This practical resource will help educators to identify, address, and meet the needs of the diverse families in today's classrooms. It is the first book to critically examine how families are represented in the media, schools, and other institutions and apply that information to build effective home-school partnerships. The authors examine how different relationships between families and teachers are defined by discourses that circulate through formal and informal curricula. They explore how families and educators can collectively reconceptualize these conversations to create positive...

In this volume, teachers from urban, suburban, and rural districts join together in a teacher inquiry group to challenge homophobia and heterosexism in schools and classrooms. To create safe learning environments for all students they address key topics, including seizing teachable moments, organizing faculty, deciding whether to come out in the classroom, using LGBTQ-inclusive texts, running a Gay-Straight Alliance, changing district policy to protect LGBTQ teachers and students, dealing with resistant students, and preparing preservice teachers to do antihomophobia work.

Teachers need to read books by other teachers, yet there are few available on the important subject of parent-teacher relationships. Lynne Yermanock Strieb fills the gap with this engaging account of her 30-year career teaching children in urban classrooms. Drawing on an extensive archive of documents she kept as a first- and second-grade public school teacher in Philadelphia, Strieb captures the complexity and nuance of working with the families of her students. Readers experience how her teaching developed over time and gain access to the useful materials she created throughout her career,...

This is the first book about action research devoted to the complex issues faced by children with special needs and their teachers. The authors begin by providing the historical and philosophical underpinnings of action research and then present a framework for conducting action research in special education. In addition, they feature four examples of actual teacher-researcher studies, as well as a how-to chapter that outlines the basic principles needed for conducting action research. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in using action research to enhance student achievement...