Abstract
This chapter contributes to the intensified focus by government, schools, and communities on building capacity for parental engagement in children’s schooling. More specifically it discusses new ways that schools and Indigenous families and communities might be supported to build sustainable partnerships for such an enterprise: specifically in teaching and supporting children to read Standard Australian English. The first section outlines Australia’s Indigenous education policy with a view to highlighting a national policy shift from schools’ sole accountability for children’s learning to a focus on building partnerships between schools, parents, families, and communities to strengthen Indigenous children’s literacy. The next section looks to examples of how home-school partnership policies have been enacted in Australia and New Zealand. The chapter concludes with a reappraisal of what counts as “parent engagement” in reading for Indigenous parents, carers, and communities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Australian Government Productivity Commission. (2011). Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage; Key indicators, 2011 report. Canberra: Productivity Commission. Retrieved from http://www.pc.gov.au/gsp/overcoming-indigenous-disadvantage/key-indicators-2011.
Australian Government Productivity Commission. (2012). Review of the overcoming Indigenous disadvantage: Key indicators report. Retrieved from http://www.pc.gov.au/gsp/overcoming-indigenous-disadvantage/oid-review-2012.
Bolivar, J. M., & Chrispeels, J. H. (2011). Enhancing parent leadership through building social and intellectual capital. American Educational Research Journal, 48(1), 4–28.
Bull, A., Brooking, K., & Campbell, R. (2008). Successful home-school partnerships. Report to the ministry of education New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/884_Successful_Home-School_Partnership-v2.pdf.
Chaney, F. (2013) The Indigenous policy experience 1960 to 2012. Better Indigenous policies: The role of evaluation: Roundtable proceedings. Canberra: Productivity Commission. Retrieved from http://www.pc.gov.au/research/conference-proceedings/better-indigenous-policies
Dempster, N. (2009). Leadership for learning: A framework synthesising recent research. EdVentures, 1(13), 1–11.
Department of Education Tasmania. (n.d.). Tasmania’s aboriginal education framework (2012–2015). Retrieved from https://www.education.tas.gov.au/documentcentre/Documents/Tasmanias-Aboriginal-Education-Framework-(2012%E2%80%932015).pdf
Department of Education WA. (2011). Aboriginal education plan for WA public schools 2011–2014. Retrieved from http://www.det.wa.edu.au/aboriginaleducation/detcms/aboriginal-education/aboriginal-education/docs/aboriginal-education-plan-2011-2014.en?cat-id=8092822
Department of Employment, Education and Training. (1989). National aboriginal and Torres strait islander education policy: Joint policy statement. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
Emerson, L., Fear, J., Fox, S., & Sanders, E. (2012). Parental engagement in learning and schooling: Lessons from research (Research report). Canberra: Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau.
Epstein, J. L., Coates, L., Salinas, K. C., Sanders, M. G., & Simon, B. S. (1997). School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.
Fan, X., & Chen, M. (2001). Parental involvement and students’ academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 13(1), 1–22.
Farrant, B. M., Carrington, C. J., Shepherd, C., Walker, R., & Pearson, G. C. (2014). Early vocabulary development of Australian Indigenous children: Identifying strengths. Child Development Research, Article ID 942817. Retrieved from http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cdr/2014/942817/
Finn, J. D. (1998). Parental engagement that makes a difference. Educational Leadership, 55(8), 20–24.
Freeman, L., & Bochner, S. (2008). Bridging the gap: Improving literacy outcomes for Indigenous students. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 33(4), 9–16.
García, E., & Jensen, B. (2007). Helping young Hispanic learners. Educational Leadership, 64(6), 34–39.
Goldring, E., & Rallis, S. F. (1993). Principals of dynamic schools: Taking charge of change. Newbury Park: Corwin.
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge.
Henderson, A. T., & Berla, N. (1994). A new generation of evidence: The family is critical to student achievement. St Louis: Danforth Foundation and Flint.
Hess, R., & Holloway, S. (1984). Family and school as educational institutions. In R. Parke, R. Emde, H. McAdoo, & G. Sackett (Eds.), Review of child development research: Vol. 7. The family (pp. 179–222). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Johnson, G., Dempster, N., McKenzie, L., Klieve, H., Flückiger, B., Lovett, S., Riley, T., & Webster, A. (2014). Principals as literacy leaders with Indigenous communities: Leadership for learning to read – ‘Both ways’. Canberra: The Australian Primary Principals Association.
Konza, D. (2011). Understanding the reading process (Research into practice series). Retrieved from http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/files/links/link_157541.pdf
KPMG. (2008). Every child a chance trust. Retrieved from http://www.kpmg.com/UK/en/about/AboutKPMG/KPMGFoundation/ProjectsWeFund/Pages/every-child-chance-trust.aspx.
Lea, T., Holmes, C., Chenhall, R., Senior, K., & Wegner, A. (2011). Parent-school engagement: Exploring the concept of ‘invisible’ Indigenous parents in three north Australian communities. Darwin: The Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University.
Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (2006). A critical review of the parent engagement literature. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education.
Leithwood, K., & Riehl, C. (2005). What we know about successful school leadership. In W. Firestone & C. Riehl (Eds.), A new agenda: Directions for research on educational leadership (pp. 22–47). New York: Teachers College Press.
Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2006). Seven strong claims about successful leadership. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.
Leithwood, K., Anderson, S., Mascall, B., & Strauss, T. (2010). School leaders’ influences on student learning: The four paths. In T. Bush, L. Bell, & D. Middlewood (Eds.), The principles of educational leadership and management (2nd ed., pp. 1–13). London: Sage.
MacBeath, J., & Dempster, N. (Eds.). (2009). Connecting leadership and learning. London: Routledge.
Masters, G. (2009). A shared challenge: Improving literacy, numeracy and science learning in Queensland primary schools. Melbourne: ACER.
Muller, D. (2012). Parents as partners in Indigenous children’s learning. A report by Denis Muller & Associates for the Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau, Canberra. Retrieved from http://austparents.edu.au/2014/wp-content/uploads/parents-as-partners-in-indigenous-childrens-learning.pdf
Mutch, C., & Collins, S. (2012). Partners in learning: Schools’ engagement with parents, families, and communities in New Zealand. School Community Journal, 22(1), 167–187.
National Indigenous Reform Agreement – Closing the Gap. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=5399
NSW Department of Education and Communities. (2013). Connected communities. Retrieved from http://www.dec.nsw.gov.au/about-the-department/our-reforms/connected-communities
OECD. (2008). Ten steps to equity in education. Retrieved Feb 10, 2010, from http://www.oecd.org/publications/Policybriefs.
Purdie, N., Reid, K., Frigo, T., Stone, A., & Kleinhenz, E. (2011). Literacy and numeracy learning: Lessons from the longitudinal literacy and numeracy study for Indigenous students (ACER research monograph 65). Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research.
Queensland Government. (n.d.). Solid partners solid futures: A partnership approach for excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander early childhood, education, training and employment from 2013 to 2016. Retrieved from https://indigenousportal.eq.edu.au/about/Pages/default.aspx
Robinson, V. M. J. (2007). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works. Winmalee: Australian Council for Educational Leaders.
Robinson, V., Hohepa, M., & Lloyd, C. (2009). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why. Best evidence synthesis iteration. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Santoro, N., Reid, J. A., Crawford, L., & Simpson, L. (2011). Teaching Indigenous children: Listening to and learning from Indigenous teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 36(10), Article 5. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol36/iss10/5
Taveras, B., Douwes, C., Johnson, K., Lee, D., & Caspe, M. (2010). New visions for public schools: Using data to engage families. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project. Retrieved from http://www.hfrp.org/family-involvement/publications-resources/new-visions-for-public-schools-using-data-to-engage-families.
The Smith Family. (2012). The Smith Family’s submission to the NSW Government’s “Great Teaching, Inspired Learning” discussion paper. Retrieved from http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/news/greatteaching/submissions/thesmithfamily.pdf
Wilson, B. (2014). A share in the future: The review of Indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Retrieved from http://www.education.nt.gov.au/parents-community/students-learning/indigenous-education-review-1.
Wise, B. (2009). Adolescent literacy: The cornerstone of student success. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(5), 369–375.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Johnson, G., McKenzie, L. (2016). Capacity Building for Parental Engagement in Reading: A Distributed Leadership Approach Between Schools and Indigenous Communities. In: Johnson, G., Dempster, N. (eds) Leadership in Diverse Learning Contexts. Studies in Educational Leadership, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28302-9_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28302-9_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28300-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28302-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)