Engaging Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families of Children with Disabilities

Abstract

Classrooms are increasingly more diverse, and student success can be enhanced through family engagement, especially for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. Too often teachers are stymied by how to engage CLD families of children with disabilities. Common practices of parent involvement are ineffective and fail to appreciate families as members of the educational team. Family engagement seeks to establish and maintain authentic family-school partnerships based on mutual respect and shared agency for student academic and social success. This column provides specific family engagement strategies that teachers and schools can implement in an effort to provide reciprocal collaboration.

Parent-Educator Partnerships in Special Education Services Provision: A Thematic Exploration of Challenges Faced by Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families

“…For parents who stay, although trends in previous research highlight the importance of parental involvement in the service delivery process for children with disabilities (Kalyanpur & Harry, 2012;McLeod, 2012;McLeod, 2013;Gerzel-Short et al, 2019), attempts by the families to be involved are not fostered or nurtured. For example, families in this study desired that educators and service providers be compassionate and proactive in acknowledging parents' concerns for their children.…”

“…Further, even though schools encourage families to be involved in their children's education, they view family and school partnerships through a single lens leading to assumptions about how families are ineffective. Hence, this leads to superficial opportunities for involvement leaving families feeling underappreciated and unwelcome (Gerzel-Short et al, 2019). The superficial chances are happening in an educational landscape where the number of CLD students continues to increase and the number of students at various stages of English acquisition (Tran et.…”

“I did not realize that my teacher had taken away part of my identity”: bilingual preservice teachers’ virtual libraries project

“…The stories presented the need for preservice teachers to reclaim their bilingual identities by specifically reflecting on moments within their own education. Similarly, with Gerzel-Short et al ’s (2019) findings on the impact of climate in promoting a positive culture of home-school collaboration for CLD students with teachers and families, we present the need for preservice teachers to do the same within their preservice teacher preparation programs. These narratives imply a need for preservice teacher preparation programs to integrate moments for preservice teachers to build critical-racial consciousness within their coursework.…”

Engaging Families from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds in Virtual Individualized Education Program Meetings

“…Allowing families to advocate for their children, and encouraging this process is a step toward facilitating the third CRP tenet, which focuses on developing others’ socio-political or critical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2021). By doing this, teachers will create a more equitable space during the meeting and show that they recognize CLD families as equal, valued partners during the IEP process (Gerzel-Short et al, 2019). Similarly, teachers can advocate for their students and families to do what is best for them.…”