EECLD 6003 Family and Community Engagement
This course builds on concepts introduced in EECLD 6001 Culturally Responsive Teaching to strengthen students' theoretical and practical understandings of the role of families and communities in schooling. A critical theoretical lens, that non-dominant communities have forms of cultural capital that are not recognized in formal institutions like schools, is used to examine existing barriers and impediments to effective parent, family, and community engagement in schools. The course additionally focuses on ways to develop, improve and maintain effective parent and community engagement in education. The course will challenge students to understand and prepare for community-driven systemic education reform. Through an action-research inquiry project, students will apply an ecological model of parent engagement to their own contexts, in which parents are centrally engaged in multifaceted and varied aspects of school life.