Principal Leadership for Parent Engagement in Disadvantaged Schools (eBook)

This book presents and theorises research findings into why and how school principals play a critical role in engaging parents and their school communities to enhance student learning and wellbeing. It highlights the imperative of parent engagement as evidenced by clear, consistent findings from research over the last fifty years and government reforms, policies and frameworks internationally and nationally in Australia which have been driven by the weight of this evidence. It focuses on a research project conducted from 2016 to 2017, titled 'Principal leadership for parent-school-community engagement in disadvantaged schools'. This project investigated four principals identified as successful in parent engagement based on findings of state-wide survey research of principals and presidents of parents and citizens' associations in 2014 in Queensland, Australia. 

Dr Linda-Dianne (Linda) Willis is Program Director, Bachelor of Education, and Senior Lecturer, in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. She is an experienced classroom and tertiary teacher, having taught extensively in the primary and middle years in schools and primary, middle years and senior secondary courses in universities. Linda has held leadership roles in government and independent schools and was the Program Director of the Master of Teaching (Primary) program at The University of Queensland for four years (2014-2018). Linda completed her PhD on parent-teacher engagement in 2013 and has since led significant research projects across Queensland in Catholic and state schools which examine parent engagement in inquiry curriculum using social media and the role of principals in leading parent engagement. She uses dialogic approaches throughout the design and implementation of her research projects as she works alongside students, parents, teachers, principals, preservice teachers, researchers and industry stakeholders to generate authentic partnerships for enhancing student learning and wellbeing and the success of schools. Her work focuses on how usually marginalised individuals such as parents in schools may be enabled to play more participatory roles as co-educators in their child's learning and wellbeing. Linda was the Lead Chief Investigator (2016-2020) on the project, Principal Leadership for Parent-School-Community Engagement. This research was supported by the Queensland Department of Education's Education Horizon Grant scheme in partnership with Parents and Citizens' Associations Queensland. Linda has published widely in the area of parent engagement and presented on this topic at national and international conferences. Her other research interests include literacy, preservice teacher education, inquiry curriculum, dialogic pedagogies, and Humanities and Social Sciences education. Linda is the National Publications Director of the Australian Literacy Educators' Association (ALEA) and a member of the ALEA Executive and National Council.

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This book presents and theorises research findings into why and how school principals play a critical role in engaging parents and their school communities to enhance student learning and wellbeing. It highlights the imperative of parent engagement as evidenced by clear, consistent findings from research over the last fifty years and government reforms, policies and frameworks internationally and nationally in Australia which have been driven by the weight of this evidence. It focuses on a research project conducted from 2016 to 2017, titled 'Principal leadership for parent-school-community engagement in disadvantaged schools'. This project investigated four principals identified as successful in parent engagement based on findings of state-wide survey research of principals and presidents of parents and citizens' associations in 2014 in Queensland, Australia. This book offers theoretical and empirical evidence based on literature for the qualities successful principals in parent engagement exhibit, and the strategies they take to achieve parent and community engagement. It shows how the concept of agency as achievement can be used by educators and public policy makers to enable school leaders and teachers to adopt qualities and strategies that will engage parents in their child's learning and wellbeing, so that improved outcomes for their child and schools can result.