Families and schools. The involvement of foreign families in schools. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Families and schools. The involvement of foreign families in schools.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

The involvement of families in their children’s education is an important factor in achieving school success and quality education. However, we are still far from achieving a successful partnership between families and schools that allows us to reach the quality objectives described above, especially if we are talking about families of foreign origin, where linguistic, cultural and social differences hinder good relations between both educational agents. Therefore, in this context, and in view of the need for schools to improve their relations with families (especially with families of foreign origin), the project entitled “Families and schools. The involvement of foreign families in schools” was born. This project is divided into two stages, each of which seeks to achieve a clearly differentiated objective. Firstly (stage 1), we analyse the strengths and weaknesses of family involvement in 3 European countries (Spain, Italy and Luxembourg), and we design a set of innovative strategies to improve parental involvement. Secondly (stage 2), the proposed strategies are implemented and evaluated in 24 primary schools, with the final objective of establishing a set of tools applicable to other schools.

The project has involved 9 partners from three different countries (Italy, Luxembourg and Spain), belonging to three levels involved in education: the university, the educational administration and the school. In other words, in each country, a university, an educational administration and a school have participated in the project. In addition, 21 other primary schools (7 in each country) have been involved in the project, who have tested and evaluated the innovative strategies designed in the first phase.

More specifically, the activities that have been carried out are the following:
1. Meta-analysis of parental involvement in schools in Spain, Italy and Luxembourg.
2. Discussion groups with families of foreign origin and teachers from the participating schools (to detect weaknesses in parental involvement).
3. Design of innovative strategies to improve the family-school relationship and the involvement of parents in their children’s education.
4. Implementation, evaluation and redesign of the innovative strategies by the 24 schools (21 collaborating schools plus the 3 partner schools involved in the project).

As material results of the project, two digital books have been published. The first one, entitled “Families and schools. The involvement of foreign families in schools”, compiles the results of actions 1, 2 and 3 described above. The second, entitled “Foreign families and schools. Innovative strategies for improving the family-school relationship” is a compilation of the innovative actions carried out by the schools, which give a first-person account of their experiences. Moreover, these actions are also included in an audio-visual capsule to facilitate their spreading among the teaching staff. In addition to the aforementioned intellectual products, different dissemination activities have been carried out within the framework of the project. The most outstanding dissemination activities are the international congress in Brescia, where the results of the first phase of the project were presented, and the teacher training courses in the second phase of the project, in which, at national level, each team has disseminated the innovative strategies designed and implemented in the schools, making them known to more than a hundred teachers in each country. More internally, the 24 schools involved in the project have been enriched by the knowledge generated in the framework of the project, having improved their resources and tools to relate to and involve families.

Finally, the project has a long-term projection, since during the next five academic years the educational administration of each country will be in charge of supervising and evaluating the continuity of the innovative strategies implemented in the schools involved. In other words, the 24 schools will continue to use the tools designed and implement the innovative actions. To sum up, we will be able to know the viability and success of these strategies also in the longer term.

Project Website

http://familyandschool.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 118434,51 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE LLEIDA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Istituto Comprensivo di Adro
• Direction de l’Enseignement fondamental, région Differdange
• IIS L EINAUDI
• UNIVERSITA CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE
• Ecole fondamentale Niederkorn
• Inspecció d’Educació
• Escola Rambleta del Clot