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The role of family-school partnerships in facilitating children's educational engagement and achievement is now widely recognised. However, the theoretical foundations of family-school partnerships remain under-developed and research in many aspects of this field is incomplete. The need for the development of a rigorously informed and theorised foundation to inform practice presents a challenge for educational research, and for the fields of teacher education and professional learning, in addressing the lack of instruction around effective involvement of families in partnerships with schools. This paper argues that when critically framed, a pedagogical conceptualisation of family-school partnerships provides a useful way forward in re-theorising this field of practice.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN FAMILY-SCHOOL partnerships is widely accepted as supporting improved student outcomes. International research indicates that the formation of these partnerships varies across family sociocultural backgrounds, and over time. Analysing longitudinal data, this paper examines patterns of parent involvement in family-school partnerships in the early years of formal schooling in Australia. Similar to experiences in other national contexts, parent involvement in home-, school-and community-based family-school partnership activities reduced as children moved through the school grades. Parent involvement also differed with family socioeconomic and cultural background. The implications of these differences in children's experiences of parent involvement for family-school partnership theory and pedagogical practice are considered. World Bank. (2008). What do we know about school-based management? Washington DC: World Bank. Yanghee, K. (2009). Minority parental involvement and school barriers: Moving the focus away from deficiencies of parents.