Research in Brief: Engaging and Empowering Diverse and Underserved Families in Schools

Experts in the field of family and school partnerships have called for a shift from a focus on engagement to a focus on empowerment of parents, guardians, and caregivers to improve education outcomes for historically marginalized students. Although the terms "engage" and "empower" are often used interchangeably in the research, there is a significant difference in terms of practice. Family engagement generally refers to educators inviting families to participate in school-related activities. More than 50 years of research indicates that family engagement is one of the most powerful predictors of a child's development, educational attainment, and success in school and life. Family empowerment occurs when educators and schools remove the barriers to and provide opportunities for families to gain agency and influence their schools' communities to bring about positive change in their children's schooling. Empowerment involves a mutually shared effort to reach mutually identified learning goals for an individual child or for all children in a school or district. To support educational equity in terms of both opportunity and outcomes, families must be empowered by schools, districts, and communities to support their children's learning. Family empowerment occurs when educators and schools remove the barriers to and provide opportunities for families to gain agency and influence their schools' communities to bring about positive change in their children's schooling. Empowerment involves a mutually shared effort to reach mutually identified learning goals for an individual child or for all children in a school or district. To support educational equity in terms of both opportunity and outcomes, families must be empowered by schools, districts, and communities to support their children's learning. This brief presents a narrative synthesis and is based on a partial review of the relevant literature on strategies for engaging and, more recently, empowering families to support their children's learning and development. The brief also reviews and summarizes lessons learned from this research, and offers recommendations for how local education agencies can engage and empower families. [Contributors of the brief include Sylvia Kwon and Ron McCowen.]