reduce disparities and informs inclusive practices that strengthen both children and families. We welcome submissions of empirical studies (quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods) as well as systematic or conceptual reviews. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Parenting and family engagement across social, cultural and economic contexts;
- Family engagement in inclusive and special education settings;
- Experiences of families raising children with disabilities or developmental delays;
- Parenting in marginalized, underserved, cross-cultural or multilingual communities;
- Interventions and policies that support child development through family engagement in education, health and social work;
- Interdisciplinary approaches to strengthening family–child relationships and community resilience.
This Special Issue welcomes contributions from psychology, education, special education, social work, sociology, public health and related disciplines. By integrating perspectives across fields, the Issue aims to advance a more comprehensive understanding of how families, practitioners and policymakers can work collaboratively to support children’s development in an increasingly complex world.
Contributions must follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) of the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.
Dr. Joo Young Hong
Dr. Shinwoo Choi
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- parenting in context
- family engagement
- child development
- inclusive and special education
- social work and child welfare
- cross-cultural parenting
- resilience
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