HLP 3

There are numerous benefits to educator-family collaboration for students, families, and educators. For instance, students with disabilities experience greater academic and behavioral gains (StricklandCohen et al., 2021), as well as enhanced goal attainment, self-determination, and post-school outcomes such as employment (Gross et al., 2021). Further, collaboration during student IEP meetings enhances student, family, and professional outcomes (e.g., reduced conflict, student achievement; Mueller & Vick, 2019). Despite such documented benefits, barriers to educator-family collaboration may prevent effective collaboration from occurring. For example, educators report limited knowledge on how to collaborate with families (Kyzar et al., 2019).

These barriers are especially true among educators who benefit from the dominant narrative in the U.S. (e.g., ideologies and beliefs that favor one social group over another) seeking to collaborate with families who do not and are marginalized by society (Lavín et al., 2021). Further, despite the importance of collaboration during transition planning in high school, research documents educator-family collaboration decreasing as students enter middle and high school (Hirano et al., 2018). Of critical importance, however, is the damage that low expectations for family involvement, negative perspectives of family “over” and “under” involvement, and a narrow value placed on schoolcentric forms of family involvement (e.g., attending conferences, helping students finish homework, returning signed documents, volunteering at school; Francis et al., 2019). Fortunately, research documents that, in spite of these barriers, families are eager to actively advocate for their child and collaborate with educators (Santamaría and Aceves, forthcoming) and there are many strategies that educators can use to enhance their collaboration with families, including reflexivity and personcentered planning practices.

An important skill when collaborating with families who come from diverse communities, cultures and lived experiences involves the practice of reflexivity. Reflexivity involves individuals critically examining the influence of their thoughts, attitudes, assumptions, habits, and biases (Bolton, 2010). Reflexive educators who practice self-scrutiny are more likely to understand the impact of biases and personal beliefs on their relationships with families, thereby strengthening collaborative relationships and culturally inclusive pedagogies and practices (CIPP). The EASE Process is one strategy that pre-service and practicing educators may use to initiate reflexivity practices (Francis et al., 2023).

EASE involves four recursive steps: (a) examination of microcultures, (b) awareness of response to contexts, (c) self-scrutiny, and (d) evaluation of beliefs and action. For example, in the first step an educator may create an identity map by writing down the microcultures they associate with their profession. Microcultures are personal identity and related characteristics that intersect to inform the ways in which we perceive and understand ourselves and others (Gollnick & Chinn, 2017). Examples of microcultures include one’s age, race/ethnicity, gender expression, belief system, geography, disability status, family structure, country of origin, and language. Educators who consider how their own microcultures coalesce or differ from those of their students and their families are better prepared to understand ways in which they can: (a) effectively and respectfully communicate in verbal, written, and nonverbal ways; (b) solicit, understand, and address family practices, concerns, and goals; and (c) employ CIPP. Next, educators may question which microcultures feel the strongest or which additional microcultures emerge when considering the family, including if the microcultures are triggered in a positive or negative way (e.g., feeling a sense of comfort and comradery or feeling a sense of uncertainty or distress). From this point, educators may interrogate the emotions associated with their microcultures. In this step, educators ask themselves “why” and “how” questions, including questions such as “Why do I feel uncomfortable communicating with this parent?” and “Are my feelings and beliefs grounded in assumptions?” Finally, in the last step, educators use this ongoing process of identifying and interrogating their microcultures, assumptions, and biases to take action in challenging their biases. Examples of action steps include identifying a cultural broker or interpreter, if needed, asking families to share their key microcultures, sharing key microcultures with families, seeking information and expertise related to family intersectional backgrounds, journaling, and connecting with a peer or coworker to debrief on assumptions and biases. In addition, reflexive educators acknowledge what they do not know, what they should know, and what they may need to unlearn through practices such as taking implicit bias surveys (see resources at the end of this chapter), acknowledging systemic barriers, examining differences in cultural expectations for collaboration, and exploring family culture through reputable online resources and community events (e.g., language maps, community cultural celebrations, community spaces, local restaurants; Rossetti et al., 2017).