Family-School (Dis)Engagement: Understanding What It Is, What It’s Not, and What to Do About It

Abstract

This paper traces the journey of a community of schools, bound together by a geographical radius that sees some students travelling one hour each direction, as they attempt to interrupt institutional discourses and question the assumptions that underlie family-school engagement practices through collaborative inquiry and community-based research. We offer reconsideration of family (dis)engagement, and a set of principles to guide family-school engagement that recognizes the diversity of the relationship, and the need for both families and schools to meet each other where they are, repositioning both parties as partnered, harmonic voices in the education of children.