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Open School Doors User Needs Analysis Report: Developing diverse school / parents’ communities through innovative partnerships.: (Intellectual Output 1)

This report presents the first intellectual output (IO1) of the Open School Doors project. IO1 has been jointly produced by the whole project consortium. It summarizes the national policies and initiatives among the partnership concerning the parental engagement / involvement of migrant / refugee parents toward school life. To this end literature resources have been collected and then analysed, with the following aims:
a) Profile the target group per country, i.e. outline what is the main audience, its specific cultural characteristics (if any), what has to be taken into consideration for the design of a Training Framework that will match both their learning and cultural needs, etc.
b) Elaborate on certain cases of successful parental engagement / involvement, i.e. mainly EU, nationally or locally funded projects. The rationale behind the intensive search of such cases was to identify practices that really work but not to ‘reinvent the wheel’, and have a valid starting point for Open Schools Doors (OSD) Training Framework ‐ no doubt that the amplitude and variety of such programs are good indicators of each country policy and posture towards social inclusion and provision of equal opportunities to education.
c) Identify the gaps in the current situation among the participant countries and design a Training Framework that will actively facilitate parents’ engagement / involvement to school life in a tangible and long‐term manner. Methodically authors started with desk research and apart from that empirical data was collected from focus groups which were organized with the view to validating what was theoretically concluded from literature resources by asking the main target audience of the project about the Training Framework specifications and features. To this end the last section summarizes findings of both theoretical research and focus groups, providing thus an overview of what is needed and on which directions OSD didactic approach should focus.:Abstract 6

Introduction and scope 7

1 Conceptualising Home School Interaction 9
1.1 Models of Parental Engagement 9
1.2 ‘Hard to reach’ parents or Hard to Reach Schools? 11
1.2.1 Intersectionality 13
1.2.2 Social Class and home ‐ school interaction 13
1.2.3 Ethnicity and home ‐ school interaction 15
1.2.4 Colonialism / Post‐colonialism 16
1.3 Home school interaction and technology 17
1.4 Infusing home ‐ school interaction with Literacies 20
1.4.1 Home ‐ school interaction as literacy work 20
1.5 Refugee Adults and Digital Literacy 22
1.6 Looking forward: Third Spaces and Multi‐Directional Parental Engagement 24
1.6.1 Multi‐directionality 25
1.6.2 Family Learning 26
1.6.3 Family learning and ‘Digital success stories’ ‐ ideas for future engagement? 27

2 The European dimension 29
2.1 European policies on parental involvement 29
2.2 Facts and figures 30
2.3 European and international experiences: interesting cases of parental involvement projects / practices beyond the consortium partner countries 33
2.3.1 Empowerment of Roma: An interesting practice followed in Croatia 33
2.3.2 Toddler: Towards Opportunities for Disadvantaged and Diverse Learners on Early Childhood‐Road ‐ an EU project 34
2.3.3 ASPIRA Parents for Educational Excellence Program (APEX): An ongoing parental involvement project 37
2.3.4 Involve Parents – Improve School – COMENIUS Multilateral Project 38
2.3.5 Language courses for people of a migrant background: An interesting practice from Sweden 41
2.3.6 More chances with parents: An interesting practice from the Netherlands 42

3 National Experiences 46
3.1 Austria 46
3.1.1 National initiatives, projects and articles in the area of parental engagement/involvement of migrant/ refugee parents 48
3.1.2 Recent initiatives and programmes to further language development 49
3.1.3 Political support for initiatives to engage immigrant parents 50
3.1.4 Lessons learnt 52
3.2 Germany 58
3.2.1 Parental involvement among migrants in German education research 58
3.2.2 Projects on parental involvement 59
3.2.3 Research results on (intercultural) parental work 63
3.2.4 Summary 65
3.3 Greece 67
3.3.1 Good practices and research about migrants’ parental engagement 67
3.3.2 Interventions and projects with migrants’ parents in Greece 72
3.3.3 Summarizing Comments 78
3.4 UK 78
3.4.1 Home school interaction and migrant parents 78
3.4.2 Home School Interaction and Roma families 80
3.4.3 Good practice – cultural acknowledgement 82
3.4.4 ‘Good practice at the grassroots’ 84

4 Focus Groups 85
4.1 Organization and scope 85
4.2 Overview about methodical aspects 86
4.3 Trans European focus group 87
4.4 Focus groups in Austria 90
4.5 Focus groups Germany 93
4.5.1 Focus groups Germany 93
4.5.2 Focus Group “German Parental Association” 93
4.5.3 Focus Group “Teacher Training Programme TU Dresden” 95
4.6 Focus groups Greece 99
4.6.1 Organization 99
4.6.2 Analysis and main findings 102
4.7 Focus groups UK 107
4.7.1 Issues and Themes Emerging from Focus Group Discussions 107

5 Conclusions and recommendations for the design of Open Schools Doors training framework 135
5.1 Leadership 135
5.2 Underpinning principles 136
5.3 Priorities for Teacher development: 139

Bibliography 142
Publications recommended for further reading 151

Appendix 152
A.1 Interview Guide 152
A.2 Feedback Template 154
A.3 Attendance List Template 155

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:90911
Date23 April 2024
CreatorsKoehler, Thomas, Sperling, Lisa, Backhaus, Leonie, Zoakou, Anna, Kendall, Alex, Puttick, Mary‐Rose, Koskeris, Andreas, Garofalakis, John, Reimers, Christian, Rauscher, Laura
ContributorsBirmingham City University (BCU), Computer Technology Institute and Press „Diophantus”, Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA),, BildungOnline (B:O), Parents International (IPA)
PublisherTechnische Universität Dresden
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typedoc-type:workingPaper, info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper, doc-type:Text
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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