Date of Award
Fall 12-14-2020
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership (Ed.D)
Department
Educational Leadership
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Debra Coffey
Committee Chair
Dr. Raynice Jean-Sigur
Second Committee Member
Dr. Linda Grant
Abstract
This qualitative study sought to understand how professional working families with elementary age children perceive family engagement. Through one-on-one interviews, the researcher gained insight on how families define and perceive family engagement. The open-ended, one-on-one, semi-structured interviews included a purposeful sample of 8 participants. An analysis of data included a system of coding to link thoughts across data after reviewing, reflecting, and transcribing interviews. Their rich descriptions provide detailed information that is extremely useful to understanding the complexities of family engagement and its ability to support teachers, students, families and schools.
Findings from the study revealed the importance of families, teachers and schools communicating and collaborating to have family engagement success. According to the families in this study, family engagement involves two-way communication and relationship building that allows families and school personnel to collaborate, share their ideas and decision-making. Families also believe family engagement includes the involvement of curricular and extracurricular activities. Additionally, families discussed the important role technology plays in achieving successful family engagement by supporting communication, relationship building and involvement. Results from this study generated recommendations for elementary education stakeholders.