Ministry of Education

School-Community Relations

November 2013
Addis Ababa
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 Ministry of Education
Module Title: School-Community Relations
Prepared by: Mekelle University
Module Writer: Tarekegn Haileselassie
Internal Editor: Goitom Tetemke
Technical Advisor:PRIN International Consultancy &
Research Services PLC
Module Development Expert: Tilaye Kassahun (PhD)
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Module Title: School-Community Relations
Module Code – PGDSL 608
Credit hours: 3
Contact hours: 4
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 Table of Contents
Page

UNIT ONE: BUILDING SCHOOL-COMMUNITY RELATIONS ...........................................

1
1.1. Defining Community/Society ............................................................................................. 1
1.2. Nature and Characteristics of Community........................................................................... 4
1.3. Importance of Community Participation in Schools ............................................................ 7
1.4. School Culture that Promotes Community Participation.................................................... 11
1.5 The Relationship between Community and School Governance......................................... 16
1.6. Barriers in the School-Community Relations .................................................................... 19
Unit Summary .........................................................................................................................
24
UNIT TWO: STRUCTURE OF SCHOOL-COMMUNITY RELATIONS .............................. 30
2.1. Different Structures of School-Community Relations ....................................................... 30
2.2. Collaborative Structures and organizations ....................................................................... 35
2.3. Common Practices of the School-Community Relations ................................................... 39
2.4. Expectations and demands of the Community................................................................... 44
Unit Summary .........................................................................................................................
48
UNIT THREE: COLLABORATION AND TWO WAY COMMUNICATION IN SCHOOL-
COMMUNITY RELATIONS ................................................................................................. 52
3.1. The Essence of Participatory approach.............................................................................. 52
3.2. Major Goals of School-Community Relations................................................................... 57
3.3. Strategies for Two Way Collaboration and Communication with Stakeholders .................
60
3.4. Potential Partners in School-Community Relations ...........................................................
68
Unit Summary .........................................................................................................................
79
UNIT FOUR: DIVERSITY IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY ...........................................
83
4.1. Diversity and Differences: Students, Family and Communities .........................................
83
4.2. Cultural Values and Practices of the Community .............................................................. 86
4.3. The Importance/Purpose of Accommodating Diversity and Cultural Values of the
Community ............................................................................................................................. 89
4.4. Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Practices ....................................................................
94
4.5. Diversity Management in Schools and Education ........................................................... 103
Unit Summary .......................................................................................................................
107
UNIT FIVE: ......................................................................................................................... 111
5.1. The Essence of Networking ............................................................................................
111
5.2. Importance and the Purpose of Establishing Collaborative Networks ..............................
115
5.3. Organization and Coordination of Network System ........................................................ 119
5.4. Problems that Deter Networking .....................................................................................
125
Unit Summary .......................................................................................................................
128
UNIT SIX: MOBILIZING COMMUNITY RESOURCE ...................................................... 130
6.1. Community as a Resource .............................................................................................. 130
6.2. Community Resources and Students Learning ................................................................ 133
6.3. The Role of Parents/Community in Facilitating Students Learning ................................. 139
Unit
Summary…………………………………………………………………………………147

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MODULE INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner! Welcome to the course School-Community Relations. The development of sound
and constructive relationship between the school and the community has become an essential
function of democratic systems in a changing environment. Evidently, schools cannot adopt
themselves to the swift changes or make the necessary improvements without involving their
communities. There must be a structured, systematic and active participation on the part of the
community in developing educational policies, programs, plans and their implementations. This
course will enable students critically examine the diverse nature of the school and community.
This course is, therefore, designed for school principals attending a Postgraduate Diploma in
School Leadership (PGDSL) program.

Course Rationale
Community engagement is the process of involving people in decisions that affect them. This can
mean involving communities in planning, development and management of services. In light of
this, it is proposed that there must be a strong linkage between the school and the community in
order to improve the quality of education in general and student achievement in particular. Since
schools cannot meet the complex needs of the young people alone, they need to involve parents
and other community members in schooling decisions. Thus, school principals should engage
parents and community members in the educational process and create an environment where
community resources support student learning, achievement and well-being. In order to be able to
do this, the school principal should also develop an understanding of his/her role in the
community as well as the role of the school as a socializing agency and a key institution in
Ethiopian society. The purpose of this module is to help students to be familiar with notions of
community and the rationale for good school–community relations and to develop the skills,
instincts and attitudes that will enable them to engage and collaborate with key stakeholders.
Cognizant of such facts, the MoE has designed a PGDSL curriculum that incorporates the course
on School-Community Relations, which is a step in the right direction to produce competent and
community-oriented school leaders.

Course Description
The course school-community relations introduces students with the basic knowledge and skills
that are required to promote the relationship between school and community by addressing the
school culture that ensures community participation in school governance. It helps the students to
redesign the existing structure of school-community relations to meet community demands. It
also enables the students to build and maintain strategies that promote a two-way collaboration
and communication with parents, local partners and the wider community that lead to school
improvement. It helps also collect timely expectations and establish culturally responsive
practices that acknowledge the value and diversity of the community. In addition, this course
helps to develop collaborative networks with other pertinent stakeholders and to identify and use
the resources available in the community to boost students’ achievement.
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Learning Outcomes of the Module 
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
 Build a school culture that ensures community participation in school governance, school
resources management and instructional processes.
 Use or redesign the existing structure of school-community relations to meet community
demands.
 Build and maintain strategies that promote a two-way collaboration and communication
with parents, local partners and the wider community that lead to school improvement.
 Collect timely expectations and establish culturally responsive practices that
acknowledge the value and diversity of the community.
 Develop collaborative networks with other schools and other stakeholders to support
individuals and teams.
 Identify and use the resources available in the community to increase students’
achievement.

Learning Strategies of the Module

Dear Learner! General exposure is a central idea to this material; an attempt is made to expose
the learner to a variety of practical aspects of school-community relations in education.
Therefore, the reference section of each unit should be seen as a lead source and help the learner
and other interested groups. In this module, each topics start with text questions and different
activities that attempt to relate your prior knowledge and experience with the content to be dealt
with. We have also included many case studies and storytelling in each unit and lessons that will
provide you with opportunities to check your understanding based on the learning objectives
stated under course objectives. This module is a mixed mode course offered through a one-
semester workplace-based preparatory phase followed by a face-to-face summer program.
Supported by a set of specific tasks, participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their
current practice, collect data specific to their schools and begin to process some new concepts.
During the face to face program, participants will be able to draw on the experiences, data and
developing ideas that they bring to the table as they practice new skills and develop new
understandings. Hence, participants will learn through an interactive, practice-based approach
providing a wide variety of learning interventions, including:
During School-based learning
Task-based Each participant will be given tasks to reflect on school structure and the
Learning opportunities and challenges that the structure has brought in building
community participation. They will prepare to report their reflections to the
class during the second face to face session.
Case Studies Participants will be given – or will build their own- case studies on school-
community relationships, school culture, mechanisms that ensure community
participation in schools, procedures to collect timely expectations. Then the
participants will present their reports
During face to face sessions
Experience Each participant will work with someone who comes from a different school
Sharing and share the experiences of his/her school and its relationships with
community. They will particularly share experiences on matters related to the
community participation in instructional processes, school resource
management, decision-making, planning and financial contribution. Finally,
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 the participants will be given a chance to present the peculiar experiences they
understood from their colleagues to the class.
Brainstorming Participants will be given activities to brainstorming at the beginning of
chapters or new topics. In doing so, participants will be encouraged to forward
as many ideas as they have and will let the participants compare their ideas
with ones discussed in the classes/course module.
Scenarios Participants will consider scenarios that demonstrate good practices in school-
community relationships and discuss these good practices in relation to their
own school context.
Assessment Strategies of the Module
Students will be assessed using multiple methods which include group presentations, term papers
and final exams.

Assignment Reports (30%)

The participants will develop a report of the cases and task based learning activities in the learning
strategies section. In evaluating the report, the participant’s reflection on the school culture,
strategies for effective school-community relationships and school structure will be considered.
Oral Presentation (20%)
The participants will give oral presentation of the reports they submitted and points such as the
participants’ reflection on the school culture, strategies for effective school-community
relationships and school structure will be considered in their oral presentation.
Class attendance and activity (10%)
Class room participation and attendance records will be taken at all times and considered out of
10%.
Exam (40%)
Participants will sit for written exam towards the end of the second face-to-face session.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

CSOs Community Service Organizations

NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations
PGDSL Postgraduate Diploma in School Leadership
PLSS Parent Learning Support System
PTAs Parent Teacher Associations
REB Regional Education Bureau
SMCs School Management Committee/Council
SCRs School-Community Relations
SBM School-based management
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ICONS USED
Dear Learner: the following icons are used throughout this module. Critically study what each
icon represents before using the module

This tells you there is an introduction to the module, unit and section.

 This tells you there is a question to answer or think about in the text.

This tells you there is an activity to do.

This tells you to note and remember an important point.

This tells you there is a self-test for you to do

This tells you there is a checklist of the main points

This tells you there is written assignment

This tells you that these are the answers to the activities and self-test
questions.

 This tells you that there are learning outcomes to the Module or Unit

“There are no blueprints…”

“Due to the complexity of community
dynamics as a human process there are no
blueprints, nor ready made recipes of
participatory processes that can be applied
to promote participatory development”
(Botes & Rensburg, 2000: 53).
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 UNIT ONE
BUILDING SCHOOL-COMMUNITY RELATIONS
(Time allotted 6 hrs.)

UNIT INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner: I am greatly happy to say you welcome to the first unit which is regarding
conceptual framework. This unit, as an introductory part of this course, deals with the basic
concept of school-community relations. Accordingly, the whole unit is divided into six sections.
The first part of this unit begins with basic concepts and the meanings of community or society.
At the same time, it gives insights with regard to the nature and characteristics of community.
Then we will discuss about the importance of community participation in schools and the
relationship between community and school governance. Finally, it attempts to provide the
barriers in the school-community relations. I hope you will have a pleasant time reading and
doing your activities throughout the unit.

Unit Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to: 
 Differentiate the nature and characteristics of community.
 Advocate the benefits of community participation.
 Develop a school culture that encourages community participation.
 Help the community internalize a sense of ownership of its school’s affairs.
 Involve the community in instructional process.
 Analyze the dynamic forces that affect the diverse nature of the school and community.
 Devise the school culture to improve school functioning and governance.
 Manage the existing barriers within the school community relations.

Lesson One
1.1. Defining Community/Society
Activity 1.1. Group Discussion (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
 Dear Learner, what is your definition of community/society?
 Think of a community/society which you are a member and try to describe it as much
as you can.
 Try to list down what comes to your mind about the issue. Good job!

Community/Society is defined in a number of ways by various practitioners, such as

educators, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, etc. So, let us look some of the
definitions given by different disciplines. When we review different literature, we can find that
community would be described on a local scale; whereas society would describe the whole
world. Based on this premise, society is nothing but of people residing in the area, locality,
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town, city, state or in the country irrespective of religion, sex, race, etc., and community
relates to particular caste, religion, sex, race or the like (Cohen, 1985: 12; Daramola, 2012;
Ottaway, 1980).
The term community has two distinct meanings: 1) A group of interacting people, living in some
proximity (i.e., in space, time, or relationship). Community usually refers to a social unit larger
than a household that shares common values and has social cohesion. The term can also refer to
the national community or international community, and, 2) In biology, a community is a group
of interacting living organisms sharing a populated environment. In other words, a community is
a group or society, helping each other (Cohen 1985). The latter definition will coincide to the
archaeological studies of social communities. The term “community” is used in two ways in
archaeology, paralleling usage in other areas. The first is an informal definition of community as
a place where people used to live. In this sense, it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient
settlement, whether a hamlet, village, town, or city. The second meaning is similar to the usage
of the term in other social sciences: a community is a group of people living near one another
who interact socially.

Hence, in establishing the theoretical framework for this module, I think it is better to explore the
initial word derivation of the two concepts. The word "community" is derived from the Old
French communité which is derived from the Latin communitas (cum, "with/together" plus
munus, "gift"), a broad term for fellowship or organized society. Territorial or place of
community can be seen as where people have something in common, and this shared element is
understood geographically. At the same time, in interest or elective communities people share a
common characteristic other than place. They are linked together by factors such as religious
belief, ethnic origin or occupation.

On the other hand, the term society has been derived from a Latin word 'socious' that means
association or companionship; thus society means 'a larger group of individuals, who are
associative with each other'. From the initial word, we can understand that society exists only
where social beings create relationship with one another. Thus, society is a web of social
relationships.

Sociologists define society as the people who interact in such a way as to share a common
culture. The cultural bond may be ethnic or racial, based on gender, or due to shared beliefs,
values, and activities. The term society can also have a geographic meaning and refer to people
who share a common culture in a particular location. For example, people living in arctic
climates developed different cultures from those living in desert cultures.

For anthropologists and sociologists, human societies are most often organized according to their
primary means of subsistence. Based on this, social scientists have identified society as hunter-
gatherer societies, nomadic pastoral societies, horticulturalist or simple farming societies, and
advanced or intensive agricultural societies, also called civilized societies. Some consider
industrial and post-industrial societies to be qualitatively different from traditional agricultural
societies. Some also used special or different name (e.g. fishing societies or maritime societies).

In political science, societies may also be organized according to their political structure. In order
of increasing size and complexity, there are bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and state societies. These
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structures may have varying degrees of political power, depending on the cultural, geographical
and historical environments that these societies must contend with. Educational practitioners,
Daramola (2012) and Ottaway (1980) define society as the whole range of social relationships of
people living in a certain geographic territory and having a feeling or a sense of belonging to the
same group.
When we are looking the contemporary usage, the term society is currently used to cover both a
number of political and scientific connotations as well as a variety of associations. Regarding
this point, Mandatum (2008) argues that defining society is apparently a much simpler task to
accomplish, although it is problematic to define what we call society and what its relationship
might be to a geographic unit, a nation, a language, a culture, the state and statehood. A
dictionary might be useful again here and this time a social science dictionary would be the most
useful. The Collins Dictionary of Sociology defines “society” as follows:
1. The totality of human relationships.
2. Any human group that perpetuates itself more or less linked to one specific geographical
region, holding its own institutions and culture; both tribes and nation states in the
modern sense belong to this category.
Activity 1.2. Summary Activity (Reflection individually for 5 minutes)
Dear Learner! What do you deduce from the definitions given by educators,
anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists regarding community/society?
Very nice!

Currently the criterion for a community to be defined as a society was the potential for their
members to interact with each other: what counted was the frequency and scale of these
interactions. Even in the most isolated societies there must exist some communication among its
members, otherwise they could not be called societies.

Another criterion for recognition of a society, besides those above is whether its cultural and
institutional continuum could be sustained in the course of its history. However, the most recent
sociological trend shows a different direction. Society as a basic concept may no longer be the
key to getting to know our world since the examination of single societies may divert our
attention from other interactions taking place between and beyond societies such as globalization
(Mandatum, 2008). Globalization refers here to the increased interdependence and mutually
exerted influence between countries and between human communities on a global level, which
shapes economic, cultural and political subsystems.

Based on this influence, “Information society” is a term used to describe the most recent stage of
social history. In the 20th century, the most developed countries gradually entered the state of
information society and it is expected that within a matter of a few decades the majority of the
world’s population will be living and working in a global information society. From the above
definitions society can be understood as a collection of individuals; a group of humans broadly
distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships,
shared institutions, and a common culture.
Activity 1.3. Analytical Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Dear Learner! What differences and similarities do exist between the concepts of community
and society? Here we will focus on understanding within education context – and ask yourself
why should educators be interested in them?
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 Against the backdrop of the above, first let us explore the common features of the term
society/community to address the same concept. There is, of course, a strong possibility that
these different ways of approaching society/community will overlap in particular
instances. Thus, when we say society/community, it connotes as an organized group of persons
associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, or other purposes.
And, it is a highly structured system of human organization or a body of individuals living as
members of a community. Here, we can argue that society/community involves two related
suggestions that the members of a group have something in common with each other; and the
thing held in common distinguishes them in a significant way from the members of other
 possible groups. Society/Community, thus, implies both similarity and difference. This leads us
to the question of boundary – what marks the beginning and end of a society/community? From
the latter it is clear that boundaries may be marked on a map (as administrative areas), or in law,
or by physical features like a river or road or common interest and the like. It is the nature of the
relationships between people and the social network of which they are a part that is often seen as
one of the more significant aspects of society/community. In other words, interaction enables
people to build societies, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric.

To sum up this portion, the school community is generally considered to include students,
families, school staff, other professionals, other support staff and volunteers. The school
community may also include members of other organizations in the wider community who
support the operation of the school that is society. Therefore, throughout this module, we use
the term society/community as one concept and preferably, we use the term community as
generic word in all sections of this module.
Activity 1.4. Practical Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
 List down and identify the main features of community and discuss them with your peer.
 How a community does benefit its members.

Lesson Two
1.2. Nature and Characteristics of Community
Dear Learner, in the previous section we have seen that community/society can be defined
according to the nature and characteristics that the members share, such as culture, language,
tradition, law, geography, class, and race. This implies that some communities are homogeneous
while others are heterogeneous; and some are united while others conflictive. Some communities
are governed and managed by leaders chosen democratically and some others are governed by
leaders imposed from above who represent central authorities. However, there are some elements
that members of community have something in common. Therefore, an understanding of the
nature and characteristics of a community, what they look like, what they want and why they
want it, their background, is a prerequisite for any program design, planning, administrative
organization and determine content, teaching materials and methods.

The following are important characteristics or features of community that must be considered for
any endeavor as cited by Bhatt (2011).
1. Social Organization: Members of a community are socially organized. Community itself
has a structure and the important components and elements of social structure are norms,
rules, statuses, power, authority, groups, associations and institutions. The norms are the
important characteristics which give it stability, order and structure to human society that
4
 without them social interaction would be difficult and chaotic. Organization of human
society is maintained with the help of norms and institutions that pervade the community.
Social organization helps maintain community in social equilibrium.
2. A system of social relationships: Community refers to social relationship. The meaning
of social relationship shall be clearer if we distinguish it from physical relationship.
Social relations are those which exist between mother and child, brother and sister,
teacher and student, etc. are determined by reciprocal awareness or interaction. Without
reciprocity there is no social relationship, no community. Thus, community is a network
of social relationship. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships
between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given community
may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members.
3. Variety of interactions: The community is full of interactions and the different social
processes are going on in the community. The people come face to face and interact
among themselves. People share certain interests, attitudes, aptitudes, traditions, customs,
values, objectives and mores. The people of the community depend upon each other for
their survival. The self influences community through the actions of individuals thereby
creating groups, organizations, networks, and institutions. And, reciprocally, community
influences the self through its shared language and meanings that enable a person to take
the role of the other, engage in social interaction, and reflect upon oneself as an object.
4. Comprehensive culture: Every community has its own distinctive culture and the
individual relationships are organized and structured by the culture. Culture consists of
the art, knowledge, behaviors, objects, beliefs, morals, law, value, custom, tradition,
literature, science, philosophy and other characteristics common to the members of a
particular group or community acquired by individuals as a member of community.
Community preserves the culture and also transmits it to the future generations. Thus,
community is the store and centre of human culture. Through culture, people and groups
define themselves, conform to community's shared values, and contribute to society. The
community will be differentiated by the other community because of its unique culture.
Culture is present in human society and the same is absent in animal society.Thus, culture
includes many societal aspects: language, norms, mores, rules, tools, technologies,
products, organizations, and institutions. This latter term institution refers to clusters of
rules and cultural meanings associated with specific social activities. Common
institutions are the family, education, religion, work, and others.
5. Functional differentiation: All the individuals in human society never perform similar
activities and functions. They perform different functions depending upon their sex, age,
interest, abilities, skills and other qualifications. There is more and more specialization in
each work and are expected to do their work allotted to them. There is division of labor
depending upon different considerations and the functions assigned to perform them. This
develops functional inter-relationship among the members of the community.
6. Feeling of Solidarity: Since individuals of the community occupy a common territory,
common customs and traditions, common values, common history, common cultures, and
self-contained interdependence on each other obviously causes oneness and develops
feeling of solidarity among them. Though occasionally interact with other societies, they
never lore their identity and remain united as long as their community survives.
7. Inter-dependence: In a community all members depend upon each other. For example,
family, the first community in which we all are closely and deeply associated is based on
5
 the biological inter-dependence. Similarly, in a family some members earn and all depend
upon them. The children depend upon their parents in childhood age and parents depend
upon their grown-up children in their old age. Thus, inter-dependency is most significant
element of community. At the higher level, one nation depends upon the other in the
economic, social, political, cultural fields.
8. Likeness: Community means likeness. It exists among like beings, like-bodies and like-
minded people. It is likeness which provides for understanding each by the other. This
understanding is based on friendship, intimacy, association, institution and any such other
types of relationships. Similarities are found among the people of community in customs,
traditions, folkways, mores, norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, needs, objectives etc. So
likeness or similarity is an essential element of community.
9. Differences: Though there is likeness in the community yet it is characterised by
difference also. In every community, there are people who differ from one another in a
number of ways. For example, family rests upon the biological difference between the
sexes. Some are males and others are females. Similarly, people differ from one another
in respect of their ability, talent, capacity, interest, tendency etc. Human beings also differ
from one another irrespective of rights and duties, thoughts and ideals, professions and
economic activities. So community involves both likeness and differences.
10. Co-operation and conflict: Community is co-operation crossed by conflict. Both co-
operation and conflict are the essential elements of community. Co-operation plays a vital
role in every aspect of our social life. Community cannot exist without co-operation.
People cannot lead a happy and comfortable life unless they co-operate with each other.
Family rests on co-operation. The members of the family co-operate with each other to
live happily and peacefully. Not only co-operation but also conflict is essential for
community. Community needs struggles to solve social as well as personal problems.
They require conflicts for its formation and growth, harmony and disharmony,
association and dissociation as well. Conflict is a universal process through which all
things have come to existence.
11. Community is abstract: Community is an organisation which consists of social relation,
customs, laws, mores, norms, values and so on. These are abstract and intangible. People
only feel and realize these relations. Thus, community is something which cannot be seen
or touched. It can only be felt and experienced by its members. Community does not
include any concrete form and therefore, community is abstract. That is why abstractness
is a significant characteristic of community.

Based on the above clarifications, we can summarize the characteristics of community as

follows:
1. It is the largest human group.
2. It satisfies the needs of its members.
3. It is having sense of belonging and cooperation. It is more or less permanent
association.
4. It is abstract (because social relationships can be felt and imagined and cannot be
seen).
5. Everyone in community is dependent upon every other member.
6. It should be organized i.e. will be having division of labour.
6
 7. It will be having likeness and differences. Due to these differences, variety in
human behaviours and division of labour and specialization of roles is there.
8. There is consciousness of kind among the members of community.
9. Community is a dynamic entity or always changing.
10. It has its own means to survive.
11. It is a self-sufficient social system.
12. It lasts for a longer period of time than groups.
13. It will form a social structure through social institutions i.e. family, education,
economic, political and religious institutions. These basic five institutions are found
in all societies of the world.
14. It has its own culture (Farooq, 2011).

Activity 1.5. Investigative Home Take Activity (10 minutes discussion in group)
According to the describing characteristics of a community, think of a community you
belong to and describe it. What are the issues to be analyzed for the better understanding
of a given community?

Lesson Three
1.3. Importance of Community Participation in Schools
Dear learner, in the previous section we have seen that the general concept of community and the
nature and characteristics of community. These topics are basic issues and will help you to
comprehend the subsequent topics. In this section, we are going to see the importance of
community participation in school affairs.
Activity 1.6. Individual Home Take assignment (Take 25 minutes)
Dear Learner!
• What is the best way to improve parent, family, and community involvement?
• Are there some strategies that work better than others?
• What are the outcomes of participation?
• What characteristics define meaningful participation?
• Can educators find ways to make the process easy? How?

Very good! Now read the information below and compare your answer with the information
provided. Participation means many things to many people. It carries potential benefits, but only
if all those involved have a common understanding and set of expectations. Many are convinced
that participation is necessary, but there is little information available to them on how to facilitate
 it. The sort of questions they are faced with include: What level of participation is appropriate?
What is the best way of facilitating participation? What tools can we use to encourage
participation? At what point can we say a meaningful level of participation has been
achieved?

From the above questions we can understand that participation is a rich concept that varies with
its application and definition. The way participation is defined also depends on the context in
which it occurs. For some, it is a matter of principle; for others, practice; for still others, an end
in itself. Indeed, there is merit in all these interpretations. First of all participation is a 'good' in
7
itself. Participation is the process through which stakeholders’ influence and share control over
priority setting, policy-making, resource allocations and access to public goods and services. The
process of making decisions about one's own life and then acting on those decisions - of having
some influence on the forces and pressures surrounding one's environment - brings benefits to
individuals, communities, and society at large.

Participation is valued for both intrinsic and instrumental reasons. The intrinsic value refers to
the idea that the act of participation is valuable in itself, quite apart from any value it may have in
helping to achieve other good things. It’s a welcome bonus that in addition to being intrinsically
valuable, participation can also be a powerful instrument for achieving a range of valuable
outcomes. In particular, participation has the potential to achieve more efficient and equitable
outcomes in many different contexts of decision-making, such as allocation of budgetary
resources among alternative uses, management of common property resources, delivery of
community services, and so on (UN, 2008).

When people are able to exercise their voice in the conduct of public affairs, they will have an
opportunity to reveal their true preferences. Only participation can allow this exercise of voice
(UN, 2008). Participation in the everyday occupations of life is a vital part of human
development and lived experience. Through participation, we acquire skills and competencies;
connect with others and our communities, and find purpose and meaning in life. Especially, the
community development approach emphasizes self- help, the democratic process, and local
leadership in community revitalization. Thus, community participation is an important
component of community development and reflects a grassroots or bottom- up approach to
problem solving. Effective community participation may lead to social and personal
empowerment, economic development, and sociopolitical transformation. Hence, the greater the
community involvement in the process, the greater the input of different groups within the
community, then the more likely that what is generated will be an accurate reflection of that
community. Thus, by actively involving children and adults in decisions about education about
issues that concern them, and aspects of community development, appropriate decisions could be
made about problems within the community.

Activity 1.7. Practical Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Based on the above argument, explain the importance of participation in schools and their
functions to the community.

Well, so let us look the general importance of community participation in education in general
and in schools in particular. First, brought parents and community members closer to schools,
leading to long-term gains such as: (i) minimization of discontinuities between schools and
communities, and between schools and families; (ii) minimization of conflicts between schools
and communities, schools and families, teachers and parents, and what is taught in school and
what is taught at home; (iii) easy transition of students going from home to school; (iv) good
preparation of students to engage in learning experiences; and (v) minimized 'cultural shock' of
new entrants to schooling" (Shaeffer, 1994).

Second, more resources have also been gathered and, often, have been more efficiently used.
Government resources, as well, have been increased in some cases, and more local resources also
8
gathered. For example: More importantly, perhaps, more of these local resources have gone
directly to local communities rather than being expended on central programs. Third, the
quantity of services provided has also increased. Greater involvement in education and other
social services by more actors can lead to the greater demand for, supply of, and use of, these
services. Fourth, the quality and relevance of the services provided have also increased. As
people become more active in development programs, they have a larger interest in ensuring
their quality and relevance and therefore can begin to both contribute directly to this process and
oversee the work of other development agents.

The involvement of family and community in education can also have effects on the learning
environment for children. In the Philippines, it was found that one program called Parent
Learning Support System (PLSS) program: transforms schools into friendly, non-alienating,
familiar places for children where they can work, play, and study without fear. The learning
opportunities being generated and planned collaboratively by parents, community members, and
school personnel, such as field trips, parent- teacher- student conferences, summer camps, etc.,
have greatly enriched the learning resources available to students.

Fifth, effects on the output of schooling can also be shown. These include changes in academic
achievement and in student attitudes and behaviors. Results from the experimental
implementation of the Parent Learning Support System in the Philippines showed significant
change in the scholastic performance and attitudes of students whose parents had been involved
in PLSS activities and had been trained to assist and guide their children in their school work.
When we are looking the benefits from the major stakeholder’s perspective, the first
beneficiaries are students. Good community participation in schools might have the following
advantages for students:
 More positive attitudes toward school
 Higher achievement, better attendance, and more homework completed consistently
 Higher graduation rates and enrollment rates in postsecondary education
 Better schools to attend.

Families that have the chance to understand the school system better can participate more fully in
their children’s education. They too will benefit from their engagement with their children’s
school—discovering resources they can access, building new skills, and developing a deeper
connection with their children. In schools with strong family partnerships, teachers understand
students who come from other cultures more easily, and in fact, the school can become the
natural extension of home, aiding in the preservation of families’ cultures and values. So
participation of parents has profound advantage for parents themselves with regard to:
 Greater knowledge of education programs and how schools work
 Knowledge of how to be more supportive of children
 Greater confidence about ways to help children learn
 More positive views of teachers
 Greater empowerment (Carter, 2003).

In general terms, a great part of the impact of participation and empowerment is said to lie at the
level of the individual, in the process of "human resource development”. Some of this impact is
cognitive. Through greater involvement in a variety of development activities, people can gain
9
more knowledge, learn better practice, and end with a greater awareness of the development
problems that exist, the causes behind these problems (which may or may not be amenable to
local control), and, in some cases, their possible solutions. Some of the impact is also
psychological; people feel greater self-confidence and self-reliance, less dependence on external
inputs and 'wisdom', greater pride in the significance and validity of local knowledge and
experience, a greater sense of accountability and responsibility for their own actions, less of a
feeling of marginalization and powerlessness. The combination of such impacts can lead to
greater demand on the political and social system: people gain a better idea of the kind of life
they want to lead, a greater understanding of what prevents them from achieving such a life, and
a greater willingness to make their needs known and, when necessary, to play a larger role in
fulfilling these needs themselves.

Much of the same kind of impact occurs at the community level as well. Communities can
become less marginal and powerless, more self-reliant and independent, more accountable and
responsible. Such communities can:
1. Gain greater control over information and local technologies;
2. Form alliances and networks within their own area or across to others;
3. Work toward the more efficient and effective management of local resources and, in the
longer term, greater ecological sustainability;
4. Develop skills (in management and resource mobilization), organizations (income-
generating schemes, women's clubs), and a "corporate identity" which can serve them
well, both in community development and as the basis for negotiating, from greater
strength, with outside institutions and bureaucracies; and
5. Attitudes and behaviors: Parents and community members can also gain new ways of
thinking and acting and new attitudes about development, particularly about their role in
education (Shaeffer, 1994).

In the best of circumstances, such achievements at the community level also benefit the society
at large. Greater participation within a society can lower development costs (e.g., through more
volunteer labor and the use of more local expertise and resources), make development programs
more cost-effective, and ensure greater equity of the benefits of development within and across
communities. It can also increase the impact and sustainability of development programs by
encouraging more of a "hand-crafted approach to development". With such an approach,
utilization rates, continuity, and maintenance of development programs can be improved.
Without such participation, the opposite may occur; thus, for example, "if the educational
planners fail to consult the teachers before introducing reforms, they cannot but expect half-
hearted support on the part of those concerned with their implementation". In short, there are a
number of benefits of public participation that include:
1) Improved governance;
2) Increased quality of the functions performed and services provided by public agencies;
3) Revitalization of democratic practice in general;
4) Maintaining the stability of society. When people are directly involved in the decision-
making process, they become more aware of the possible problems and are more willing
to live with the consequences than they are when decisions are imposed from outside.
They become more aware of problems and tend to be less towards explosive conflicts;
10
 5) Guarding the public interest. To make public agencies more responsive to the needs of
public and disadvantaged groups in society. Citizens can work as watchdogs of society;
6) Increased community cohesion and unity and capacity to reduce alienation of the
individual. A feeling of political helplessness combined with a general distrust of power,
is the personal situation known as alienation. This may be particularly important for the
weaker sections and marginal groups in society.

Community participation in schools also has an advantage for teachers and administrators on:
 Greater teaching effectiveness;
 Higher expectations of students;
 Increased ability to understand family views and cultures;
 Greater appreciation of parent volunteers;
 Improved morale; and
 Greater sense of community (Carter, 2003).

To sum up this portion, assuming that more participatory approaches to educational development
can lead to many of the changes described above - and that the extent of such changes will relate
very much to the nature of the approaches used and the context in which they attempt to work -
an important question remains: how to facilitate the participation and collaboration which may
 produce such change? This question is the focus of the following section. What type of school
culture should be in place to promote community participation in education?

Activity 1.8. Investigating Home Take Activity (Take 15 minutes)

• What do you conclude about the importance of family and community involvement in schools?
• As a school principal and supervisor how do you describe the level of parental involvement in
school affairs in your locality?
• What type of benefits can you mention in your surrounding areas?

Lesson Four
1.4. School Culture that Promotes Community Participation
Dear Learner! In the previous three lessons we have seen that the essence of community, the
nature and characteristics of community, the importance of community participation in education
in general and more specifically at school level. In this lesson, we are going to discuss what is
school culture, types of effective school culture, the role of leaders for close school-community
relations and discuss also some important points with regard to ways of promoting community
participation in schools.
Activity 1.9. Reflective Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
• What is culture to you?
• Does a school culture have an impact on promoting good community participation in your
area? How?

Building a strong, caring community takes time and commitment. Everyone must be included,
valued, and respected — even when people disagree. Yet bound by a common purpose — the
creation of a community home for all children — people working together can make a difference
(Carter, 2003). However, greater collaboration and greater participation by the underrepresented
11
do not occur because they are willed or legislated. Success requires major transformations in the
way an agency performs its task and in the way the community relates to the agency. These
transformations have been called "micro-policy reforms" which depend on the accomplishment
of highly complex and difficult institutional changes commonly involving the development of
significant new capacities, culture and norms and a redefinition of institutional roles. Hence, the
transformations required for greater participation and collaboration in development can be
facilitated by the encouragement of new norms (a different professional culture), the creation of
new mechanisms and strategies, and the inculcation of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes
among the various actors in development (Shaeffer, 1994).

Dear learners, before dealing with school culture, let us look first what culture is in general.
There are various definitions of culture, but none is universally accepted. While most people
have a sense or understanding of culture, they find it difficult to define. In most of the literatures,
culture is perceived as a set of linkages that included the system of collectively accepted
meanings, beliefs, values, behavioral norms, and assumptions that organizational members use to
guide their regular, daily actions and interpret their surroundings.

The word “culture” describes a wide range of influences on how people behave in organizations,
communities and even nations. In general, it refers to a set of common values, attitudes, beliefs
and norms, some of which are explicit and some of which are not. Here, vision and values are the
foundation of school culture; core values, implicit or explicit, reside at the heart of every
institution or organization (Leclear, 2005).

In the school-community relations organizational culture has been conceptualized along eight
cultural values and beliefs: openness, confrontation, trust, authenticity, proaction, autonomy,
collaboration, and experimentation (Sharma & Sharma, 2010). At the same time, organizational
culture exhibiting characteristics of accountability, collaboration, decentralized leadership,
alignment and adaptability hold the key to successful survival. Now, let us look school culture in
particular so as to promote community participation in schools.
Activity 1.10. Analytical Activity (8 minutes for individual reflection)
Dear Learner!
• Based on the above explanation of culture in general, what do we mean when we
say school culture in particular?
• What type of school culture should be entertained so as to promote good community
participation in your area?

Scholars have not only disagreed about the meaning of culture, but also about the different types
of school culture. The definitions of culture vary, but some of the following words have been
used to describe the phenomenon: assumptions, attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, ceremonies,
covenants, dress, expectations, fairy tales, heroes, history, ideology, knowledge, language, laws,
myths, norms, practices, purpose, rewards, rituals, stores, structure, symbols, traditions, values
evident in the way a school operates (Leclear, 2005). From this definition, we can grasp that a
school’s culture and climate as the compilation of the interactions among all the people at school.
This included parents, students, and staff. Hence, the people in a school construct their values by
the way they address its challenges in ordinary and extraordinary times. Cultural patterns and
12
traditions evolve over time. They are initiated as the school is founded and thereafter shaped by
critical incidents, forged through controversies and conflict, and crystallized through triumph and
tragedy. Vision and values form a school’s mission and purpose, instilling the intangible forces
that motivate teachers to teach, school leaders to lead, children to learn, and parents and
community to have confidence in their school thus shaping the definition of success.

Numerous scholars have confirmed over the years that school culture is a key factor in successful
school change. School effectiveness research has shown that school culture is related to student
achievement. Studies demonstrated that, after socioeconomic status, school culture had a more
powerful effect on student achievement than any other variable. Improvement efforts were likely
in schools where positive professional cultures had norms, values, and beliefs that reinforced a
strong educational mission. Culture was a key factor in determining whether improvement was
possible. School culture is also experienced through rituals and ceremonies. Principals can shape
culture by participating in and encouraging the rituals that celebrate important values.
Ceremonies are an extension of the rituals. They are a complex, culturally sanctioned way to
celebrate success, communicate values, or to recognize social contributions of parents, staff
and/or students (Sharma & Sharma, 2010).

Against the backdrop, every school has a unique culture and a school’s culture is the foundation
for successful school improvement. Therefore, no matter how culture is described or the types of
culture which appear in schools, our concern is the culture of school impacts educational
stakeholders.
Activity 1.11. Brainstorming (5 minutes for discussion)
Dear Learners!
• What type of school culture makes one school successful?
It has long been observed that an organization’s success can be attributed to its culture. A
positive school culture—what many people call “school climate”—is the cornerstone of all good
schools. It is the foundation for school improvement. Successful schools—ones that foster both
academic excellence and ethics—have positive, effective school cultures. We define a positive
school culture broadly to include the school wide ethos and the culture of individual classrooms,
high expectations for learning and achievement, a safe and caring environment, shared values
and relational trust, a powerful pedagogy and curriculum, high student motivation and
engagement, a professional faculty culture, and above all partnerships with families and the
community. Because a positive school culture is central to student success and holistic school
transformation, we must help all schools acquire the tools needed to develop and assess such
cultures. Schools must also be held accountable for assessing the quality of their school cultures.
Such cultures consist of the shared expectations, values, and patterns of behavior that define who
we are—how we treat each other and how we do our work.

The process of encouraging participation will be enhanced to the degree that the school
environment is an open one; the free exchange of ideas and information within and across
society, and experimentation with innovative approaches to the solution of traditional problems.
Hence, the first norm or culture is Institutional and individual openness - openness to the outside
world, to new ideas and new ways of doing things, and to change. Such openness should
characterize individual schools and their staff, the education system and the bureaucracy which
13
supports it, and ultimately the national political and cultural environment. They therefore have,
and require, different degrees of openness, transparency, permeability, and flexibility and
willingness to accept, new ideas, and flexible in adapting to them (Shaeffer, 1994).

Especially important in the analysis of the openness of the education system are four things:
• the extent of openness to input from, and collaboration with, other sectors of
development, such as health and agriculture;
• the extent of openness to ideas and actors at lower levels of the system (at the woreda
office, clusters, and schools) where genuine change needs to take place;
• the extent of the system's adaptability to the local context in which education takes place
- to working towards a match between delivery/content of schooling and local values and
needs, economic constraints and cultures; in other words, a willingness on the part of the
system's managers to "modify their conceptions of what a school must be like"; and
• The extent of openness to change and innovation. In this regard, a system can more
actively publicize the need for innovations, loosen regulations that prevent them, actively
hunt for innovations (Shaeffer, 1994).

Therefore, schools, in the pursuit of excellence and relevance, should be encouraged to develop a
more complex picture of their community. On the one hand are the parents who supply children.
On the other hand are firms and government services which will employ the graduates of the
school system. Both parties should be invited into the schooling process as supporters and
decision- makers.

There are several important issues in this regard, including the extent to which schools:
• are 'welcoming' to parents and the community and seek to have a dialogue with them in
order to understand each other's conditions and needs, or rather 'disqualify' community
experience and so are seen as places to which parents 'surrender' their children at the age
of school entrance;
• are open to the "gaze, support, and appropriate intervention" of parents and the
community;
• are 'permeable' - listen to, accept, adapt, and experiment with ideas coming from other
sources, especially those which may be more non-formal or non-traditional in approach;
and
• Get involved with the community, other educational programs, and other development
sectors. This includes opening of the school to collaboration with other educational
programs and processes (pre-school education programs, adult literacy); to more non-
formal approaches to education; and to the opinions and needs of the surrounding
community.

One potential benefit of opening the school to the community is to establish more clearly and
directly the link between good education and greater parental and community demand and
support for education. In other words, both the more visible ways of making the school and its
achievements 'open to the gaze' of the community (e.g., PTAs, parents' days, the observation of
classes by parents) and the less concrete (e.g., policy and practice that make parents feel
welcome in the school) may increase parental interest in, and support for, the school (Shaeffer,
1994). Based on this, moving towards partnerships requires a significant change in attitudes by
14
some schools and families in order to create relationships where they see one another as allies in
education.
Activity 1.12. Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Dear Learners! Why should we care about school culture? What forms might it take?
Which leadership practices are useful in almost all contexts? Which are context-specific?
What are the sources of successful leadership?

These questions are questions presently of concern to a growing number of people who are
convinced that one of the central keys to the success of our present efforts to improve student
learning is leadership. Leadership, for this purpose, may come from many sources—school and
woreda administrators, teachers, parents, school-board members, and regional officials, for
example. Leadership and culture are intimately linked, and a school’s culture can be developed,
influenced, and managed. The job of instructional leaders is primarily about enhancing the skills
and knowledge of people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around
the use of those skills and knowledge, holding the various pieces of the organization together in a
productive relationship with each other, and holding individuals accountable for their
contributions to the collective result. Enough organizational members must be willing to let go of
the old and adopt the new if a change in culture is to become permanent. Thus, it can be said that
leadership and organizational culture are strongly intertwined and share a symbiotic relationship.
The principal’s values joined with those of other stakeholders will ultimately determine the
destiny of the school. School leaders play a big part in what beliefs, values, and assumptions are
the most important in the existing school culture, as they can determine what is communicated to
whom, who receives resource allocations, and who is in receipt of rewards and disciplinary
action.

For this reason, Capacity building and empowering others to make significant decisions are a
key set of leadership practices when accountability mechanisms include giving a greater voice to
community stakeholders, as in the case of parent-controlled school councils. Therefore, one way
principals affect culture is through their communication with stakeholders. This communication
can be both formal and informal. Communicating with stakeholders gives the stakeholders the
knowledge necessary to become aware of, and committed to, the need for change. Effective
communication allows the principal to build a sense of teamwork so change can be successful.

To sum up this section, it is now widely believed that if you want to improve schools, you have
to change their cultures and structures through the exercise of certain kinds of leadership. This is
easier to say than it is to do, because schools are not businesses and students are not adults.
Schools are far more complicated institutions, socially and politically. Urban schools,
particularly those serving highly diverse populations, harbor many conflicting cultures, each of
which affects student learning in different ways.

Activity 1.13. Take time for 5 minutes and discuss this issue
Dear Learner! How have these broader developments in community and in education
been reflected in the roles and development of school leaders?
15
 As professional leadership you should have to have shared vision and goals
and stimulating and secure learning environment

Lesson Five
1.5 The Relationship between Community and School
Governance
Dear learner, would you please once again remember what you discussed in the previous
sections? Yes, you have learned the basic concepts, characteristics of community and merits of
community participation in schools. We have seen that leadership seems to be one of those
qualities to create school culture so as to promote community participation in schools. This unit
will help you to have understanding about the relationship between community and school
governance. Let us look together.
Activity 1.14. Take time as home assignment and discuss the issue
Dear Learners! What do you understand by the term “Governance” in education? And
why it is so important? What is the difference between policy making and governance?

First, before dealing the school community relations, let us look the meaning of school, school
community relations, how schools are organized and the functions of the school to the wider
community in brief. School is a special environment where a certain quality of life and certain
types of activities and occupations are provided with the object of securing the child’s
development along desirable lines. Schools ensure the harmonious development of child
personality through pre-planned objectives. For that reason, school is the only agency through
which cooperation of different agencies such as the family, the community and the state may be
successfully achieved. Therefore, the best system for organizing a school system revolves around
accountable community autonomy, which takes into account the strengths of both community-
centered school systems and state-regulated school systems. Hence, the greater the community
involvement in the process, the greater the input of different groups within the community, then
the more likely that what is generated will be an accurate reflection of that community. Thus, by
actively involving children and adults in decisions about education about issues that concern
them, and aspects of community development, appropriate decisions could be made about
problems within the community.

Having said these, let us now come to our focus on the relationship between education and
community. It acknowledges a strong relationship between the two concepts. Education is seen
as a means of cultural transmission from one generation to another in any given community. On
the other hand, we have seen that community as the whole range of social relationships of people
living in a certain geographic territory and having a sense of belonging to the same group.
16
The relationships between the two concepts are so strong that it is not possible to separate them
because what happens to one affects the other and whatever occurs in the community influences
or shapes the educational system in all its ramifications. Educational institutions are micro-
societies, which reflect the entire community. When we are looking the rationale, Daramola
(2012) discloses that education as a social phenomenon does not take place in a vacuum or
isolation; it takes place in the community and this normally begins from the family, which is one
of the social institutions responsible for the education of the child.

Many sociologists have observed that there is a strong relationship between education and
society. This observation is borne out of the fact that it is not possible to separate or draw any
line of demarcation between the two concepts. Durkbeim (1961) was one of the first sociologists
to appreciate the relationship between education and society. He saw education as a social
phenomenon through which a society assumes its own continuity by socializing the young in its
own image. The components of the educational system that constitute perfectly defined facts and
which have the same reality as another social fact are inter-related. They are inter-related
internally, so that a given education system has unity and consistency, and also externally so that
the education system reflects a society's moral and intellectual values.

In every community, whether developing or developed, complex or primitive, there is always an

education system. Education systems are not the same, as no two societies are identical.
Therefore, education systems differ from community to community and their aims, contents and
techniques also differ from one community to another. From the foregoing, one might postulate
that educational institutions are micro-societies, which mirror the entire society. This is one of
the reasons why societies try to evolve education systems and policies that would meet the needs,
beliefs, attitudes and the aspirations of their people.

Another area of the relationship between education and community is through the arrangement
of the entire society into a hierarchical order that is, through the social structure in which
education plays a prominent and significant role in fixing educated individuals into social
classes. Ottaway (1980) observed that education is the process of preparing people to fit into this
complex social structure and to play particular social roles as members of more than one
institutional group. Individuals have to learn to be fathers or mothers, school teachers or civil
servants, shopkeepers or priests. They have to learn to keep the law, to understand how they are
governed and to be prepared to try and change the social moves when they see that they can be
improved.

Education as a social phenomenon is also concerned with the preparation of the child for his
future occupation in life. This is one of the main economic functions of education and this is in
the interest of both the nation and the individual. Through education an individual knows the
structure of the community and the different types of relationships that exist among those
structures in the community. The child is taught how to perform different roles within the social
structure in the community. These roles are inter-related. So education allows the child to
perform his role adequately within the social structure in the community. In addition, the child is
able to understand the network of inter-relationships among the different social institutions that
make up the community.
17
 Another aspect of the relationship between education and community is in the area of social
interaction. Social interaction may be defined as any relation between people and groups, which
changes the behavior of the people in the group. There is a need for social interaction by the
child before he/she could acquire the culture of his/her community. This interaction in the
community is therefore part of the child's education, provided that, that type of interaction brings
about positive changes in the child's behavior in a right direction as required by the educational
system. One important point here is that the child has been taking part in group interaction long
before he/she starts to attend school and the most common among these group interactions are
within the family and the peer group. These groups in which the child interacts give him/her the
opportunity to learn from the wider circles in the society. From his/her social contacts, he/she
learns his/her roles in different groups and this influences his/her personality development.

Finally, education has to fulfill both the individual's needs and those of the community and must
keep pace with other sub-systems in the community, as both variables are inter-related. All
stakeholders should have to recognize the crucial role that schools have in contributing to the
reconciliation of our community. This is not a job solely for schools, but schools do play a
critical role.

For that reason, the school committees, school councils or parent-teacher groups establish to
facilitate participatory decision-making must be based on a collaborative management
philosophy of governance. One of the core principles of good governance is to facilitate public
participation in the decision-making process. Public participation increases the likelihood that
actions taken or services provided by public agencies more adequately reflect the needs of people
and that the benefits of development are more equitably shared. Here, a purely descriptive
definition of governance refers to “the exercise of economic, political and administrative
authority to manage a nation’s affairs. It is the complex mechanisms, processes, relationships and
institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their rights and
obligations and mediate their differences” (UN, 2008).

Then, What is local governance? Local governance comprises a set of institutions, mechanisms
 and processes through which citizens and their groups can articulate their interests and needs,
mediate their differences, and exercise their rights and obligations at the local level. The building
blocks of good local governance are many: citizen participation, partnerships among key actors
at the local level, capacity of local actors across all sectors, multiple flows of information,
institutions of accountability and a pro‐poor orientation.

So in our education context, a more decentralized governance structure is needed so that schools,
as unique educational entities, can offer their local communities the services, programs, and
activities which they desire. If adults are going to develop this ownership and commitment to
their local schools, the governance of education must be decentralized so they can participate in
decision-making activities, at the local school level, which directly influence the quality and
quantity of education offered to children (Shaeffer, 1994).
Hence, the term 'governance' can cover a wide range of activities. For our purposes it includes:
1. The establishment, modification, and implementation of schools' goals.
2. The selection of specific targets related to areas such as: enrolment and attendance.
3. The development of school policies in regard to: pupil enrolment, attendance.
18
 4. The planning of school programs designed for improving school quality.
5. The determining of a school's annual financial requirements and budget.
6. The collecting of funds from sources such as: the central Ministry, local government,
parents/ community groups, private enterprises, NGOs, productive activities of the
school.
7. The managing and accounting for school finances.

To summarize this portion, greater involvement of the community in school governance is purely
to support the delivery of quality teaching-learning. It is for this reason that teaching and
learning-based accountability is emphasized as one of the pillars of today’s school governance.
For this purpose, it can establish multiple forms of governance and control, each with its own
part in the system. While decentralization or decentralizing governance should not be seen as an
end in itself, it can be a means for creating more open, responsive, and effective local
government and for enhancing representational systems of community-level decision-making.
Therefore, it is necessary to work with governance principles at local levels to strengthen local
governance processes. And teachers, parent groups, and school committees can play a more
active role in school governance. A variety of mechanisms exists which can be used to enhance
their participation (for more detail see Unit Two).
Activity 1.15. Brainstorming (Take time for 10 minutes for discussion)
Dear Learner! Assume your school and surrounding areas:
• What degree of participation in governance are other partners allowed to attain?
• Are teachers within a school or a cluster, or individuals within parent associations or
village education committees, permitted merely to hear about, and approve of, goals,
targets, policies, programs, and budgets established and designed by others, whether
at the centre or at the local level?
• Does this participation focus mainly on the seeking (or extracting) of 'contributions'
from partners? Are they actually asked to participate actively in the shaping of the
school's long-term plans?

Effective student learning seeks Individual and collective responsibility and ongoing collaborative support
Lesson Six
1.6. Barriers in the School-Community Relations
Dear Learner! In the previous five lessons we have seen that the essence of community, the
nature and characteristics of community, the importance of community participation, school
culture that facilitate community participation, and the relationship between community and
school governance. This is the last lesson of unit one. In this lesson, we are going state the major
19
obstacles for close school-community relations and discuss also the risks of participation in
general.
Activity 1.16. Inestigative Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Dear Learner! Assume your school and surrounding areas:
• Mention some of the major factors hindering school-society participation.
• What do you think are the risks of participation in development?
• What do you think are the major challenges of community mobilization in your locality?

First and foremost, it wouldn’t be fair to pose a framework for building family and community
involvement without acknowledging the difficulty and challenges of the work. Because, the
challenges come in many shapes and sizes, but perhaps can be illustrated in different ways,
contexts and circumstances. Read the following case study, what do you learn or deduce from
the statements given below, give your reflection.

Case Study 1 Observation in work Place

Almost any teacher could tell a discouraging tale of parents’ nights with few in attendance, or of
bruising conflicts with families over goals or decisions. Almost any parent or family member
could tell a tale of an unproductive meeting, a poorly planned event, or a conversation with a
teacher or principal that felt disrespectful or patronizing. It is difficult work to bridge the gap
between our worlds, experiences, needs—even our schedules!

Encouraging participatory approaches to development is difficult to do for several reasons.

Because, there are often gaps in this relationship, within the school, within the family, and in
their relationships to each other and to the needs of students. There are gaps between aspirations
and realities, between manifest need and available programs. In the dynamic multicultural world
of the child today, there are gaps between particular cultures and what education may offer.
However, everywhere it is a top public priority that children develop well and that schools
support that development.

According to Shaeffer (1994), when we are examining the gap, first, many communities -
perhaps especially those most disadvantaged - are not at all homogeneous in nature. Social
stratification, divisions along caste, religious, and ethnic lines, personal rivalries and social
factionalism, and the incompatibility of interests are all factors which make it difficult to talk of
'community' mobilization through participation. In such a context, participation may bring
unresolved and unresolvable conflicts out into the open, exacerbating rivalries of class, caste, and
ethnicity by making potential differences in goals and tactics explicit, rather than keeping them
constrained and hidden through the operation of traditional roles and responsibilities.

Second, even where community members may want to work together, a major obstacle may be
the sheer lack of experience and skill in participatory and collaborative activities. Participation
by the community in development and the collaboration of the community with other partners
imply certain knowledge and skills: setting goals and priorities, running meetings, planning
budgets, accounting for resources and so on.

Third, potential participants, especially those economically and socially weakest, may lack a
sense of self-confidence and political efficacy - the feeling that individual political action does
20
have, and can have, an impact upon the policy process. They may also feel, or may have been
encouraged to feel, that, given the overriding authority of the government, they have little
political power, few obligations beyond receiving government services, and little ability to affect
government policy.
Fourth, marginal communities (and many governments) cannot bear the added expense of
participatory processes – especially in terms of financial resources and of the time and energy
required of participating community organizations, government agencies, and individuals.

Fifth, participatory processes do not just happen by themselves or by fiat, but rather require new
and complex managerial and supervisory skills, attitudes, and behaviors. Principals able to share
authority within and across schools, teachers (especially those from another region, ethnic group,
or language group) able to carry out surveys of community needs, woreda officers able to work
with program staff of NOGs, central planners willing to issue the regulations mandating
community involvement in curriculum development - all of these are not easy to develop in
traditional bureaucracies and, once developed, to sustain.

Sixth, participation is often in conflict with a political culture where initiatives toward reform
may require clear sanction from above and where, for example, both parental participation in
designing (let alone questioning) school policies and flexible, non-standardized responses to a
variety of development contexts are difficult to imagine.

Seventh, many institutions and individuals have a profound inability or resistance to change.
The inertia of inflexible systems, bureaucratic delays, the lack of teamwork and co-coordinating
mechanisms, the absence of clear rules as to who should do what and when, poor technical
support from those meant to provide it, and the fear of losing control to other agencies, to lower
levels of the system, or to outsiders - all make it difficult, at least early in various reforms, to
encourage new initiatives.

Eighth, such problems are compounded by more concrete administrative obstacles. Logistical
problems and staff turnover are notable in this regard; when staff trained in a more participatory
approach and method are transferred or resign, much time and effort are wasted. Administrative
procedures may also discourage collaboration. This can make any innovation, let alone that
based on greater popular participation, difficult to implement. Although, PTAs and SMCs are
being set up in many education systems in developing countries, there are tensions and
contradictions in their roles and responsibilities that undermine their effectiveness. Also, the
composition of these bodies may not necessarily be representative of parents.

Another problem, for many parents, their own personal school experiences create obstacles to
involvement. Those who have dropped out of school do not feel confident in school settings;
explain how the diverse contexts of their lives create tensions that interfere with positive
home/school relations. Even, educators often don't take into account how a parent's own school
experience may influence school relationships. Listen in as one father describes his son's school
progress:
21
Case Study 2 Obscured Father
“They expect me to go to school so they can tell me my kid is stupid or crazy. They' ve been telling
me that for three years, so why should I go and hear it again? They don' t do anything. They just
tell me my kid is bad. See, I' ve been there. I know. And it scares me. They called me a boy in
trouble but I was a troubled boy. Nobody helped me because they liked it when I didn't show up. If
I was gone for the semester, fine with them. I dropped out nine times. They wanted me gone.
Source: Finders, M. & Lewis, C. 2002. Why Some Parents Don’t Come to School. Barrington, IL: EBSCO Publishing,
p 51.

Reflection
This father's experiences created mistrust and prevented him from participating more fully in his
son's education. Yet, we cannot say that he doesn't care about his son. On the contrary, his
message is urgent. For many parents their own personal school experiences create obstacles to
involvement. On the other hand, school practitioners are less and less willing to give time to
participation schemes they see as inauthentic. School personnel may subtly display patronizing
or negative attitudes toward parents. Schools need to welcome parents whenever they visit the
school by conveying a positive attitude toward the first language of the students and families.
However, just as parents have challenges that impede their collaboration with schools, teachers
have challenges that impede their work with parents. Most literature report that the following
barriers that impede teachers when it comes to family and community involvement:
• Negative attitudes toward parents: misconceptions and assumptions about parents;
• Unfamiliar cultures: lack of understanding of the students’ cultures;
• Language barriers: inability to understand the parents’ home languages;
• Training: lack of training in working with parents; and
• Increased responsibilities: lack of time to develop family involvement activities.

Similarly, because of the variety of students’ backgrounds, reaching out to families has become
increasingly complex for schools. Educators who define families in more narrow terms may have
assumptions that make it difficult for them to understand the families of many of their students.
Carter (2003) identified the following “common assumptions” held by educators that can either
hinder home-school collaboration.
• Parents who don’t attend school events don’t care about their children’s success in
school;
• Parents who are illiterate or unemployed can’t help their children with school;
• Parents from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds don’t understand how to help their
children with school;
• It’s up to parents to find out what is going on at school; and
• Parent involvement is not worth educators’ effort.

For many years, the prevailing view of many educators was that families had a very limited role
to play at their children’s schools: parents should come to school only when invited, stay-at-
home mothers served as “room mothers”. Contrary to the assumption of many educators,
research on family and community connections with schools has revealed that parents are
interested in their children’s academic success regardless of ethnicity, culture, or economic
22
status, although they may not know how to help their children or may feel incapable of assisting
them. Ferguson (2005: 1) found that
Parent involvement encompasses a multitude of complex phenomena. Differences in the
family structure, culture, ethnic background, social class, age and gender represent only a
few of the factors affecting interpretations of or generalizations about the nature of parent
involvement (Scribner and Scribner, 2001: 36).

This statement reflects a few of the factors that complicate and sometimes inhibit family
involvement with schools, particularly for those families representing diverse populations. In his
reports, Ferguson (2005) also says that the way a family defines support and interest is through
their own perspective. Unfortunately, many times the school’s perspective and definitions of the
family involvement in school are not the same as those of the families. These differing
viewpoints can create barriers to meaningful participation of families participation in schools.

Activity 1.17. Take time for five minutes and discuss these issues in class
Dear Learners, Assume your school and surrounding areas:
• What kinds of opportunities can the school principal explore to collaborate
with
families?
• How can family and parental involvement challenges be overcome?

Parents need to know how the school system works and how they can have access to it for the
betterment of their children. Conceptualizing barriers for each socializing system as well as the
relationship may serve to promote perspective taking and enhance the understanding of
constraints involved for all individuals. Educators must be sensitive to the status-oriented family
issues such as socioeconomic status, parental education, and the like.

The stimulus for engaging parents in education lies with educators; therefore, addressing barriers
for educators is necessary. At the school level, it appears that strong leadership and
administrative support are essential to increasing meaningful family involvement. The good
news is that barriers, if identified, understood, and thought of as opportunities, can lead to
positive service delivery changes, such as school practices for outreach to families or new
responsibilities for families.

Therefore, identifying these assumptions is a first step toward changing them and determining
ways for educators to encourage family involvement in school. If educators view children simply
as students, they are likely to see the family as separate from the school. That is, the family is
expected to do its job and leave the education of children to the schools. If educators view
students as children, they are likely to see both the family and the community as partners with
the school in children’s education and development. Partners recognize their shared interests in
and responsibilities for children, and they work together to create better programs and
opportunities for students (Ferguson, 2005).

Most of the time it is not lack of interest that prevents parents from becoming involved in their
children’s education but challenges such as poverty, single parenting, language/literacy barriers,
and cultural and socioeconomic isolation that hinder involvement. A number of other barriers
23
can prevent families from being involved in their children’s education. These barriers may
originate in the home environment or may be related to school policies and practices.

Schools can address these challenges by creating an environment (and explicit structures) for
sharing and learning about home cultures, values, talents, and experiences, as well as for
identifying and dealing productively with conflict. In many ways, building such an environment
is the crux of all family and community engagement.
Families know their children the best and should be respected for that knowledge.
Schools have a lot of knowledge about children, but they are not in the relationship for
a lifetime. When schools understand and respect what families bring to the table then
partnerships can grow (Carter, 2003: 20).

To summarize this section, school-community partnership development also takes time;

partnerships are built “one relationship at a time” and need continual nurturing. Collaboration
also often requires changes in traditional roles, responsibilities, expectations, and schedules,
which can prove difficult for partners. All of the subsequent structures and strategies can be
viewed as contributing to creating a welcoming environment, valuing and learning about home
and community, and negotiating differences and conflicts.

Unit Summary
A community is nothing more than a group of people who voluntarily pool their efforts in
support of shared goals and values. When we are looking the nature of community, it is a group
of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the
same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant
cultural expectations. Societies are social groups that differ according to subsistence strategies,
the ways that humans use technology to provide needs for them. With regards to characteristics,
community would be considered as a collection of individuals who have the same beliefs, ideas,
values, history, life experiences, and social environment; and associated together for religious,
benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. At the same time,
community is characterized by a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale
community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity
for its members.

With regard to importance of community participation we have seen that teaching and learning in
the classroom do not take place in isolation from the functioning of schools as organizations, nor
from their social context. In order to change, institutions must want to change. Clearly, many
innovations related to increased collaboration in education have been successful because
individual schools, clusters, and woreda offices wanted to provide better education and were
willing to work collaboratively to achieve it. In this unit we have seen also definitions throughout
the literature agree that the people who exist within an organization develop culture in time.
Collaborative school culture, based on mutual support, joint work, and broad agreement of
educational values has been identified as a promising practice for students and teachers to learn.

Many sociologists have appreciated the relationship between education and community and have
concluded that the two are so interrelated. That one cannot draw any line of demarcation between
them. It has been observed that the educational system of any nation must be based on the needs
24
and demands of the community and that any educational system that fails to meet the needs,
aspirations and ambitions of the community is not relevant and is bound to fail. By the same
token, greater involvement by parents and community members in school governance can
increase their demand and support for education school. And teachers, parent groups, and school
committees can play a more active role in school governance.

Finally, the barriers in the school-community relations come in many shapes and sizes, but
perhaps can be summarized in the following points: diversity, imbalance of power between
educators and families, negative experiences of parents with school, mistaken assumptions, time,
resources, and logistics.

Review Questions
Part I: Choose the correct answer and write the letter on the space provided.

____ 1. Which one is true regarding the term community?

a. interacting living organisms
b. people, living in some proximity
c. a social unit larger than a household
d. All.
____ 2. Among the following which one is not a characteristic of community?
a. Variety of interactions
b. Not dependent to each other
c. Functional differentiation
d. All
e. A and C

____ 3. Which one of the following is correct about society?

a. an organized voluntary association of people
b. society considered as institutions
c. totality of human relationships
d. All
____ 4. Good community participation in schools might have the following advantages for
students
a. Higher graduation rates
b. More negative attitudes toward school
c. more homework completed consistently
d. All
e. All except B.
____ 5. Which one of the following are not considered as benefits of public participation?
a. Revitalization of democratic practice
b. Increased quality of the functions
c. Improved governance
d. All except A
e. All
25
Part II: Write True if the statement is correct and False if the statement is incorrect on the
space provided.
____ 1. Social relationships can be felt and imagined and cannot be seen.
_____ 2. Participation is the process through which stakeholders’ influence and share control
over priority setting and policy-making.
_____ 3. Many communities are not at all homogeneous in nature.
_____ 4. One of the relationships between education and community is through the arrangement
of the entire society into a hierarchical order.
______5. A positive school culture includes the school wide ethos and the culture of individual
classrooms.
Part III: Write short answers for the following questions on the space provided.
1. Write down three barriers of school-community relations.

______________________________________________________________________________
2. Explain the relationship between school governance and community participation.

______________________________________________________________________________
3. Specify the differences between community and society.

______________________________________________________________________________
4. List down three merits of community participation in education.

______________________________________________________________________________
5. Educators must be sensitive to the status-oriented family issues, what does it mean? Please
debate on this issue.

Group work assignment

Dear Learner! As you know, this module is a mixed mode course offered through a one-semester workplace-based
preparatory phase followed by a face-to-face summer program. First, read the following government direction on
General Education Quality Improvement Package (GEQIP) and School Improvement Program (SIP) in ensuring
community participation in schools. Then build your own case study on school-community relationships and
mechanisms used to ensure community participation in your school. During the face to face program, participants
will have the opportunity to reflect on their current practice, collected data specific to their schools and begin to
process some new concepts. Therefore, based on your group assignments, you are going to give concrete answers
for the questions stated below at the end of this assignment.
Despite rapid expansion of the education system, Ethiopia’s education sector faces the following key challenges:
access to education opportunities continues to be an obstacle, especially for females and other “most vulnerable
children”, poor students and pastoral areas; there are socio-cultural barriers to participation (especially for girls in
rural areas). In addition, achievements in access have not been accompanied by adequate improvements in quality.
The 2007 National Learning Assessment (NLA) in grades 4 and 8 show that student achievement is below the
required levels. Achievement in grade 4 shows a reduction from the 1999/2000 baseline learning assessment (47.9
26
percent to 40.9%) and achievement in grade 8 has also deteriorated (42.6 percent to 39.8%). Among key factors
identified in the 2007 NLA relating to low student learning outcomes include school organization and management;
school supplies and availability of curricular and instructional materials. Another problem, the rapid expansion of
the education system has left a considerable financing gap between available funds and the anticipated cost of
investments needed to improve and maintain quality. The Government’s current vision for education development is
described in the PASDEP, with the ESDP IV serving as the overarching framework, giving high priority to quality
improvement at all levels. Within the framework of the ESDPs, the MOE has developed a General Education
Quality Improvement Package (GEQIP). The overall purpose of the GEQIP is to improve the quality of general
education throughout the country. Each component of GEQIP includes a set of priority programs, is closely linked to
the other components, and is implemented at different tiers of government. As a result, each level of government
may have some responsibility for the implementation of each component to achieve the project’s development
objectives. To achieve the overall objectives, the project requires: flexible approach in design so that effective
coordination not only among components/subcomponents, but also among different levels of government and
implementing units.
Among the component of GEQIP, in component 3 there is School Improvement Program (SIP). The objectives of
the SIP component are to: (i) improve the capacity of schools to prioritize needs and develop a school improvement
plan; (ii) enhance school and community participation in resource utilization decisions and resource generation; (iii)
improve the government’s capacity to deliver specified amounts of schools grants at the woreda level; and (iv)
improve the learning environment by providing basic operational resources to schools. Similarly, under component
4, Management and Administration Program (MAP), there is subcomponent which includes capacity development
for school planning and management. The objective of this subcomponent is to contribute towards strengthening
participatory school planning, management and monitoring for the purpose of greater effectiveness, efficiency and
accountability in school performance, and improved teaching and learning. This plan anticipating that through
enhancing the resources that schools have at their disposal, building capacity in school planning and creating
mechanisms through which the communities decide how resources are utilized, the School Improvement and School
Grants Programs will be improved. The school improvement approach starts with schools and their stakeholders
undertaking a self-assessment to identify their goals, followed by development and implementation of a School
Improvement Plan. As part of the process each school is required to include all stakeholders in the assessment of
school performance (i.e., teachers, students, parents, and community). It is emphasized that (a) the SIP is a critical
process for the improvement of the teaching and learning environment, and (b) the process will bring control of
schools into the community. Through the process of developing a School Improvement Plan, schools and their
stakeholders will identify their needs and priorities (MoE, 2008).
Having looking the above government intention, please assess what it looks like the efforts done in your locality and
bring relevant data of your own school and share with your group and finally you are going to present your findings
in the summer face to face program to the entire class. Therefore, the purpose of this assignment is to review where
the status of the school is currently applying the above government directions; to identify the local accountability
with respect to how resources are used in every school and the extent of community involvement in the education
sector was found to be substantial. In particular it is critical to investigate those members of PTAs and the local
communities are aware of the fact that their school is entitled to receive a grant based upon its level of enrolment.
Then, do you have any mechanism in your school to conduct a self-assessment in identifying areas where
improvements may be made. Second, the School Improvement Committees (SICs) should have to create a School
Improvement Plan (SIP) which contains possible solutions and budgets to the problems identified in your school.
Besides, revision of the SIP will be made based upon suggestions provided by key stakeholders and once consensus
has been reached the SIC will begin implementation of the SIP. To do this, throughout the school year, each school
is expected to monitor the operation of its SIP. With this formative data, the SIC, with assistance of other
stakeholders, may revise the SIP as necessary. So, as part of the school community, you should have to assess what
it looks like the promotion of horizontal relationships and collaboration within the school system, among students,
between students and teachers, among teachers and between the school, parents and other members of the
community with regard to the above government directions.

Methods of Delivery
In teaching this unit, the course instructor can apply multiple of teaching strategies. Among these
lecture method, which is supported by brainstorming, questioning, group discussions and
27
reflections could be used. Each participant will work with someone who comes from a different
school and share the experiences of his/her school and its relationships with community.

Students’ Activities
Students are expected to identify the importance and relationships of community participation in
which a school operates, and how it affects the school system. In order to do so:
• Students will be grouped in to sub-groups
• Present the group’s report to the whole class
• Identify the importance and relationships of community participation in schools.

Instructional Facility Required

• Laptop, LCD, flip charts and others.

Unit Assessment
Continuous assessment such as group presentations and term papers are more appropriate to
assess students’ learning progress for this unit. In evaluating this unit, the participant’s reflection
on the school culture, strategies for effective school-community relationships and school
structure will be considered.

Mandatory Reading Materials for the Unit

Carter, S. 2003. Educating our Children Together: A Sourcebook for Effective Family- School-
Community Partnerships. New York: CADRE.
Dunne, M. Akyeampong, K. & Humphreys, S. 2007. School Processes, Local Governance and
Community Participation: Understanding Access. Brighton: CREATE.
Daramola, C.O. 2012. Education and Society: What type of Relationship? Retrieved from web
site www.unibrin.educ.ng.
Shaeffer, S. 1994. Participation for educational change: a synthesis of experience. Paris:
UNESCO.
UN (United Nations). 2008. Participatory Governance and the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). New York: United Nations publication.

Supplementary reading materials for the Unit

Botes, L. & Rensburg, D.V. 2000. Community participation in development: nine plagues and
twelve commandments. Community Development Journal, an international forum, Vol.
35, No. 1. Pp.41-58.
Christenson, S.L. 2004. The Family–School Partnership: An Opportunity to Promote the
Learning Competence of All Students. School Psychology Review, Volume 33, No. 1, pp.
83-104.
Cohen, A.P. 1985. The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Routledge.
Durkheim, E. (1961). Moral Education, English Translation. London: Free Press.
Finders, M. & Lewis, C. 2002. Why Some Parents Don’t Come to School. Barrington, IL:
EBSCO Publishing.
28
Ferguson, C. 2005. Reaching Out to Diverse Populations: What Can Schools Do to Foster
Family-School Connections? Austin, Texas: National Center for Family and Community
Connections with Schools.
Leclear, E. A. 2005. Relationships among Leadership Styles, School Culture, and Student
Achievement. University of Florida.
Mandátum, G.K. 2008. Information Society: From Theory to Political Practice. NET-IS.
Retrieved from http://purposesforschools.blogspot.com/
Ottaway, A.K. (1980). Education and Society An Introduction to the Sociology of Education.
New York: The Humanities Press.
Sharma, S.K. & Sharma, A. 2010. Examining the Relationship between Organizational Culture
and Leadership Styles. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, January
2010, Vol.36, No.1, 97-105.
29
 UNIT TWO
STRUCTURE OF SCHOOL-COMMUNITY RELATIONS
(Time allotted 4 hrs.)

UNIT INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner! In the previous unit, we have tried to discuss about the meaning, characteristics,
importance of community participation in education. We have seen also school culture, the
relationship between community and school governance and barriers in the school-community
relations. I hope that you already compared the forwarded explanations with your responses to
activities given in unit 1 and enjoyed the lessons very well. This is unit two. This unit comprises
four parts. To introduce you with the first lesson of this unit, this lesson discuss about structure of
school-community relations. Since you are educational managers who have and still working with
different existing structures the following lesson plays much in enabling you understand the
different forms and practices of school-community relations, collaborative structures and
organization, expectation and demands of the community.

Unit Learning Outcomes 

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:
 Differentiate the different forms/structures of community participation in schools.
 Identify common practices of school-community relations
 Analyze communities’ demands and expectations.
 Redesign the existing structure of the school community relations to fulfill the needs and
priorities of the community
 Draw lessons from benchmarking others' experience from time to time.

Lesson One
2.1. Different Structures of School-Community Relations
Activity 2.1. Reflective Activity (5 minutes for discussion)
Dear Learner!
 What sustainability structures are most vital to collaborative leadership in our community?
 What are the motives and merits for educational decentralization responsive to local
priorities and community structures? Good job!

Education – as a commonly recognized need – can provide a focal point around which
communities can positively engage. Children’s educational needs cannot be addressed in isolation,
so community structures engaging with education should also be empowered to address multiple
issues concerning child welfare and rights. Communities should remain empowered and engaged
in education, even if the focus of their role changes, in order to develop an inclusive education
system. For that reason, systems and frameworks for community involvement need to be flexible
enough to cope with changing circumstances (UNESCAP, 2009).
30
 Accordingly, over the past two decades, many countries have been engaged in a shift of decision-
making authority to lower administrative levels, either to local or regional governments, or to
schools. This move towards decentralization is a global phenomenon, affecting developing as well
as industrialized countries, although the motives and incentives are diverse. The increased
attention for decentralization in education is perhaps best reflected by the numerous initiatives and
structures to stimulate decision-making by schools, such as site- or school-based management
(SBM), the local management of schools and the establishment of relatively autonomous schools
through PTAs and the like (OECD, 2005). Hence, it is in the actual devolution of power to local
lower-level bodies of government (and even to community associations and parents) that the
greatest scope for participatory development can be found.

The motives for educational decentralization and structures are manifold and vary from country to
country. Frequently mentioned expectations are increased efficiency and improved financial
control, a reduction of bureaucracy, a restoration of the confidence in government through a
redistribution of authority, an increased responsiveness to local communities, creative
management of human resources, improved potential for innovation and, as an overarching
aspiration, the creation of conditions that provide more incentives for schools to improve their
own quality. The rationale behind most of these motives is the assumption that schools are best
equipped to enhance the quality of education themselves and that this will result in higher student
achievement and a lower drop-out rate. Moreover, at least in some countries, it is believed that
schools, once given more freedom from central bureaucratic control, will regain their position in
the centre of the community and contribute to social cohesion (OECD, 2005).

This strategy is meant to achieve various results:

1. to generate more resources and assure their more equitable allocation and effective use
within the decentralized administrative units;
2. to improve the quality of decision-making and planning by making these processes more
responsive to indigenous cultures and to local conditions, needs, and practices;
3. to speed up the decision-making process and free the centre to focus on its legitimate
strategic concerns;
4. to encourage initiative, innovation, and participation;
5. to increase local responsibility and accountability over issues more readily understood by
local management; and
6. to stimulate communication down and (especially) up the system of control.

Here, the importance of context is obligatory issue. Because, interventions need to be socially
acceptable and responsive to local priorities and community structures in order to be long lasting
and move beyond tokenistic participation. Engagement with communities should be culturally
appropriate and strengthen or revalidate positive cultural mechanisms and traditions. Working
through traditional structures increases the likelihood of community participation being
sustainable. It helps focus on community priorities and ensures local ownership.

To apply this in practice, then, we can confront or challenged with so many questions like What
type of decentralization system are valuable here? What are the dimensions and domains of
 decision-making? What type or level of decision-making or kinds of powers for decision-making
required in this endeavour? And finally What type of supporting structures needs to be in place
at both systemic and school levels?
31
 Good! Decentralization is generally defined in terms of the level of the system at which decisions
are taken. In this lesson, two aspects of decentralization are considered: the domains of decision
making and the levels of decision making.

Decisions on school processes may concern a variety of aspects. Decisions are taken in the
administrative domain, such as decisions on financial budgets or the recruitment and selection of
school personnel, or in the educational domain, such as decisions on curriculum, textbooks or
pedagogical issues. According to OECD (2005), we can classify into four domains of decision-
making: personnel management, financial resources, student policies, and curriculum and
instruction (see summarizes of the four domains in Table 2.1 below).

Table 2.1 The four domains of decision making

Personnel management Student policies
• Appointing teachers • Establishing student disciplinary policies
• Dismissing teachers • Establishing student assessment policies
• Establishing teachers’ starting salaries Approving students for admittance to
• Determining teachers’ salary school
increases Curriculum and instruction
Financial resources • Choosing which textbooks are used
• Allocating budget within the school • Determining course content
• Deciding which courses are offered
Source: OECD. 2005. School Factors Related to Quality and Equity Results: From PISA 2000. Paris: OECD, p65.

With regards to levels of decision-making - The level at which decisions are taken is often
referred to as the locus of decision making. It must first be established whether a school has
decision-making authority, i.e. Does the school have a degree of autonomy? Which persons
 within the schools have responsibility? According to OECD (2005), four levels of decision-
making are identified within the school: the elected or appointed school board, the school
principal, the department head, and the teachers. It should be borne in mind, however, that in some
countries school level decision-making may be heavily guided by a framework set by a higher
level of government, whereas in other countries these decisions may be taken more freely.

On the other hand, when we are looking in terms of dimensions of decentralization - Here I use
the ‘actors, powers and accountability’ framework of Agrawal and Ribot in OECD (2005). In this
framework the local actors involved in decentralization, the powers they hold, and the
accountability relations in which they are embedded are the basic elements for analyzing
decentralization. These are the elements for analyzing the kind of decentralization taking place.

When we are looking in terms of Kinds of Powers - Four broad powers of decision-making are at
play in decentralization. These powers are a) the power to create rules or modify old ones, b) the
power to make decisions about how a particular resource or opportunity is to be used, c) the power
to implement and ensure compliance to the new or altered rules, and d) the power to adjudicate
disputes that arise in the effort to create rules and ensure compliance. These four types of powers
correspond to three more familiar categories: legislative (creation of rules), executive (making,
implementing, and enforcing of decisions), and judicial (mediation of disputes). Decentralizations
can involve any mix of such powers (UNRISD, 2002).
32
 Then, we can confront another question: What types of supporting structures are in place to local
 priorities and community governance? In order to create the conditions that enable effective
family-school partnerships to be developed and sustained, the following supporting structures
need to be in place at both systemic and school levels:
I. Family-school action teams to plan, organize, implement and evaluate partnerships;
II. school policies and procedures which explicitly state and clearly integrate the principles
and practices of effective partnerships;
III. Support networks, to enable school communities to share ideas, issues and best practice;
IV. Accountability to the community, to report on successes and drive improvement in
partnerships.

Accordingly, school communities are encouraged to review their current supporting structures,
policies and procedures and develop new ones where necessary. This may include establishing a
dedicated family-school action team of school leaders, teachers and parents (appointed by the
parent body) – or using an existing working group that includes parents – to develop and
coordinate partnership plans and activities. Any successful partnership will involve parents and
families in preparation, planning, implementation and review. A dedicated family-school action
team of teachers, school leaders and parents to develop and coordinate partnership plans and
activities can provide the basis for improving partnerships more broadly.

This family-school action team would:

• audit existing arrangements and practices and collect information on the views,
experiences and wishes of teachers, parents, school leaders and students;
• confirm that the school leaders and the parent network endorse the concept of partnership
and inform the school community;
• develop plans for implementation, setting goals, timelines and success indicators against
the key dimensions of the family-school partnerships framework;
• arrange training for action team members;
• implement agreed activities;
• evaluate the effectiveness of the partnership activities;
• continue to improve and coordinate practices against the key dimensions of the family-
school partnerships framework; and
• explore options for new partnerships.

Thus, any attempt to encourage greater participation in development must begin from an analysis
of: (a) the nature of the distribution of power over education: down the system, out to other actors,
and to the unit of the school, and (b) the role of the centre in regard to controlling, enabling, and/or
empowering its potential partners (Shaeffer, 1994).

However, we find that there are different degrees or models of decentralization in different
countries as well as for different functions. A common approach has been to localize delivery
while centralizing mandated standards. The above cases show that various management
mechanisms inside or outside of school exist or can be established and strengthened in order to
promote more participatory approaches to school governance. But the choice about what kind of
mechanisms to establish and what powers to invest it with is not necessarily an easy one. A variety
of issues must be explored and decisions made before these mechanisms have any real impact on
how schools are run and financed.
These include decisions regarding:
33
 1. Where the level of greatest autonomy should be - in other words, the level to which the
greatest devolution of authority will be implemented. If, for various reasons of politics or
management, a centralized, unified, standardized system is desired so that school goals, targets,
policies, programs, and budgets are meant to fit closely to a national standard, then there will be
little scope for worrying about individual school or district differences.

On the other hand, if decentralization and greater school autonomy are encouraged within a given
system, authority for determining goals, targets, policies, and programs could be devolved to one
of two levels:
(1) to the individual school - which might lead to considerable flexibility and differences across
schools, or
(2) to the level of a district or sub-district - in which case two things might happen. Schools may
end up following policies established across several schools and communities in the district, or
they may have the opportunity to develop integrated programs and budgets across schools and
even across other local education programs (i.e., an integrated budget for the entire community
covering both formal and non-formal education activities) (Duraiappah & Others, 2005).
2. Who the most important actor(s) at that level should be. Once the appropriate level of some
autonomy in governance is decided, then where does the power of governance lie? With an
expanded and animated teacher-based council within a school or cluster? Or can it also be out
 of the school or even the system, in PTAs or village education committees?
3. How much variety and diversity are acceptable across units and between individual units and
the 'national standard'. In other words, to what extent do individual schools (or clusters or
districts) have some degree of freedom to set their own goals and targets, plan school- and
community- specific programs, and design and implement their own budgets, including
searching for additional funds?
4. What degree of participation in governance other partners are allowed to attain? Are
teachers within a school or a cluster, or individuals within parent associations or village education
committees, permitted merely to hear about, and approve of, goals, targets, policies, programs, and
budgets established and designed by others, whether at the centre or at the local level? Does this
participation focus mainly on the seeking (or extracting) of 'contributions' from partners? Or is
their advice actively sought (e.g., through the surveys, diagnoses, and focus groups discussed in
the previous module)? Is their consent required or requested? And are they actually asked to
participate actively in the shaping of the school's long-term plans?
5. How much 'transparency' is desirable and feasible in such school governance, especially in
the area of finances. To whom do funds from various sources belong? Who manages them? And
who (the school principal, the executive of the PTA) is financially accountable to whom (the local
education office, the PTA membership, the larger community) in this regard?
6. What can be done to help school principals fulfill their critical role in school
improvement? Given the importance of school principals in school management and in
mobilizing teachers, parents, and other partners in working toward a more effective school, what
kinds of actions can be taken to ensure their better selection and training?
And teachers, parent groups, and school committees can play a more active role in school
governance. A variety of mechanisms exists which can be used to enhance their participation.
Some of these are restricted to actors within the school - i.e., the greater involvement of teachers -
while others include the participation of partners from outside the school: parents, community
organizations, NGOs, private enterprise, and other local actors. These means:
1. At the school level, three mechanisms for greater participation are available:
34
• school management councils or school principals-teacher committees, perhaps based on a
division of labor among senior teachers, deputies, academic department chairs and committees for
such areas as student discipline, guidance and counseling, and extracurricular activities.
• school clusters - the collective management of several schools, usually relatively close to each
other in location and often quite homogeneous in nature.
• district/sub-district level organizations - such as school principal councils.
2. Outside of school, it may be the parent/teacher association or the village education committee
which has a say in the governance of individual schools or groups of schools. The teachers,
parents and community take responsibility together to solve problems".

In our case, promoting, and in some cases revalidating, positive traditional authorities and
structures can be an integral part of building trust and relationships, whilst providing a meaningful
framework to engage with communities. Therefore, identify positive community mechanisms to
engage with and work through to ensure continuity in education delivery and integrated
approaches to address community needs has a paramount effect in our context. For this reason,
support community structures with training and guidance is very crucial to take on new roles in
education, whether self-initiated, or empowered to do so by the state.

To sum up this lesson, if we are to realize continuous improvement in the quality of teaching and
learning in our classrooms, schools and system we must build the capacity of our educators to
meet these expectations. This will require more than simply allocating additional resources for
professional development programs. Rather, the provision of a flexible, transparent accountability
framework provides the means for spreading effective practice across the system and for
becoming more responsive to immediate and future school needs in terms of planning and
achievement.
Activity 2.2. Analytical Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Dear Learner!
 Can you provide some other aspects of school governance by which the community can
take part?
 Which one of the above models do you think is more effective? Why?
 What mix of institutional arrangements increases the efficiency of service delivery?
 Which one do you feel is good leaving governance to professionals or involving lay
people? Nice job!

Lesson Two
2.2. Collaborative Structures and organizations
Dear Learner! In the previous lesson, we have seen the importance of decentralized school
governance, different structures and forms of school-community relations and mechanisms for
greater participation at the school level. For successful community participation, however,
collaborating structures and organization is essential. This lesson is therefore intended to serve as
a basis for delivering sessions related to the what type of collaborative structures and organizations
are needed, different mechanisms based on principles of participation, as well as the end product
of school culture and leadership necessary for collaborative structures and organization will be
raised through out the lesson.
35
 Activity 2.3. Brainstorming (8 minutes for discussion)
Dear Learner!
 What sustainability efforts or strategies are most vital to collaborative structure
and organization in school-community relations?
 What experiential opportunities and continuous learning strategies might
support parent and community leadership development in our community? Well!

The first question to begin with this lesson is How does family and community engagement fit in
the school so as to have collaborative structures and organizations? To answer this question,
 first we should have to position our selves by putting the learner at the center and help schools to
create strong collaborative learning communities where the unique needs of the young adolescent
learner can be fully met.

For that reason, we need to consider the multiple communities represented in a school, and define
community broadly, to include individuals, organizations, agencies, and groups who have
immediate ties to students as well as those with a particular interest in developing successful
students and productive citizens. A school’s community includes the immediate neighborhood
surrounding the building, the home communities of all students, and potentially the entire town or
city. Because, families do not succeed without community support, and communities do not
succeed without support from families. Hence, the school’s role begins with learning about
families, defining a variety of ways for families to support the school and their children’s learning,
and reaching out to the community to engage individuals and organizations. Accordingly, every
school must come to understand its own local context and community and create a realistic plan
for strengthening family and community engagement. There is no specific formula or set approach
for creating collaborative structures and organizations.

However, for creating collaborative structures and organizations, the starting point is the
development of teacher, parent, and community organizations as partners in educational
development. Such organizations – teacher clubs, parent associations, PTAs, village education
committees - are the basic building blocks of stronger school and community collaboration.
Another very important requirement is the strengthening of horizontal relationships across a wide
range of actors at all levels of the system. To do this practically, we should have to consider
different norms or mechanisms for collaborative structures and organizations: proper
decentralization, guarantee some degree of autonomy, self-government, empowerment and
accountability of lower levels of the system. Let us look these four key concepts in detail.

Decentralization is not simply a unitary concept, but has different forms for different functions. In
other words, it covers a range of concepts with different implementation implications, especially
in the degree of responsibility intended to be transferred to local actors. Decentralization is
defined as the transfer of decision-making authority closer to the consumer or beneficiary. This
can take the form of transferring powers to lower levels of an organization, which is called
deconcentration or administrative decentralization. A popular form of deconcentration in
education is to give additional responsibilities to school communities. This is often called school
autonomy or school-based management and may take the form of creating elected or appointed
school councils and giving them the authority to make important educational decisions.
This links the term decentralization to the notion of participation and sharing of responsibility
through active involvement of the civil society; for instance citizen participation at community
36
level, and decision autonomy in the framework of school-based management (SBM). It is also
legitimized through a heterogeneous political rhetoric ranging from the promotion of local
diversity, enlarged participation and grass-roots democracy to that of local autonomy of schools,
school restructuring and school effectiveness. What the literature also indicates is that in many
contexts decentralization of critical decision-making on school development has produced
desirable outcomes, especially in terms of local government and communities taking up
responsibility for building classrooms, hiring community or contract teachers, or raising funds for
school infrastructure development. Within the local community context, shared educational
concerns, such as persistent dropout, high pupil absenteeism, and utilization of school fees are
expected to galvanize community and local government action. Decentralization of education
service delivery, it is also argued, can produce greater community pressure for transparency and
accountability in school management.

Governance plays an important role in determining the conditions under which participation can
take place and, through its mechanisms, processes and institutions, it critically affects the
possibility of participation as well as its likely success. Good governance makes it possible for
citizens, individually or in groups, to articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights and
negotiate their differences. Within the broad area of governance, decentralization, which brings
decision-making closer to the local level, is potentially important to participation, since it may, if
it is done well, lead to more responsive government and new opportunities for citizens to
participate (UNESCAP, 2009).

The second important point considered in collaborative structures and organizations is the concept
of autonomy. Societies where multi-directional accountability occurs guarantee some degree of
autonomy or 'self-government' to lower levels of the system. This includes both autonomy for
organizations to make and implement decisions regarding their own operations, and for
individuals, to make decisions regarding matters pertaining to their own concerns. Such autonomy,
within a context of accountability to other actors above and to clients below, can help to encourage
better management, higher professional competence, and more effective services. One important
premise of such a process of providing greater autonomy is that the various actors in the
autonomous institutions (e.g. a school) are professionals and able to make informed decision and
conscious of self-responsibility for consequences arising from the decisions.

Thirdly, one important outcome of more participatory processes will be empowerment. Greater
participation in a decentralized system, with multiple and more democratic processes of
accountability of more autonomous institutions, implies that people:
 gain knowledge and awareness of their own social, economic, and political conditions;
 take action - to make and act on choices and to construct their own futures through a
process of analysis and action; and, above all,
 gain control over the goals and processes of development, and over regulatory institutions.
(Shaeffer, 1994).

This power must be real, formal, and legitimate, including both the ability to make use of formal
structures and regulations and control over decision-making processes, knowledge, and
techniques. People who are empowered have the power to find direct solutions to their problems -
they propose solutions, they do not beg for them. These terms include self-strength, control, self-
power, self-reliance, own choice, life of dignity in accordance with one’s values, capable of
fighting for one’s rights, independence, own decision-making, being free, awakening, and
37
capability—to mention only a few. These definitions are embedded in local value and belief
systems. Successful efforts to empower the local people, increasing their freedom of choice and
action in different contexts, often share four elements:
 Access to information
 Inclusion and participation
 Accountability
 Local organizational capacity.

The final issue arising from more participatory development is accountability. One of the potential
benefits of decentralization is increased accountability to the citizen/beneficiary, resulting in
improved efficiency in the use of school resources. The improved efficiency results from two
effects. One effect is the better match between services provided and the preferences of citizens.
The other effect is increased output relative to resources or expenditures. Accountability relates to
who is required to report to whom about - and therefore can ultimately be held responsible for -
the determination and implementation of policies and procedures, the achievement of goals, the
performance of institutions, and compliance with standards and regulations. Accountability is
about the conduct and performance of an individual, a group, or an organization, and how these
are assessed. Accountability then is about power, authority, and ownership—and defines the
relationship between actors through identifying who can call whom to account, and who owes a
duty of explanation and rectification by defining the lines and directions of accountability the
distribution of power is also defined.

A greater engagement of the community in school governance can help achieve truth, security,
mutual respect and justice. Greater community participation in school governance serves no
purpose in the absence of quality teaching and learning. Therefore, the importance of quality
education has placed a heightened focus on accountability for teaching-learning performance. It is
for this reason that teaching and learning-based accountability is emphasized as one of the pillars
of today’s school governance. Once the tenets for accountability in teaching and learning are
established, schools need to accelerate their governance to a broader level that could see the
excluded members of the community playing a vital role in school affairs.

Another important point in creating collaborative structures and organizations is keeping and
ensuring principles of participation. The ability of participatory development to fulfill its promise
rests in part on the manner in which it is undertaken. Effective participation needs to be
undertaken in a manner that is cognizant of:
 the mode of participation;
 the participants to be involved and the manner in which they should be involved; and
 the institutional structure within which local people operate.

Furthermore, effective participation rests on respecting a number of key principles, such as:
 Inclusion – of all people, or representatives of all groups who will be affected by the
results of a decision or a process, such as a development project.
 Equal Partnership – recognizing that every person has skill, ability and initiative and has
equal right to participate in the process regardless of their status.
 Transparency – all participants must help to create a climate conducive to open
communication and building dialogue.
 Sharing Power – authority and power must be balanced evenly between all stakeholders
to avoid the domination of one party.
38
 Sharing responsibility – similarly, all stakeholders have equal responsibility for decisions
that are made, and each should have clear responsibilities within each process.
Cooperation – cooperation is very important; sharing everybody’s strength reduces
everybody’s weaknesses.

For this purpose, the school culture and leadership should have to consider the following
leadership styles so as to create collaborative structures and organizations:
Collaborative Leadership—A democratic and constructive way of making decisions that
engages community members or interested stakeholders; is asset oriented, strength based, and
relationship driven; and uses strategies that include dialogue, interests based collaboration,
agreement building, networking, shared decision making, and shared accountability.
Shared Leadership—Shared leadership is successfully achieved when parents and professionals
build effective partnerships and share responsibility, expertise, experience, and responsibility in
decisions being made that affect families and communities.
Parent Leadership—The capacity of parents to address the challenges of parenting, gain the
knowledge and skills to represent a “parent voice”, to interact within society with purpose to shape
the direction of their families, programs, and communities toward positive outcomes for children.
Parenting Supports—Activities that strengthen parents’ capacity to draw upon available
resources for their own well-being and the well-being of their children. These may include:
helping parents 1) develop long-term supportive relationships; 2) access other community
resources; and 3) strengthen the home-early care-education link (Hepburn, 2004).

To sum up this lesson, it can be argued that genuine and systemic collaboration will only
ultimately be achieved when the norms discussed above are internalized and accepted throughout
the bureaucracy. Achieving this often requires a variety of political, cultural, even economic
developments well beyond the powers of a school or ministry of education. As service providers,
we must make the family the center of our efforts, with new roles, new attitudes, and new models
that are family-centered and stress the needs of the customer. As educational leaders we must
place the family at the center of our efforts and make the programs revolve around that center,
rather than following old models that have forced the family into the service available, instead of
designing the services around the needs of our families and our children.

Lesson Three
2.3. Common Practices of the School-Community Relations
Dear learner! this is the third lesson of the unit two. This lesson provides you with the various
practices of school-community relations. There are potentially a range of practices in which
communities can be involved in education, starting from resources mobilization up to genuine
participation in decision-making of school affairs. These practices are extremely useful in
planning a project since they provide a framework for budgeting, manpower and resource
allocation, and for enhancing of collaborative structures and organizations that are needed in our
schools and surrounding areas.

Activity 2.4. Take time home assignment, address these issues individually
 Explain how community involvement in the process of schooling helps achievement of
educational goals.
 What are the areas in which community participation should be enhanced? Very nice!
39
 The educational system should not be regarded as a branch of the bureaucracy. Instead, it should
be a subsystem highly interactive with all other parts of the social whole. The point is to give
students, parents and teachers responsibility over their own affairs, to the point of enabling them to
administer the educational system on their own within the context of natural or contractual
communities. Especially, participation in education can be analyzed in terms both of the degree of
participation and the areas of education in which greater participation can occur (Shaeffer, 1994).
However, while community participation in schooling has always been apparent in many countries
including our country, particularly in the form of support for school construction, it has become
more formalized in policy in recent years with new forms of community participation emerging.
Community participation has been continuously promoted and formalized through both
international and national policy, with even greater attention paid to it in recent years. The
formation of school committees is an important way in which community involvement is being
promoted in many countries.

Although local communities and parents are increasingly playing a role in educational finance
especially with regard to sharing in the cost of buildings and their maintenance, transport to
schools, food, uniforms, learning materials and extra-curricular activities, their contribution
remains unquantified (Rose, 2004). However, community participation is particularly significant
at the primary level. For instance, more than 75% of Malawi’s primary schools have been built
with the support of local communities. At the same time, primary school maintenance has largely
been a responsibility of communities (Rose, 2004). So, while community participation in
schooling has played an important role in education systems in many countries, both positively
and negatively, this lesson will focus on some of the common practices of school-community
relations and its outcomes in particular. Let us start with one case study.

Case Study 3: CHANCE Schools in Uganda: Village Schools help children, especially girls, stay in school

At the government's invitation in 1999, Save the Children initiated a pilot education program with 20 locally constructed
schools in Nakasongola District, about 150 kilometers north of Kampala. Called Child-centered Alternatives for Non-formal,
Community-based Education (CHANCE), the Village School program was envisioned as a high-quality, inexpensive, and
sustainable basic education program with significant community participation and gender parity. It targeted disadvantaged
children who were unable to access the formal schools. Many of these children were from fishing and the semi-nomadic
pastoral communities traditionally left out of the mainstream. CHANCE has since dramatically changed the education
landscape throughout the district and Uganda government officials and others acknowledge its positive impact on
educational access and performance compared to the formal educational system. For example: CHANCE classes achieved
an increase in academic performance in nine months as opposed to 12 months in formal schools, and 3 hours per day as
opposed to 5.5 hours per day in the formal schools; CHANCE limits class size to 40 children and has a textbook-to-pupil
ratio of 3:1; and Attendance is almost equally balanced between males, 49 percent, and females, 51 percent. To date,
CHANCE has brought 1,800 marginalized children in the underserved Nakasongola District into schools set up by Save the
Children: 20 pilot classes begun in October 1999 have grown to 48 schools, 73 classes and 2,500 students. About 600
students have completed three years of primary-school studies.
Source: Rose, P. 2004. Communities, gender and education: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Background paper for 2003
UNESCO Global Monitoring Report. University of Sussex, Centre for International Education, p 7.

As we have seen from the above case study, there are potentially a range of areas in which
communities can be involved in education, from mobilization of resources and constructing
classrooms, to supporting the development of curriculum and design of policy. In addition,
different degrees of participation might be apparent, from ‘pseudo-participation’ of community
members in terms of their use of a service and contribution of resources, to their ‘genuine-
40
 participation’ in decision-making (See Table 2.2). The degree of participation can vary between
communities as well as by different members within communities (Rose, 2004).

Table 2.2: Matrix of dimensions and degrees of participation in education

Forms of Pseudo- Genuine
participation participation participation

Use of service Contribution Attendance at Consultation Involvement in Delegated ‘Real’ powers

Education of resources meetings on issues delivery powers and and decision-
functions decision- making
making
Designing
policy
Curriculum
development
Teacher
hiring/firing
Supervision
Payment of
teachers
Teacher training
Textbook
design
Textbook
distribution
Certification
Building and
maintenance
Mobilizing
resources
Source: Adapted from Bray 2000 (Table 1, p. 20). In Rose (2004).

With regard to the community, it is evident that it occupies a central place in SBM through its
involvement in the school board or council or PTA. The precise powers of these boards differ: on
the one extreme, in states in Australia or the USA, they play a role in head teacher recruitment, in
some budgetary decisions and in extra-curricular affairs; on the other extreme, some boards are
simply milking cows for enterprising principals or board chairs.
Community participation as a means to improving educational outcomes
It will first consider community participation as a means to improving equitable educational
outcomes. Several studies report that community schools are successful in improving access to
schooling, and some note that girls’ participation in schooling in particular has improved.
Programs supported by NGOs in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Guinea, South Sudan and Uganda are all
reported to have had some success in this regard. In Ethiopia, for example, total enrolment has
increased by 8.9 percent in the region where World Learning operates a community school
program, and girls’ enrolment has increased by 13.8 percent (Rose, 2004). Given that community
schools are established in areas where schools previously did not exist, children are likely to have
greater access to some form of schooling, and often the choice is between a community school or
no school. Attempts to promote girls’ enrolment in government schools through community
initiatives can also result in success for access.
41
Community participation as empowerment
Teachers, parent groups, and even multi-sectoral school committees can also play a more collegial
role in setting policies related to staff development, school-community relations, and specific
school improvement activities. This may include policies regarding school calendars and
timetables (so as to interfere as little as possible with family and community economic cycles),
student enrolment and promotion, and educational content. In Viet Nam, for example, members of
parent associations visit the homes of non-enrolled children or absent students in order to
encourage their further schooling (Duraiappah & Others, 2005). And such committees can help to
ensure as well the greater collaboration between the school and other, more non-formal
educational activities of the community, either run through the Ministry of Education (literacy
programs, vocational training), other sectors (health campaigns, agricultural extension), or NGOs.
In some areas, also, village education committees help identify candidates for teaching posts and
assist in interviewing, selecting, orienting, and monitoring them. This can lead to more focused
'field-based teacher training' where teachers, principals, teacher educators, the school community,
and parents are brought together in teacher preparation programs.

Community participation in Financial Management and Budgeting

In terms of another area of governance -financial management participation is often defined as
extraction; that is, parents, the community at large, and even teachers are seen as sources of
financial and material support and of physical labor. This can include land, labor, and materials for
the building; the repair and maintenance of facilities; the donation of equipment and learning
materials; and the raising of money. In Zambia, the Self-Help Action Program for Education
(SHAPE) has encouraged both teachers and parents to contribute more of their resources to school
activities. These funds, in combination with money gained from productive units in schools, are
used to support almost all school improvements, physical or, through participation in local
upgrading courses (Shaeffer, 1994).

Another essential principal for governance is the ability and authority of local educational officials
and perhaps the school itself to plan a budget, generate funds, and use funds allocated at their
discretion. Thus, both teachers and parents (the latter through school committees or parent groups)
can assume a larger role in examining and approving school budgets and, in collaboration with
school principals, in deciding how resources, both parental and governmental, might be spent.
Although such a role may be rather meaningless in small schools with small budgets, this may not
be the case in larger schools with sizeable resources. The shift from household to community
contributions which has occurred following the abolition of fees and subsequent promotion of
community participation in some countries, has potential implications for the relative burden
placed on women and men in the household (Duraiappah & Others, 2005).

From the above contributions of the community, participation in development posits a range of
involvement in education by various actors from both inside and outside the school. For those
from outside the school (parents, community members, NGOs), the range goes from:
1. complete non-participation and exclusion from school affairs, except (usually) in the
provision of resources; through
2. involvement (at home) with motivating children and helping them with homework; to
3. involvement as an 'audience' and passive supporters at school-run meetings or assemblies;
4. participation as 'consultants' on school issues;
5. as 'partners' in teaching or training;
6. as implementers of delegated powers; and, ultimately,
42
 7. as citizens or a community in control of the school (Shaeffer, 1994).

This possible range of collaboration with outside actors, as well as the more active participation of
teachers within and across schools, can also be analyzed in relation to participation in several
different areas of education, Shaeffer (1994) recommends the following:
1. the diagnosis of educational conditions, needs, priorities, and resources;
2. policy-making and governance (the setting of goals, planning of programs, and managing
of personnel and budgets); and
3. the instructional program, both the determination of educational content (the curriculum
and teaching materials) and teaching and training (the pedagogy and teaching methods).

Whatever the case may be, getting a community involved in school life is not an easy matter and
the problem is not simply one of capacities (Remember the barriers in school-community relations
stated in unit one). In communities with many social and political tensions, the school board has,
in some instances, become an instrument in the hands of the elite to build up its power, leading to
greater inequities. Evidence from New Zealand and Australia shows the under-representation of
minority groups in the composition of school boards. A related concern is the lack of transparency
especially in the use of funds at the school level by the principal and the board. Indeed, the
effectiveness of SBM depends strongly on the accountability that the school feels towards the
community as well as pressure that the same community can exercise on the school. Therefore, for
the community to play that role, four requirements should be present for legitimate participation,
as identified by Lawler in Grauwe (2004)): knowledge and skill; power; information and rewards.
This is hardly the case in many communities.

In conclusion, it is evident that a number of initiatives involving the community are taking place,
often with the support of governments, international donors and NGOs some of which are
modeled on examples from our country’s experience. Based on the evidence available, it is not,
however, possible to determine whether these improvements are attributable to community
participation per se, or whether state schools in the same location and with the same resources
could result in an identical outcome. Evidence suggests that, of the range of forms that
participation can take, in practice it is often mainly confined to contribution of resources for
building and maintenance. However, it is possible that improvements in access and performance in
schooling by gender as a result of greater community involvement in schooling could have an
impact especially on gender relations in the longer term, if this is genuinely desired and addressed.

The degree of participation able to be achieved in any given society at any given time will vary
considerably based on its political, social, cultural, and economic context. Given this fact,
achieving the greater participation of more partners is clearly an evolutionary process and will
proceed at varying speeds depending on a number of factors and conditions (institutional and
individual commitment, resources, personal expertise and above all provision of appropriate
mechanisms or strategies of collaboration for two way communication which will be dealt in the
next unit).
Activity 2.5. Take home assignment and collect necessary information
Dear Learner!
 Do you see any importance of involving the community in diagnosis of
educational conditions of their children?
 Can you give some examples of community participation inside and outside
schools in Ethiopia?
43
 Lesson Four
2.4. Expectations and demands of the Community
Dear learner! Would you please once again remember what you discussed in the previous
lessons? Yes, you have learned different forms of school-community relations, collaborative
structures and organizations and common practices of community involvement in education. This
is the last lesson of this unit. This lesson will help you to have understanding about the basic
expectations and demands of the community.
Activity 2.6. Brainstorming (4 minutes for each question)
Dear Learner!
 Before you proceed to the reading, try to mention some of the
expectations and demands of community from education.
 What do you think is the advantage of developing community profile?

Everywhere there is pressure for children to learn more in school. Even where the school day and
school year have been lengthened, the amount of time children spend in school during the first
eighteen years of their lives is small (perhaps 13% of waking hours) compared to time spent with
the family and the broader community. Fortunately, research on the family’s influence on school
learning has a substantial history, and we can settle upon basic premises with great confidence. In
other words, an alterable ‘curriculum of the home’—including the family’s relationships, practices
and patterns of life—is a more powerful predictor of academic learning than the family’s status.
Schools can work with families to improve the curriculum of the home, regardless of the family’s
economic situation. This, then, is a message of great hope.

In many literatures we can found that schools report greater success in engaging parents in a
partnership when they are responsive to the needs of parents and are friendly and welcoming to
parents. This shows us parental expectations play a significant role in children’s motivation to
achieve. As school principal, supervisor or educational leader What do you think Family
 Expectations for Their Children? Numerous researchers have found that parent involvement was
a complex concept dependent on multiple factors, rather than a single cause and effect processes.
However, all parents, regardless of race, economic status, or culture, held high expectations for
their children. Multiple studies have found that all families have high academic expectations for
their children. The following studies, because of their diverse sources of data and focus, illustrate
the wide support for this finding (Ferguson, 2005).

Families with high expectations for their children’s school performance also provide consistent
guidance and support for schooling. They are aware of their children’s progress and interested in
the academic route their children are plotting. In fact, parents who experience diverse ethnic,
cultural, socioeconomic, linguistic, and educational backgrounds are involved in the lives of their
children, regardless of whether they are formally involved in their school life. Furthermore, many
families are involved in the education of their children, even though in ways that school personnel
may not consider because they see no concrete product. Especially, those we are considered as the
child-centered family understands the necessity of schooling to the economic betterment of their
children. These families often fear that the school is inadequately attentive to their children. They
are frustrated by what they perceive as negative social influences, and they may cast aspersions
upon other parents, whom they see as lax and uncaring (Redding, 2012).
44
 On the other hand, these parents are willing to work for their children’s school, provide leadership
among parents, and serve as surrogate parents for neglected children. They are best engaged by
giving them constructive roles in the school and opportunities to work with other parents. The
challenge for the school is to channel the efforts of child-centered parents toward activities that
benefit the academic and personal development of their own children and of other children. Child-
centered parents make wonderful leaders for parent education programs (Redding, 2012). We can
found also other families as parent-centered families. Here we can found that busy professional
parents value schooling but are sometimes so absorbed by their careers and personal interests that
they are disengaged from close involvement in their children’s lives. In most of the cases, such
kind of parents must be re-engaged with their children by means of inquiry by the school
authorities.

Research from the field shows also strong parent, family, and community involvement doesn’t just
happen and isn’t limited to certain types of schools. People come into the school community with
a variety of prior experiences with schools, conflicting pressures, and expectations. Some may
have underlying issues of suspicion or other conflicts that can affect the relationships between
home, community, and school. When these expectations are found repeatedly in practice, some
schools and parents as well they set standards for professional performance. People’s perceptions
of a role are tested and evaluated in relation to the needs, capabilities, and social networks of a
particular school and the outcome—the product that results and its influence on students’
experience of education.

From the above discussions, most family expectations of their children fall on the following
assumptions:
• Priority given to schoolwork and reading over television and recreation;
• Expectation of punctuality;
• Parental expectation that children do their best;
• Concern for correct and effective use of language;
• knowledge of child’s progress in school and personal growth.
• Parents set standards for their children, and these standards determine what children view
as important (Redding, 2012).

From the above statements we can grasp that parents are (and should be) concerned with their
child’s individual progress and needs. And educators are (and should be) focused on the progress
and needs of the whole class or group. Here, we should have to consider also family characteristics
as important input for successful school-community engagement. And we should have to ask
 ourselves that What characteristics of families influence its dynamics and parenting practices -
affect student achievement or smooth school-community relations?

Studies find that both parents and children are affected by the number of children in the family.
Parents may also have increased responsibility in the form of chores or caring for younger
siblings. Parents in larger families, especially those with limited living space and economic
resources, tend to be more authoritarian, tend to be more likely to use physical punishment, and
tend to be less likely to explain their rules than are the parents of smaller families. However, it has
also been found that the effects of family size on parenting style are mediated by parental
education, occupation, social class, intactness of the family, and ethnic orientation (Berns, 2010).
Concomitantly, from educational practitioners, there is a lack of attention to personal
characteristics of a parent or family (“who” they are) and what they do to support their children.
45
As educational leaders, these issues require us to consider the emphasis is on the family as a whole
rather than the individuals within it.

The main thing that we consider here is how can we solve these problems to create smooth school-
community relations. Researchers find that a strong work ethic contributes to success in school.
Then, the following mechanisms might be important factors to create smooth school-community
relations. Especially, The involvement of more actors in diagnoses. Several mechanisms might be
used to enhance the participation of these partners in such an exercise. Some relate to the
collection of data whereas others are more concerned with data analysis and priority-setting:
(a) more consistent, systematic, and integrated data collection: This could be done via regular
joint household censuses or more specific, ad hoc surveys and questionnaires. This is especially
important for education in regard to data on health status, population changes, enrolment and drop-
out rates by gender and the existence and problems of particularly disadvantaged areas or groups.
(b) the seeking of parent and community opinion: In addition to the often regular diagnosis of
development needs, special emphasis could be placed on collecting the opinions and aspirations of
parents and other community members concerned about education - both in general and also on
more specific issues (such as the location of new schools or the kinds of skills children require
from schools). In-depth interviews and focus group discussions may help in this regard.
(c) the involvement of other actors in diagnoses: As a kind of 'extension agent' of the Ministry
of Education and, in many communities, still among the most educated and respected of its
members, teachers may not only have something useful to say about education; they may also be
particularly able to gather and synthesize the needs and priorities of the community. Officers of
whatever school/parent/community association exists may also help in this regard.
(d) parent/teacher/student conferences: Prepare an agenda for parent/teacher/student
conferences that encourages the participation of all three parties. Let parents know the agenda in
advance of the conference. Include such questions as: How would the parents describe the child’s
study habits at home? Does the child read at home?
(e) prepare report cards: Report cards are typically used by teachers to inform parents about the
child’s progress in school. But report cards can become two-way by including the parents’ report
of the child’s progress at home with such school-related topics as: willingness to do homework;
reading for pleasure; and attitude toward learning. The cards might also encourage parents to note
specific concerns or request conferences.
(f) publish school newsletter: Many schools publish newsletters. To encourage two-way
communication, ask parents to write articles for the newsletter. What tips can parents give for
helping kids with homework? What family activities would parents like to share? Has the family
visited a museum, historical site or other place of educational value?
(g) open door parent/teacher conferences: Designate a certain time when teachers are available
for walking conferences. Some schools set aside thirty minutes before school each morning (or on
certain days of the week) when all teachers are available to parents.
(h) parent bulletin board: Place a bulletin board for parents, at the main entry to the school.
Parents can conveniently check the board for notes about parent meetings, suggestions for helping
children with homework, notices about family activities and calendars of important events.
(i) home links from the classroom: Parents like to know what their child is learning at school. A
weekly take-home that lists a few topics covered at school that week is helpful. The take-home
may also include examples of parent/child activities that would be related to what is being learned
at school.
(j) assignment notebooks: A notebook in which students record each day’s assignments (and
perhaps also keep track of the marks they earn) is helpful in keeping students on track. When
46
parents are asked to view, date and initial the notebook and the teacher routinely examines the
notebook, a good student/teacher/parent communication link is established (Redding, 2012).

Case Study 4 Observation in work Place

Educators often ask: How can schools get families to support their values and practices?
Coincidentally, families often ask: How can families get schools to be responsive to their needs
and aspirations for their children?
Less often educators and families ask: How can we work together to promote the educational
experiences and performance of students or this student?

What do you learn from the above statements, reflect your own view. Very Nice!

The above inquiry has a great implication to us as educational leaders. Parents sometimes need to
be reminded that children benefit from varied activities, including recreational and social
activities, and that schoolwork need not replace these activities. When it comes to schoolwork,
however, a good approach is to consider the child’s study habits and attitude toward school rather
than focusing solely on the child’s marks. This is not to say that marks are unimportant; but marks
can be deceptive. Research findings indicate that students do best when parents and teachers
understand each other’s expectations and stay in touch with one another regarding the child’s
learning habits, attitudes toward school, social interactions and academic progress. The school,
through the leadership of its administration and the school’s policies and programs, can create an
atmosphere conducive to communication and provide convenient opportunities for communication
(Redding, 2012). In this endeavour, teachers are most inclined to initiate communication with
parents when they perceive that administrators value such communication, their colleagues are
supportive of parental involvement, and the parents seem appreciative of the outreach.
Communication between the school and the home is most effective when it flows in both
directions, and schools should distinguish between efforts to inform parents and opportunities to
communicate with parents. Because families vary in their relationship to schools, schools must use
different other strategies to engage all families in the learning lives of their children.

To summarize this lesson, parents and educators desire collaborative relationships; however, many
barriers are present. Some school practices “fail” families; for example, responding only in a crisis
(Christenson, 2004). So, we should have to consider how the different perspectives held by parents
and educators influence their communication. In this situation of high expectations of each
country’s educational provision, those leading schools have an enormous responsibility. It is no
wonder that the “school improvement movement of the past 20 years has put a great emphasis on
the role of leaders gone as far to conclude that, “Effective school leaders are key to large-scale,
sustainable education reform.”

Unit Summary
Dear Learner! What do you learn from the above unit? Yes, we have got a lot of lessons. Above
all, we have got important lesson with regard to greater involvement of the community in school
governance is purely to support the delivery of quality teaching-learning. This relates to
participation in governance and policy decisions and in the actual conduct - planning, managing,
and implementing - of school programs. Increased decentralization of education systems has posed
the issue of the role of local authorities and other intermediate bodies between the central state and
the school as well as the role of boards or other bodies directly or indirectly involved in governing
47
schools. In this unit we have seen also that the extent to which a school promotes the collaborative
structures and organizations and conditions for effective professional learning depends largely on
its organizational culture – the beliefs, attitudes, values, knowledge and skills of its teachers and
leaders. Therefore, as a school system, we should have to have a shared responsibility to improve
student learning outcomes. Following the establishment of such collaborative organizations comes
the facilitation of greater teacher, parent, and community involvement in specific areas of
education. These areas include: the assessment of educational conditions, needs, priorities, and
resources; policy-making and governance (the setting of goals, planning of programs, and
managing of budgets); and the instructional process. In addition to the above, we have seen also
that the society we have, including the identity and cohesion within that society and its
understanding and acceptance of other societies, is seen to be largely created in our schools.
Schools are one of the few remaining institutions to offer partnerships to families in socialization
and investment through learning. School education helps people make sense of the changes as well
as fostering sustainability, including through lifelong learning. The creation, acquisition,
communication and wise use of knowledge are of particular importance. Because, children benefit
from communication between their parents and their teachers that flows in both directions.

Review Questions
Part I: Choose the correct answer and write the letter on the space provided.
____ 1. Which one is true regarding the domain of decision-making?
a. Establishing teachers’ starting salaries
b. Appointing teachers
c. Dismissing teachers
d. All
____ 2. Among the following which one is not kinds of power exist in decentralization?
a. the power to arbitrate disputes
b. the power to modify rules
c. the power to ensure compliance to the new rules
d. All
____ 3. Any attempt to encourage greater participation in development must begin from an
analysis of
a. the nature of the distribution of power
b. the role of the centre in regard to controlling
c. the role of state in empowering its potential partners
d. All
____ 4. Successful efforts to empower the local people often share
a. Local organizational capacity
b. Accountability
c. Access to information
d. All.
____ 5. Which one of the following are not considered as genuine participation?
a. Use of service
b. Delegated powers and decision-making
c. Attendance at meetings
d. All except A
e. All
48
Part II: Write True if the statement is correct and False if the statement is incorrect.
____ 1. The motives for educational decentralization and structures are almost the same and may
not vary from country to country..
_____ 2. Decentralization is generally defined in terms of the level of the system at which
decisions are taken.
_____ 3. Parent involvement in education is a complex concept dependent on multiple factors,
rather than a single cause.
_____ 4. All parents, regardless of race or culture, held high expectations for their children.
______5. Getting a community involved in school life is not an easy matter.
Part III: Write short answers for the following questions on the space provided.
1. Write down four mechanisms that are important for the smooth school-community relations.

2. Explain the family expectations of their children from school.

_______________________________________________________________________________
3. List down three dimensions and degrees of participation of community in education.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Case Analyses
We have seen in unit two with regard to common practices of the school-community relations and
expectations and demands of the community. Then, How do you socialize children to be prepared
for the future based on the expectations and demands of the community? Children are socialized
by many people in society—parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends,
teachers, religious leaders, and role models in the media. These agents of socialization use many
techniques to influence children to behave, think, and feel according to what is considered worthy.
However, socialization is a very complex process indeed. The more technological and diverse the
society, the more children have to learn in order to adapt effectively, the more socializing agents
and experiences contribute to the process, and the more time the socialization process takes. As
society changes, more and more challenges are posed to the socializing agents because there are
more choices to be made (Berns, 2010). Dear Learner! Read the following case study attentively.

Case Study 5 Socialization, Change, and Challenge

Educators often ask: Azenegash’s parents were very proud of their daughter. Considered a “gifted” student, she
did very well in school while juggling a full schedule that included school sport activities, gymnastics, and piano
lessons. At age 10, Azenegash won her elementary school’s outstanding student award, placed first in volley-ball
competition, and gave a solo piano recital. At age 13, she was selected as a candidate for admission to a
prestigious private girls’ high school. Two days before the scheduled entrance exam, Azenegash took an overdose
of sleeping pills. Why did Azenegash choose suicide? Other adolescents face varying degrees of pressure and
stress, yet develop coping strategies. Was it her family situation? Friends? School? Community? Or a combination
of these complex relationships?
Source: Berns, R.M. 2010. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support (8 th ed.). Belmont:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p 13.

Based on the above case study, how should the period of childhood be adjusted to accommodate
all the opportunities that exist? Of course, those children are pressured to know more than their
49
parents are really not a new phenomenon; it is part of evolution or societal change. Thus, societal
change can produce family tensions; it can also produce challenges. Please give your own
judgments analytically why you think it occurred and how it affected others by looking the
following basic questions:
1. Name the three most important things you learned from your parents while growing up.
2. Name three people other than your parents who had a major influence on you as a child or
adolescent.
3. Describe each one’s influence, using specific examples.
4. What methods of socialization did your parents and the significant others in your life use?
5. Whom are you influencing in ways similar to the ones you have described?
6. What were three socialization goals communicated by your family of orientation? (Were
they successful or unsuccessful?)
7. List three goals you have for yourself.
8. List three goals you have for your family of procreation.
9. Is there any connection between your family of orientation’s socialization goals and your
goals for your family of procreation?
10. Describe the parent’s, teacher’s and school’s role as a socializing agent and explain how all
these partners’ leadership and management style, and expectations of students affect
learning.

Methods of Delivery
Up on teaching this unit, the course instructor can apply multiple of teaching strategies. Among
these questioning, discussion and lecture methods could be appropriate. With regard to experience
sharing, each participant will work with someone who comes from a different school and share the
experiences of his/her school and its relationships with community; particularly on matters related
to the community participation in instructional processes, school resource management, decision-
making, planning and financial contribution.
Students’ Activities
Students will be required to identify the existing educational conditions, educational demands,
educational priorities and available resources of their own society of interest in groups. And the
procedures will be:
• Students will be grouped in to sub-groups as usual
• Take one community of their own interest
• Identify the existing educational structures, educational demands, educational priorities
and available resources of that particular society.
• Organize group reports and present the group’s report to the whole class.
50
Instructional Facility Required
• Laptop, LCD, flip charts and others.
Unit Assessment
Group presentations and term papers are more appropriate to assess students’ learning progress for
this unit. Accordingly, during school-based learning there are task-based Learning activities. Each
participant will be given tasks to reflect on school structure and the opportunities and challenges
that the structure has brought in building community participation. They will prepare to report
their reflections to the class during the second face to face session.

Mandatory Reading Materials for the Unit

Christenson, S.L. 2004. The Family–School Partnership: An Opportunity to Promote the Learning
Competence of All Students. School Psychology Review, Volume 33, No. 1, pp. 83-104.
Duraiappah, A.K., Roddy, P. & Parry, J.E. 2005. Have Participatory Approaches Increased
Capabilities? Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Grauwe, A.D. 2004. Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report The Quality
Imperative”. Paris: UNESCO.
OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2005. School Factors
Related to Quality and Equity Results: From PISA 2000. Paris: OECD.
Redding, S. 2012. Parents and learning. Geneva: UNESCO IAE.
Rose, P. 2004. Communities, gender and education: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa.
Background paper for 2003 UNESCO Global Monitoring Report. University of Sussex,
Centre for International Education.
Shaeffer, S. 1994. Participation for educational change: a synthesis of experience. Paris:
UNESCO.

Supplementary reading materials for the Unit

Berns, R.M. 2010. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support (8th ed.).
Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
DET (Department of Education and Training). 2005. Professional Learning in Effective Schools
The Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning. Melbourne: DET.
Dunne, M. Akyeampong, K. & Humphreys, S. 2007. School Processes, Local Governance and
Community Participation: Understanding Access. Brighton: CREATE.
Ferguson, C. 2005. Reaching Out to Diverse Populations: What Can Schools Do to Foster
Family-School Connections? Austin, Texas: National Center for Family and Community
Connections with Schools.
Hepburn, K.S. 2004. Families as Primary Partners in their Child’s Development School
Readiness. Baltimore: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
UN-ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific). 2009.
Regional trends, issues and practices in rural poverty reduction Case Studies on
Community Participation. Paris: UN-ESCAP.
UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development). 2002. Local Actors,
Powers and Accountability in African Decentralizations: A Review of Issues. Washington,
D.C: UNRISD.
51
 UNIT THREE
COLLABORATION AND TWO WAY COMMUNICATION IN
SCHOOL-COMMUNITY RELATIONS
(Time allotted 8 hrs.)

UNIT INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner! Welcome to the unit entitled as ‘Collaboration and two-way communication in
school–community relations’. I hope that you remember what you discussed in Unit two
regarding the structure of school-community relations. In this unit, you will discuss the essence
of participatory approach and major goals of school-community relations. At the same time, this
unit focuses on the strategies for two way collaboration and communication with stakeholders. In
this lesson we are going to look also strategies at macro and micro level of the education system.
Finally we are going to look major partners in school-community relations.

Unit Learning Outcomes 

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:
 Identify different participatory approaches of community in schools.
 Create a strong bond between the school and stakeholders to maintain mutual benefits.
 Adapt goals of school community relations to the contexts and realities of schools.
 Design strategies to enhance societal participation in schools.
 Monitor the implementation of the decisions made by community stakeholders.

Lesson One
3.1. The Essence of Participatory approach
Activity 3.1. Take time home assignment and answer the following
Dear Learner!
 What are the key principles of facilitating participation for
empowerment? How is it described?
 What are the outcomes of participation? What characteristics define
meaningful participation? How is participation measured?

Nice attempt! Now compare what you have reflected with what follows. Let us look in detail
what participation, ownership, collaboration and team work and an approach based on
democratic decisions provided by different scholars. In the 1970s and early 1980s, a desire by
decision-makers to more effectively incorporate the perspectives and priorities of the local
people in decision-making, policy development and project implementation led to the emergence
of a number of “participatory approaches” to development. This re-orientation towards greater
participation in development by individuals was motivated by the development communities
desire to move from an emphasis on top down, technocratic and economic interventions towards
52
greater attention to bottom-up, community-level interventions. Then, what is all about
participation?
To start with, it is useful to consider the origins, or etymology, of the word participation.
Participation originates from Latin—derived from particeps meaning part-taking, and pars +
capere, meaning to take or to share in. Common English definitions include taking part in or
becoming involved in an activity; the state of sharing in common with others; and the act or state
of receiving or having part of something. Thus, the central concept in participation is
involvement or sharing, particularly in an activity. What is important to note about these
definitions is the focus on both the nature and the extent of involvement, with qualitative and
quantitative implications.

Hence, a higher level of involvement - of 'participation', defined as "having a share in, having a
part in, being part of" - is achieved farther along the range, where parents take a more active part
in the activities of associations, perhaps help in the classroom, and assist in other work. In this
way, the focus of their relationship with the school widens from that of the parent concerned
with his/her child's education per se, to a more global concern with the school as a whole. People
from differing professional backgrounds may have different values and attach a range of
meanings to terms (Shaeffer, 1994).

This shows us, participation means many things to many people; open to varied interpretations
and the level or intensity of involvement by various groups of actors may also greatly vary. At
the same time, often the term participation is modified with adjectives, resulting in terms such as
community participation, citizen participation, people’s participation, public participation, and
popular participation. The definitions given to terms associated with 'participation' have often
remained vague, confusing, and even contradictory; especially, when we see the distinction
between 'participation' and 'involvement' is a case in point. Regarding the relationship between
parents and school, two aspects are being discerned in the literature, namely parental
involvement and parental participation (Deslandes, 2009).

On the one hand, you can found that the term 'community involvement' has been given
preference over 'community participation' because it is not sufficient merely to participate, which
may be simply a passive response; there should be mechanisms and processes to enable people to
become actively involved and to take responsibility for some decisions and activities jointly with
professionals.

On the other hand, according to Deslandes (2009), unfortunately, these notions are often not
operationalzed unambiguously and moreover it is not made clear what the exact differences are
between them. The description of ‘parental involvement’ has been expanded from participation
of parents at school to include involvement of parents in the education of their children at home.
Desforges in Deslandes (2009) distinguishes two forms of parental involvement/participation,
namely ‘spontaneous’ versus ‘planned’. Whereas the first is bottom–up, the second is more top–
down and typically concerns interventions or programs aimed to solve the problem of
insufficient or no parental involvement. Further differentiation of parental
involvement/participation takes the following form: (1) home involvement: (a) home discussion
of school activities; (b) home supervision or monitoring of the child; (2) school involvement: (a)
53
 school communication or parent–school contact; (b) participation of parents in school activities
or organizational matters.

Here, we can ask such question: What is objectives of and variation in involvement and
 participation? Following the distinction made above, two objectives underlying the
optimalization of the relations between parents and school can be identified (see Table 3.1
under).

Table 3.1 Objectives underlying the optimalization of the relations between parents and school
Objectives Nature of the partnership
Parental involvement
Pedagogical Attunement of approaches to pupil at home and at
school.
Preparation Improved preparation of not only parents but also
teachers with an eye to strengthening parent–school
relations and the school careers of pupils.
Parental participation
Organizational Parental contribution to course of things at school in the
form of not only undertaking activities but also jointly
thinking about things.
Democratic Parents think and decide both formally and informally
together with the school; the school justifies its work to
parents.
Source: Deslandes, R. 2009. ed. International Perspectives on Contexts, Communities and Evaluated Innovative
Practices: Family–School– Community Partnerships. London: Routledge. p66.

 Then, we can ask ourselves question like what is the effects of involvement and participation?
Well, despite the fact that the relevant research results were found to strongly diverge as a
consequence of conceptual differences, many of the results point to a positive relation between
the involvement of parents and the school development of their child. According to Desforges in
Deslandes (2009), the most important factor is ‘good parenting at home’ with the following
characteristics: the provision of a safe and stable environment, intellectual stimulation, the
conduct of parent–child discussions, the functioning of parents as constructive role models who
propagate the value of education and provide signs of high expectations for their children. The
following elements are also of importance: the maintenance of contact with the school for the
exchange of information, participation in school activities and the conduct of activities at the
school and within the school administration.

As a result, several different degrees of participation in development can be described. A useful

modification of this 'ladder' would describe degrees of participation as follows:
1. the mere use of a service (such as a primary health care facility);
2. involvement through the contribution (or extraction) of resources, materials, and labor;
3. involvement through 'attendance' and the receipt of information (e.g., at parents' meetings at
school), implying passive acceptance of decisions made by others;
4. involvement through consultation (or feedback) on a particular issue;
5. participation in the delivery of a service, often as a partner with other actors;
6. participation as implementers of delegated powers; and
54
7. most completely, participation in real decision-making at every stage - identification of
problems, the study of feasibility, planning, implementation, and evaluation (Shaeffer,
1994).

Therefore, for purposes of the present discussion in this course, the concept of parental
involvement was defined as the role of the parents in the support of their own child, both at home
(e.g. reading out loud) and at school (e.g. discussion of marks with teacher). The concept of
parental participation was defined as active participation of parents in school activities. With
respect to the latter, a further distinction is made between non-institutionalized forms of parental
participation (e.g. lending a helping hand) and formal, institutionalized forms of parental
participation (e.g. parents’ council, advisory board or school administration membership).
Then, when we are looking the issues associated with participatory approaches to development
are not neutral and 'value-free'. Rather, they are based on a number of assumptions which need to
be taken into account while reading this lesson; namely that:
1. Participation has become a necessary aspect of development. Programs of development
are likely to be more relevant, more supported, more successful, and more sustainable to
the extent that they involve their 'targets' in their planning, implementation, and
evaluation.
2. Participation and collaboration are not panaceas for educational under-development.
They cannot solve all problems, and they should not be used as a substitute for serious,
systematic public attempts to plan, manage, and finance basic education more efficiently
and with greater imagination. Above all, they should not be used as an excuse by
government to get out of the 'business' of basic education.
3. Participatory and collaborative approaches are dependent on, and affected by, social,
cultural, and political contexts. What works in one country may not work in another.
These approaches therefore cannot be treated as recipes able to be implemented in the
same way in all regions of the world. Rather, they should be seen as items on a menu of
mechanisms, procedures, and administrative actions which can lead to a higher degree of
participation in education, at both local and national levels depending on the context.
4. Such approaches have disadvantages as well as benefits, costs as well as savings. They
are often difficult to implement, can be risky as well as beneficial, and are not 'free'.
5. Based on considerable evidence of case studies, under the right conditions, and given the
right precautions, the greater participation of more actors can help improve the quality
of, and the demand for, particularly basic education (Shaeffer, 1994).

This lesson is therefore not meant to propose universal, standardized methods to promote
collaboration and strengthen partnerships. Rather, it will suggest steps that need to be taken by
central government officials and local authorities in order to facilitate the implementation of such
approaches both at their own level and at the local level. This recognition is quite explicit in the
Declaration of the Right to Development adopted by the United Nations in 1986, which says:
‘The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person
and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy economic, social, cultural
and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully
realized.’ (UN 1986, Paragraph 1 of Article 1; italics added). It is evident from this statement
that the right to development is to be seen not simply as a right to ‘enjoy’ the fruits of
development, but also as a right to participate in the process of realizing them (Shaeffer, 1994 &
55
UN, 2008). Hence, people’s involvement could be realized in many ways and by different
methods. This shows us that there are different ways to conceptualize family involvement in
education.

However, only some underscore active, ongoing engagement of parents and educators in ways
that connect directly with children’s learning. Consider three variations. First, do we view our
goal as enhancing parent involvement in education? If so, Christenson (2004) suggested parent
involvement is the dedication of resources by the parent to the child in terms of (a) behavior
(activities at home and school); (b) cognitive-intellectual (intellectually stimulating, enriching
home environment); and (c) personal (knowledge of child’s progress and learning content). Or,
second, do we view our goal as enhancing the interface of home and school to promote students’
learning competence? If so, school–family partnerships are the mutual collaboration, support,
and participation of parents and school staff at home or at the school site in activities and efforts
that directly and positively affect the educational progress of children. Or, third, do we add the
essential nature of the partnership with parents to ensure optimal conditions for students’
learning? If so, home, school and community are three major spheres of influence on children.
Their interactions may be either positive or negative, close or distant, growth promoting or
growth discouraging. They range from one-on-one interactions with the child to events occurring
in the society itself. All three major spheres of influence should be considered in efforts to
promote family involvement in education.

Then when we are looking the types and levels of parental involvement Epstein’s (1995) in
Davis (2000) identifying six types of parent involvement tends to be cited in the literature more
often than any other. The six types of involvement identified by Epstein are:
 Parenting: Helping families with parenting skills to establish home environments to
support children as learners;
 Communicating: Assuring effective communication about school programs and
students’ progress - school-to-home- and home to-school communications;
 Volunteering: The recruitment and organization of the school’s volunteer program;
 Learning at Home: involving families in working with their children at home - with
homework and recognizing other learning at home opportunities;
 Decision-making: Including parents, students, and community members in the school
decision-making process; and
 Collaborating with the Community: The identification and integration of resources and
services from the community (coordinating resources and services).

The above framework is based on three key principles:

1. Different stakeholders are involved, each with different aims and capabilities.
2. Stakeholders participate at different levels, from passive involvement to active
empowerment.
3. The level of participation of each stakeholder may change at different phases of a
development process (analysis, planning, doing and reviewing).

However, development tends to work best when all stakeholders can participate to their desired
level throughout the development process. The most important and complicated issue bearing on
local level planning and development is community participation. Effective community
56
 participation may lead to social and personal empowerment, economic development, and
sociopolitical transformation. Yet there are obstacles: the power of central bureaucracies, the
lack of local skills and organizational experience, social divisions, and the impact of national and
transnational structures. We can site also some barriers to participation, such as lack of time and
knowledge about how to become involved, cut across all cultures and peoples. Others barriers,
such as language differences and distrust of schools, may be particular to specific cultural
groups.

Unfortunately, too often schools do not recognize and honor different ways families are involved
in their children’s learning. It is important for school leaders and staff to redefine their vision of
family involvement, and to recognize other forms of family involvement that go beyond those
commonly traditional way that “One size does not fit all” when developing school-family
partnerships. For these purpose school leaders and staff need support/training to encourage
family involvement. And, eventually, we should have to consider as educational leader that
“Change takes time,” and building a successful partnership requires “continued effort over
time”. For that reason, as educational leader at any echelon, we should have to have a vision;
based on this, we should have to be long sited; these entails also to us – to have a consolidated,
shared, comprehensive school-community relations plan or goal - which will be dealt
underneath.
Lesson Two
3.2. Major Goals of School-Community Relations
Dear learner! How do you proceed? Participation, ownership and an approach based on
democratic decisions are key to the success of developing a health-promoting school. However,
collaboration and bringing teams together is often not as easy as it sounds; because the extent or
nature of participation by various actors may vary from place to place. Therefore, the level or
scope of the activity must be taken into consideration when defining objectives of school-
community relations. So, to make participatory approach meaningful for learners it is significant
to discuss some major goals considered for creating smooth school-community relations which
are included in this lesson.
Activity 3.2. Reflective Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Dear Learner!
 Why do we bother for close school community relations?
 Is close school community an end or a means to any other ends?
 What objectives has your primary or secondary school attained so far?
 Please mention few of the objectives of close school-community relations from your own
experiences and discuss them with your peer.

Dear learner, why do we have school in the first place? why should we send our children to
school? what is the purpose of schooling in general? Please try to reflect on this issue
 individually. Really excellent, now let us examine different views of purpose of schooling
provided by different scholars and compare your answer with that of the scholars. When we ask
such questions, we are getting at the heart of the kind of community we want to live in and the
kind of community we want our children to live in.
57
 First, when we look at the big picture - Society - we see schooling not as a neutral island separate
from, but as an integral part of, Society. This implies to us to see - School Community Context.
School is conceptualized as a community of families and school personnel engaged in the
educational process. The educational process is dynamic and wide ranging and involves children,
their families, and an institution called school. School is no longer viewed as a building or a
collection of classrooms in which teachers and pupils work together. The school community, no
longer simply bounded by geography, comprises all those who engage in the educational
process. Rather, education systems are investing in schools as learning communities with strong
partnerships between students, teachers, families and the wider community. Second, a society is
a number of people held together because they are working along common lines, in a common
spirit, and with reference to common aims. The common needs and aims demand a growing
interchange of thought and growing unity of sympathetic feeling. Based on this, society places a
heavy responsibility on schools and families. Schooling is not simply a process of teaching and
learning, but of preparing children for the future. Schools are the vehicle for aspirations, not only
for children who may conform easily to external expectations, but for every child. Therefore,
responsibilities are placed on the school, on the parent, and on the child to make the
educational process work so that each child who goes to school may fulfill his or her potential
for growth.

For that reason, many of today's leaders in education, business and community development are
coming to realize schools alone cannot prepare our youth for productive adulthood. It is evident
schools and communities should work closely with each other to meet their mutual goals.
Schools can provide more support for students, families and staff when they are an integral part
of the community. On the other hand, agencies can make services more accessible to youth and
families by linking with schools, and they can connect better with and have an impact on hard-
to-reach clients. Appropriate and effective collaboration and teaming are seen as key factors to
community development, learning and family self-sufficiency.

Thus, school-community relations are essential to securing public input and public support for
educational programs. Community awareness of public meetings of the PTA or School Board
and an opportunity to be heard at such meetings are necessary components of a positive school-
 community relations policy. At this instance, we can confront with question: What is and could
be the goals for school-community relations? The School Board may set goals and standards
for school-community relations and may regularly evaluate its relationship with the public and
its programs for maintaining open channels of communication and good relations with parents,
community organizations, the business and industrial sector, and the community at large.
Through its school-community relations programs, the PTA or School Board will encourage the
community to take an active interest in the schools and participate in planning activities; to place
a high priority on education and make funds available for an educational system that supports
learning for all children; and to establish partnerships with the schools to enhance learning
opportunities.

Here, community participation is an important component of community development and

reflects a grassroots or bottom-up approach to problem solving. When we are looking from this
perspective, one of the major aims of community development is to encourage participation of
the community as a whole. Indeed, community development has been defined as a social process
58
 resulting from citizen participation. Through citizen participation, a broad cross-section of the
community is encouraged to identify and articulate their own goals, design their own methods of
change, and pool their resources in the problem- solving process.

 So, let’s ask ourselves What is major goals of school-community relations? First and foremost,
the education of children and young people in schools is one of the most important tasks of any
society – a task that is about much more than obtaining academic qualifications. In particular,
schooling can help to counteract the negative views – hate, bigotry and prejudice – that exist in
our society, and promote the healing of community divisions. Not enough schools have
addressed the difficult issues that confront our society. Something more must be done to
encourage greater sharing and collaboration between communities and schools. If we are to help
change our society from the path it has travelled on for too long, we need to empower not only
our teachers but also our young people and our communities. We need to promote and encourage
real, meaningful and sustained contact with children and young people from diverse backgrounds
and cultures.

Hence, the interest in greater participation in development derives from the belief that such
participation can achieve several goals, These include:
1. ideological goals: to empower people in order to ensure their greater control over
development and their greater influence over decisions that affect them;
2. economic goals: both to seek more resources from a wider range of actors and to share
the price of development by transferring some costs from the 'suppliers' to the
'consumers';
3. political goals: from the government's side, to strengthen the legitimacy of the current
government and make people co-responsible for social problems; from the 'popular' side,
to gain greater share of power in policy-making and budget allocations;
4. programmatic: to increase program or project demand, coverage, relevance,
effectiveness, efficiency, success, and sustainability; and
5. capacity-building: to develop new knowledge, skills, and attitudes and provide
beneficiaries a useful share in management tasks, monitoring, etc. (Shaeffer, 1994).

Hence, a more participatory approach to development begins with the assumption that
"sustainable development ultimately depends on enhancing people's capacities as individuals and
groups to improve their own lives and to take greater control over their own destinies. This
assumption may seem self-evident, but, in fact, it is really quite radical in implication. A
participatory approach to development represents a considerable change in the process of
governance, in social and political relationships, and in who participates in, controls, and is
empowered by the development process (Shaeffer, 1994). However, the challenge of achieving
the education goals is both central to and strongly influenced by many factors such like the
social, economic and other context (UNMP, 2005). And what is this integrity? Here we return to
the question posed earlier about the reason for sending children to school. Ultimately, school
serves not the business world nor any political agenda, but rather the child and young adult as he
or she unfolds those capacities that make him or her uniquely human. And what makes the
human being unique? At some level it is comforting to know that the current struggle to define a
common purpose for schooling is not a new condition. Centuries ago, Aristotle noted there was
no consensus regarding what should be learned by the young; he mentioned the possible
59
 purposes of study being usefulness in life, seeking goodness, or advancing the bounds of
knowledge. Any way we can agree that educational organizations are social entities that have
exceptional mission and orientation towards their goal fulfillment.

To sum up this lesson, therefore, the emergence of the concept of participatory development, that
is conceived not only as society-centered but also as democratic and people-centered, has also
led to the redefinition of the role of the state, the local authorities, educational leaders and above
all the community in addressing national development priorities. Especially, in developing a
family involvement program, educators need to consider the cultural, social, and economic
factors that are relevant to the unique needs of diverse children and families.

Lesson Three
3.3. Strategies for Two Way Collaboration and Communication
with Stakeholders
Dear learner! This lesson will introduce you with the general strategies of collaboration for two
way communication in school-community relations. To be able to do this, you will identify the
general strategy used in school-community relations. Next, you will learn about the strategies at
the macro-level of the education system as well as strategies at the micro-level of the school and
the community.
Activity 3.4. Take time as home assignment and address these issues
 What kind of general strategies are installed to strengthen school-community relations?
 What do you expect from the top authorities i.e., from the MoE, REB to strengthen
such
relationship?
 What can be the role of the Woreda Education Office to strengthen school-
community
relationship?

To star with, because basic learning needs are complex and diverse, meeting them requires multi-
sectoral strategies and actions which are integral to overall development efforts. Many partners
must join with the education authorities, teachers, and other educational personnel in developing
basic education if it is to be seen, once again, as the responsibility of the entire society. This
implies the active involvement of a wide range of partners - families, teachers, communities,
private enterprises, government and non-government organizations, institutions, etc. - in
planning, managing and evaluating the many forms of strategies to strengthen school-community
relations.

Hence, every educational leader must come to understand its own local context and community
and create a realistic plan or strategy for strengthening family and community engagement.
There is no specific formula or set approach. The purpose of this lesson is to illuminate the range
 of possibilities, help schools find a direction, and point to other resources. We ask every
educational leader or school to look through the lenses of equity and excellence. How will this
plan, strategy, or activity make us a more equitable school? How will it bring us closer to
meeting our learning goals for every student?
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Before we are looking strategies at macro and micro level, let us see some general strategies or
guidelines that are important to strengthening school-community relations at any echelon of the
education system.

First, the starting point should be promote the use of existing positive community structures –
that means non-discriminatory approaches for community engagement should be reinforced in
national policy, agency guidelines and any interventions. Government inclusion policies should
be supported with transparent mechanisms for engaging with communities. These should
promote open communication between community members and other stakeholders to rebuild
trust and provide opportunities for restoring relationships.

Second, conduct ongoing collaborative reviews of roles, responsibilities, and resources to

support student learning and positive development for all students. Identify specific roles in
building family and community engagement for different members of the faculty—principal,
teachers, leadership team, other administrators. Tackling family and community involvement
cannot be seen as solely the role of individual teachers or teacher teams. Thirdly, these processes,
actions, activities, and strategies adapted from a variety of sources should have to keep and stay
flexible and consider multiple approaches, times, and locations for involving families and
communities.

As Christenson (2004) cited, we should have to consider actions or strategies for building
shared responsibility. Regarding this, the author has described in detail seven broad actions to
enhance family–school connections for student’s learning: (a) garnering administrative support,
(b) acting as a systems advocate, (c) implementing family–school teams, (d) increasing problem
solving across home and school, (e) identifying and managing conflict, (f) supporting families,
and (g) helping teachers improve communication and relationships with families.

Fourth and most important consideration is putting the research into practice - Much more
research remains to be done in this field. Nevertheless, results from the studies described here
offer some guidance to educational authorities, local school, community, and family leaders
(Boethel, 2003). Now, let us see in detail important strategies necessary to build effective school-
community relations both at macro and micro-level of the education system.

3.3.1. Strategies at the Macro-level of the Education System

Achieving more education and better education will require efforts in a number of domains
within the education sector, as well as within the broader social and economic context. At this
instance, the most critical strategy considered in creating effective school-community relations
and challenging point is strengthen the national commitment. Successful education requires a
strong national commitment, expressed in the legal and institutional framework as well as in
budgetary outlays to the sector (UNMP, 2005).

So, when we are looking at macro-level, we should have to consider both - at the national-levels
and regional-level of the education system. Then, at the top levels of the bureaucracy, planners,
managers, administrators, and policy-makers can be encouraged to implement two kinds of
mechanisms and strategies related to the facilitation of greater collaboration for educational
change: (1) those structures and procedures needed to make possible such collaboration at their
61
own levels, and (2) those needed to encourage it at the school level (Shaeffer, 1994). Before
looking at what might be done to encourage greater collaboration at the central level, we need to
understand more clearly current policies and practices in regard to such collaboration especially
in our country. These include the following areas of potential partnerships:
(a) Across departments and units of the Ministry. Collaboration among different departments
of a MoE is often required (and often not easy to promote); e.g., between the Ministry's
Teacher and Educational Leaders Development Directorate and Licensing and Relicensing
Directorate, and the line directorates (e.g., for primary education and so on).
(b) With other development sectors and ministries. There is often even less cooperation with
other social sectors. Thus, for example, the MoE may develop an extensive school health
program (or agricultural activities) without using the medical expertise of the Ministry of
Health (or the experience of the Ministry of Agriculture). Or the opposite may occur.
(c) With non-government organizations and professional associations. Collaboration between
government and NGOs as well as associations (such like Ethiopian teachers’ association)
may be the most difficult to encourage. Systems of public and private education may run in
parallel, duplicating services and competing for scarce community resources. But there are
mechanisms that might be tried by the Ministry in order to encourage more practical, daily
cooperation within and across the government and with agencies outside of the
government.

Then, having looking the above critical and challenged potential partnership, at the central level,
strong administrative structures are often needed to implement more collaborative approaches to
education. At this level, it may first be necessary to ensure strong vertical administrative
structures (between various levels of the bureaucracy). These should be designed not to impose
centralized, standard decisions from above but rather to clarify national policies, standards, and
basic content; guarantee the implementation of the procedures by which local actors can adapt
and implement such patterns; and serve as a conduit for information up the system as well as
down. Equally strong horizontal structures and networks are also required, of public, private, and
NGOs, at both national and regional levels. These include:
(a) intra-ministerial task forces, between units of the Ministry, to ensure coordination in the
planning, development, and implementation of projects and programs;
(b) inter-ministerial committees, etc. (e.g. Education For All committees), to encourage
cooperation across ministries in achieving shared goals and coordinating joint projects;
(c) NGO coalitions, as have recently been established in several African countries following on
the World Conference on EFA, to encourage collaboration among NGOs, help them establish a
common position in regard to the government, and aid in the division of labor among them;
(d) provincial or national parent groups established to provide support to local PTAs and
education committees;
(f) the use of the mass media (print, radio, television) both to disseminate information about
successful partnerships and to mobilize governmental and community participation; and
(g.) joint planning, implementing, training, and monitoring activities, across and among various
actors to ensure that collaboration goes beyond rhetoric into actual practice (Shaeffer, 1994).

Similar to Shaeffer (1994), Hepburn (2004) and UNMP (2005) the following are important
points when we are considering what administrators can do:
62
 Adopt service or program-wide guiding values and principles that support parents as
primary partners, in both delivery of family-centered care and engaging parents in
leadership roles;
Seek and support parents for leadership roles and partner with family or advocacy
organizations and provide better incentives;
increase transparency - ensure transparency in the dissemination of this information, at
both the national and local levels; improving the quality and availability of the
information base;
improving accountability through local control - promote mechanisms for local control of
education, in which parents and other citizens are given an explicit role in holding
schools and teachers accountable for delivering results;
Strengthen the role of civil society organizations - These organizations engage in
advocacy, service delivery, and sometimes both. They are particularly effective in the
areas of community participation, empowerment, literacy, community schools and
development centers; and
Create an environment in which civil society organizations are recognized as legitimate
participants in debates about the direction of the education system.

Having considered the above points, the next step should be putting the mechanisms in place.
Hence, the planner and decision-maker have a considerable task in the selection of an
appropriate mechanism (or mechanisms) for encouraging greater school-community
collaboration. In the analysis of the various models of school/parent/community partnerships
from which a choice can be made, several basic issues become important to consider here:
 The extent of formality and institutionalization in the organizations;
 The degree of actual participation (or intervention) in school activities;
 The nature of the organization's accountability;
 The extent to which communities, almost as pressure groups, should be able to provide
rewards for 'successful' schools and teachers and apply sanctions, formal or informal, on
'defaulting' schools and teachers; and
The role of the intermediate level of responsibility (sub-district and district) in the
system.
This level plays a crucial role especially in our country in any attempt to facilitate
stronger partnerships. Given the range and number of schools this level has responsibility
for, it must be able to help exchange information about collaborative activities across
schools. Given its links to a wider community beyond that of a particular school, it must
be able as well to identify a wider range of partners for schools and identify and lobby for
a wider range of resources. Its involvement is especially critical in the development of
village (or Tibia or sub-woreda or cluster, or woreda) education committees, councils, to
encourage both the schools and communities – to work more closely together (Shaeffer,
1994).

Once these issues are decided, the planner and decision-maker can try to select the most
appropriate and feasible model(s) of collaboration, whether they relate merely to the
encouragement of school-community activities, more formal teacher or parent-teacher
associations, or broader village education committees. They will then need to define the desired
structure and operations of the selected model(s), including:
 membership and the method of selecting members;
63
 the frequency and structure of meetings (e.g., who runs them and how parental
participation can be encouraged);
the statutory nature of the organizations;
methods to ensure open dialogue, frank feedback, and clear channels of communication
among the partners;
the organization's desired reporting and accountability procedures (e.g., from the school
principals to the organization, from the organization to the local education office); and
the tasks and functions, rights and responsibilities, and limitations of the organization
(Shaeffer, 1994).

Eventually, once these basic decisions are taken, other conditions and requirements for the
establishment or strengthening of these organizations, and thus of school-community
collaboration, will need to be made in terms of needed legislation; policies, procedures, and
guidelines; resources; and training.

3.3.2. Strategies at the Micro-level of the School and the Community

Sustained improvements in education are impossible to achieve without improving both parental
involvement in decisions affecting their children’s education and the way key institutions in the
sector function. These institutions include the schools and local authorities that have influence
over funding and school management and above all the overall community. So, emphasis should
have to be given to the grassroots institutions - At the micro-level of the school and the
community.

Therefore, in addition to the structures and mechanisms which can be established to encourage
greater participation at the central level, others can be established or strengthened at the level of
the school and the community. In many, if not most, countries of the world, various kinds of
organizations exist which are meant at least to bring together parents of children in the same
school, These organizations also often include teachers and sometimes representatives from the
wider community surrounding the school as well. Such organizations differ greatly in terms of
membership, mandate, and level of activity. Research evidence over the past three decades is
cited that demonstrates family involvement significantly contributes to improved outcomes. To
be most effective, school administrators and teachers, in consultation with parents and
community representatives, need to select and/or adapt strategies based upon individual schools’
needs, priorities, resources, student population, and community support.

According to Carter (2003), the following interrelated eight “cluster strategies” are used for
guiding principles for family-school-community involvement:

Strategy 1: Creating a family-friendly school environment

This strategy describes promising practices for creating a family-friendly school environment.
The importance of assessing the diversity of families represented in the school is emphasized as
is the inclusion of family members in planning and guiding the process. Guidance is providing
on creating a family-friendly policy or mission for the school and developing a school
environment that is welcoming to all families. So, among the mechanisms used for this strategy
are: host family-friendly social events; develop a family-school-community partnership policy;
create an “open-door” policy and a responsive climate for parents; post welcome signs in all
64
languages spoken in the school; maintain a welcoming bulletin board; adopt “father-friendly”
practices and so on.

Strategy 2: Building a support infrastructure

Encouraging family involvement in schools requires the creation of an infrastructure to support
these efforts. This strategy provides information and describes best practices for developing a
family center in the school, hiring a family coordinator, and insuring ongoing resource
commitments to maintain and/or expand family involvement activities.

Strategy 3: Encouraging family involvement

Involving parents who represent the diversity of the school population in all aspects of planning,
implementing, and evaluating volunteer activities is essential to developing an active family
involvement program. This strategy describes a variety of practices utilized by schools to include
families in educational activities at all levels of involvement and to recognize and value the
many ways that families can contribute volunteer efforts, both at home and at school. Although
these efforts are most effectively coordinated by a full-time family coordinator, this
responsibility may be shared among various school personnel.

Strategy 4: Developing family-friendly communication

Family-school communication is essential to developing and maintaining an effective family
involvement program. This strategy describes a variety of practices utilized by schools to convey
both positive and negative news with families. Some of these practices take school personnel to
families in their home communities with neighborhood walks, family focus group meetings, and
home visits. Other practices utilize various technology tools to communicate to families in
multiple ways, among these: host informal principal meetings; make positive “warm” telephone
calls; host conferences; communicate via newsletters; use a variety of technology tools; develop
a process for resolving family concerns. Regarding this point, Shaeffer (1994) adds that whatever
the structure or mechanism chosen (preferably already existing ones), what is important is to
have some regular, structured communication - a public forum which serves as a clearing house
for all collaborators to either air their views or contribute to the debate regarding their
collaborative activities.

Strategy 5: Support family involvement on the home front

One of the keys to supporting home front family involvement is beginning early in children’s
education to involve families in meaningful ways. Many families will benefit from guidance on
developmentally appropriate practices for children and how learning progresses at each stage of
development. Families can be involved in their children’s education a number of ways beyond
traditional homework assignments. Among these, provide guidance on developmentally
appropriate practices; provide guidance on student learning; involve parents in action research
projects and involve parents in behavioral assessments are very important mechanism for this
strategy.

Strategy 6: Supporting educational opportunities for families

Schools that develop effective family interaction programs recognize that education is a lifelong
process and offer opportunities for both children and their families to continue to learn, often
together. This strategy emphasizes the importance ongoing assessments to determine educational
65
needs of the school’s families and diverse participation of families in planning educational
opportunities to meet those needs. Ways to reach out to families who are not typically involved
in school activities are especially important. For this purpose involve diverse parent and
community members in planning; make home visits; offer parent workshops; offer opportunities
for parents to develop leadership skills; organize family support groups and develop teen
parenting programs.

Strategy 7: Creating family-school-community partnership

Educators alone cannot prepare our children for 21st century challenges. Educating children to
live in our rapidly changing and increasingly complex society “requires contributions and
commitments from everyone in the community”. Thus, families, schools, and community
organizations must overcome traditional barriers and come together in a collaborative effort to
meet the comprehensive needs of children, families, and the community such like: building
school-business partnerships, creating full-service schools, opening schools beyond traditional
hours and uses as community learning centers, and developing comprehensive, wraparound
services for families and cultivate school-business partnerships.

Strategy 8: Preparing educators to work with families

We cannot assume that educators know how to work effectively with families, especially during
an era of rapid change. Pre-service teachers need experiences in working with families to
encourage involvement, and practicing teachers need ongoing professional development
addressing ways to create family-friendly schools, build positive school-family relationships, and
involve families in the education of their children. This strategy includes practices to better
prepare educators to work with families in their shared mission of educating children together.

Similar to the above trends, Hepburn (2004) also recommends the following useful strategies for
creating smooth school-community relationships:
 Adopt the values and principles of family-centered care and the shared power in
collaborative leadership;
Build on existing relationships and make a personal connection and invitation;
Post public announcements, advertisements and/or open invitations about specific
opportunities;
Target invitations through community organizations that serve young children and their
families;
Create a family liaison role at the school, and ensure that the work of the liaison
addresses family, school, and community concerns and needs;
Hold community forums or neighborhood meetings;
Ask community organizations, such as churches, civic groups, or social clubs to post
notices or nominate families;
Reach out through groups where parents are already organized to find interested parents
(e.g., churches, community groups, neighborhood associations);
Connect to grassroots organizations that promote citizen and parent involvement; and
Inquire across-systems for additional successful strategies for engaging families as
leaders.
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Ferguson (2005) also recommends that schools engage in the following types of strategies that
are common in programs that address student and family needs related to diversity.
Remember once is not enough: Once first contact is made, school staff needs to continue to
contact parents on a regular schedule. Then, strategies to promote a continuous cycle of
interactions might include the following:
 Let families know communication is not a one-time action. Give them a timeline of when
to expect periodic documents or actions.
 Repeat key actions on a weekly or monthly basis. For example, if families know to expect
communications every Friday, they will look for this information. These communications
can be about the next week’s assignments, upcoming events, or suggested learning
strategies to use at home.
Make use of all communication channels: Though sending notes home is an easy strategy,
many times these notes are not very effective. Strategies to promote increased communication
might include the following: Reinforce letters by placing additional announcements on local
radio, community bulletin boards (paper and electronic), and other news sources. When using
letters or other announcements, ensure they are translated into the home languages of the
students. Schools can tap into local organizations, businesses, universities, or churches with
translators who can provide theses services at no cost.

At this point, improve the information base, especially for parents and communities are very
crucial the local level. Information is an essential element in local control and accountability.
Parents and school administrators need information about the effectiveness of their local schools.
Simple indicators of relative performance—educational outcomes compared with other
schools—are essential. Such information is generally unavailable to parents, particularly parents
who are most likely to face failing primary schools. More specifically, the role of the school
principal here is inescapable. With regard to this point, Boethel (2003) says the following:
 Demonstrate active and ongoing support from the school principal. Echoing the broader
research on school effectiveness and leadership, two studies noted that support from
principals made a difference in helping diverse families become more engaged with their
children’s school principals can show their support by:
holding informal meetings with families to seek their perspectives and to keep
them updated on school policies and practices;
maintaining a strong presence at parent-teacher meetings and at other school-
sponsored events for families;
making the implementation of family-involvement policies a priority; and
emphasizing that commitment with both families and school staffs.
 Honor families’ hopes and concerns for their children. Most families, regardless of race,
ethnicity, culture, or income, care about their children’s future and do what they can to
support them.
 Find ways to let families know that you recognize and value their efforts. Let them know,
too, that you appreciate the fact that their concern is for their children’s general well-being.
In orienting school staffs and community organizations to family-involvement strategies,
include information on the varied ways in which families support their children’s learning,
as well as the varied perspectives as to what family involvement should address.
 Recognize that it takes time to build trust. As several studies described, many minority and
low-income families have had frustrating experiences with schools and other public
67
 institutions. Until real commitment is shown, they may be unwilling to risk much in the
way of time and energy or to speak their minds. Start with small steps. School- or
community-sponsored services and activities that are relevant to families’ needs, such as
adult literacy classes, can serve as a “gateway” to other forms of family involvement.

When we are applying the above stated strategies and others, many of the countries that are
performing poorly suffer from institutional weaknesses, including low management capacity,
nontransparent resource allocation and accounting practices (UNMP, 2005). So, in this
endeavour, improve accountability through local control is very mandatory. One part of the
solution to institutional problems is parental and community involvement in education, which
anchors education in the social fabric of the community, fosters demand, and ensures that
schooling provides social benefits and economic returns that reflect local priorities and values.

To conclude this lesson, not all the strategies included will work for every school. To be most
effective, school administrators and teachers, in consultation with parents and community
representatives, should select strategies based upon each individual school’s needs, priorities,
resources, student population, and community support. Many of the strategies can also be
adapted to fit local school/district needs. While some of the strategies included here require
significant resources, others may be adopted with a minimal outlay of resources. What works in
one district may not work in another; all schools, with the input of families and community
members, must decide which practices to adopt — or adapt — to meet their particular needs
(Carter, 2003).

Hence, the different strategies are designed to build on each other with none of them being a
‘cure-all’ by itself. They are not intended to be exhaustive but are examples of good practice to
help school communities build partnerships. Strategies can be added or modified for each key
dimension and will also overlap across key dimensions. Here, skills-building for families, school
leaders and teachers is a crucial strategy for each key dimension. At the same time, laws and
regulations about such organizations may be up-to-date and reflect the current context of
development, or they may be out-of-date and appropriate to conditions of many years ago. They
may be quite specific in their definition of what the organization can or cannot do, or they may
be very general in nature, allowing for considerable flexibility in their application. For this
reason, a variety of self-assessment instruments are available that can be used to evaluate a
school’s current family involvement practices and help guide the planning of strategies to build
on the program. Finally, educators, family members, and community representatives should also
consider how any proposed family involvement strategies relate with other ongoing school
initiatives to ensure that these initiatives complement one another (Carter, 2003).

Lesson Four
3.4. Potential Partners in School-Community Relations
Dear learner! The potential partners are the last one you are going to learn as a strategy of
collaboration for two way communication in school-community relations. Partnership is
important concept that implies sharing of power, responsibility and ownership, though with each
party having different roles. This section provides an illustration on the: concept of partnership,
why partnership, identify potential partners, types or kinds of partnership and finally we are
68
 going to see also the problems and solutions in partnership. You are advised to read each topic in
detail and relate with the existing partnership that you working at you school. Well Stay!
Activity 3.5. Reflective Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
 What is partnership? More specifically, What are family-school partnerships?
 What agencies and organizations within our community have a strong parent-provider
partnership model and approach, including shared leadership?
 Do family, school and community connections make a difference?
 What can be the role of the community to strengthen school-community relationship?

Well! I presume you have very well tried to scrutinize how and what type of partnership is
effective for educational institutions from other social organizations. Now, check your reactions
with what pursues. Education in the 21st century means much more than providing students with
academic knowledge and skills. Educators alone cannot help children develop intellectually,
personally, socially, and morally — develop all the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to
be productive citizens and caring people as adults. Educating children to live in our rapidly
changing and increasingly complex society “requires contributions and commitments from
everyone in the community” (Carter, 2003). Here, the notion of partnership is important point.
 Then, let us deal with such question: What is the essence of partnership? What are the major
characteristics of effective partnership?

Well, to partner: Implies a relationship, frequently between two people, in which each has equal
status and certain independence but also implicit or formal obligations to the other or others.
Partnerships are a collaborative relationship designed primarily to produce positive educational
and social effects on the child while being mutually beneficial to all other parties involved.
Hence, partnerships need to be underpinned by broad principles and strategies but remain
specific to school context, including family/community characteristics, school size, levels of
schooling and student needs.

Thus, the central characteristics of effective family-school partnerships include:

 sharing of power, responsibility and ownership, though with each party having
different roles;
 a degree of mutuality, that begins with the process of listening to each other and that
incorporates responsive dialogue and ‘give and take’ on both sides;
 shared aims and goals based on a common understanding of the educational needs of
children; and
 commitment to joint action, in which parents, students and teachers work together
(Carter, 2003).
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 Second question: Why we concern partnership? What is the necessity behind the curtail? Nice!

Case Study 6: The story – The Enormous cassava

There was once a farmer who decided to plant a field of cassava. He noticed that one cassava grew bigger and faster than all the
others so he decided to leave it until the end of the harvesting season so that it could grow as much as possible.
Later in the year, the farmer decided that it was time to harvest the enormous cassava. He went down to the field and pulled and
pulled and heaved and shoved, but the cassava stayed firmly in the ground.
Greatly frustrated by this turn of events, the farmer called his wife to pull on his belt while he pulled the cassava. Still the cassava
would not move. So, the wife decided to call her dog and told it to pull her while she pulled her husband and the farmer pulled the
cassava. Still the cassava would not budge.
A little while the dog thought about calling the cat to come and assist them. The cat pulled the dog, while the dog pulled the
farmer’s wife, and she pulled her husband, who pulled the giant cassava. Still the cassava would not come out of the ground and
soon they were all exhausted and angry with each other.
Eventually, and by this time everybody was very tired and short-tempered, the cat thought about calling the mouse to help. The
farmer, his wife and the dog all laughed at the cat and wondered how such a small creature as a mouse could possibly make a
difference and result in the cassava being pulled from the ground.
However, there seemed to be nothing else to do, so the cat went and called the mouse. The mouse pulled the cat, the cat pulled the
1 dog, the dog pulled the farmer’s wife, the farmer’s wife pulled the farmer and the farmer pulled the cassava. Suddenly, there was a
very loud ‘plop’ sound and the cassava was pulled clear of the ground. Everybody was delighted that the great task had been
accomplished!

Students Activity
 Students pay attention to the story read by facilitators. (3 minutes)
 In pairs, participants talk about what this story means to them. (2 minutes)
 Still in pairs, participants now talk about what this story means to them in relation to development planning
and partnership specifically. (3 minutes)
 In plenary, one pair shares their thoughts. Another pair who thinks they have something new to say makes a
contribution. This continues until four or five pairs have had a chance to speak and the story has been
‘unpacked’. (6 minutes)
Someone will hopefully make the point that the contribution and the opinion of even the ‘smallest’ counts,
and will make a big difference – this may be the child, a school cleaner or even a new teacher. This is part of
the rationale for the term whole-school-partnership planning.
If this point does not come out, the facilitator can ask:
 Who is ‘the farmer’ in the school?
 Who is the wife? etc…
 And finally, who is the mouse? (6

Reflection:
In today `s complex and dynamic world a single person or a couple of persons cannot manage
everything. No leader, institution or nation can exist or lead without the support or involvement
of others; the same applies to education as well. Management activities should not be placed in
one individual's hands, but rather the contrary - they should be shared both by teams and
employees. This means that any person in one way or other would act as a leader. School
personnel involvement in the management of educational institutions requires a management
approach based on trust, cooperation, communication and cultural development and
improvement, which in turn implies changes in the school strategy, culture, tasks and work
organization. The above mentioned points show the need to build a school environment that
focuses on constructive debates, differences of views, goal and task interactions. Already two or
three decades practitioners found that an educational institution will gain noticeable benefit only

1
Acknowledgement
This story was written by the group of education management professionals in Nigeria and included in the whole School Development Planning
(WSDP) Program © DFID (2006).
70
if it is supported by a structure model which encourages maximum participation along with the
appropriate cultural context which promotes collaboration.

Partnerships offer different, but mutual benefits to schools, including staff and pupils, and to
everyone they work with. Effective partnerships can: raise school morale by bringing staff
together to work to shared goals, promoting collaboration in curriculum development and others;
promote and develop innovative working methods; strengthen the school’s relationship with its
community through sharing skills, expertise and resources. There are benefits, too, for the
organizations and individuals who work with schools in these ways. These include: sharing skills
and expertise with young people and adults in a variety of new contexts. These and other studies
share several findings. First, all of them indicate that recurrent costs, not capital investments,
represent the bulk of required funds. Second, although the incremental costs needed to meet the
goals are large, countries should be able to finance a significant share from domestic resources
and other sources. Third, differences across countries and regions are extremely large in terms of
the affordability of reaching particularly universal primary enrollment. Currently, in Ethiopia,
Tanzania, and many other Sub-Saharan African countries, even with a doubling or tripling of
domestic primary spending, reaching the goals will require very large increases in local resources
as well as external aid. Even with new resources, the education goals are not reachable without
major changes in institutional arrangements and improvements in the efficiency of education
spending in developing countries particularly in Ethiopia (UNMP, 2005).

From the above, we can understand that partnerships between schools and outside organizations
and individuals are essential to the kinds of educational development we are advocating. They
are not additional luxuries. Such partnerships enrich and extend the experiences of young
people and support teaching and training. In both ways they can help directly to raise standards
of achievement. In this lesson, we are going to identify potential partners in education in general
and schools in particular for successful mutual development.
Partnerships should be considered as connections between schools and community resources.
The partnership may involve use of school or neighborhood facilities and equipment; sharing
other resources; collaborative fund raising and grant applications; volunteer assistance;
mentoring and training from professionals and others with special expertise; information sharing
and dissemination; networking; recognition and public relations; shared responsibility for
planning, implementation and evaluation of programs and services; expanding opportunities for
internships, jobs, recreation and building a sense of community. School-community partnerships
can interconnect together many resources and strategies to enhance communities that support all
youth and their families. They could improve schools, strengthen neighborhoods and lead to a
noticeable reduction in young people's problems. Building such partnerships requires visioning,
strategic planning, creative leadership and new multifaceted roles for professionals who work in
schools and communities.

The particular interest of this lesson is the development of more participatory approaches in
education. This includes the broader and more active partnerships both inside the system at the
central level and in the school and the greater collaboration of educational personnel and the
external community in planning, managing, and implementing educational programs. The
potential partners are many: students, teachers, school principals, and local educational officials;
parents and members and leaders of the local community; community associations and NGOs;
71
private enterprises and universities and so on. For the purposes of this analysis, we will focus on
five major partners: two 'internal' (the government and its officials, and the school) and three
external (parents and the larger community surrounding the school, NGOs and other
stakeholders) (Shaeffer, 1994; Carter, 2003).

The School: Principal and Teachers

The school, as the major actor in educational development, is composed of both teachers and
managers. Both are included in this heading, though their roles in various contexts are often quite
different. In some systems, school principals are seen as the lowest end of the government
bureaucracy, trusted to carry out its administrative tasks and deliver its educational instructions
to teachers; they therefore tend to share many of the characteristics of the government
administrators. In other contexts, however, school principals are seen more as senior teachers -
above all responsible for pedagogical issues, with administrative tasks added on, but generally
treated in the same way as teachers by the bureaucracy. Some teachers have considerable
knowledge of their students, of the local environment and of what is feasible and useful in the
context of the local school. There are many so-called 'high involvement' teachers who equate
professionalism with the ability to maintain a dialogue between the in-and out-of-school lives of
both their students and themselves. Hence, teachers and schools are important, and they have
also undergone significant changes. These changes are related in part to changes in sociological
perceptions: certain factors, such as organizational and social composition factors or teachers’
work patterns and conditions neglected before due to theoretical and methodological focus, have
now come to the fore.

This is because, we should have to consider that Schools as Extended Family. When children
begin their educational careers, the school becomes an “extension of the family”: “If learning is
to occur, the trust relationship developed between a parent and child during the first years of life
must be transferred to school staff”. In order to build a trusting relationship, families need to
convey to children that teachers play a “special role” in their lives similar to that of extended
family members. In turn, teachers must earn this trust as extended family members in the
relationships they build with children and their families. In addition to offering emotional
support, teachers can also nurture resilience by helping students build networks of caring adults
who will serve as a positive force in their lives, encouraging activities that will help students
develop caring relationships with peers, and teaching students social skills.

All stakeholders should have to recognize the crucial role that schools have in contributing to the
reconciliation of our society. This is not a job solely for schools, but schools do play a critical
role. The roles of schools in partnerships are twofold. First, the ethos of the school itself can be
enormously enriched through the involvement of the wider community. Second, schools’ own
resources can be of tremendous benefit to the community at large. Schools have much to offer in
terms of the experience and expertise of staff and their own specialist facilities and resources,
including laboratories, sports halls and performing arts facilities. Creative schools can contribute
significantly to the social and economic development of the whole community. Significant sums
of public money are invested in schools. The return on this investment is less than it might be
because many schools are closed more than they are open. Creative partnerships between school,
business and the wider community are already taking place in many areas. We need to identify
and build on existing good practice to develop a national strategy of creative partnerships.
72
 Reviews of research (Boethel, 2003; Henderson & Mapp, 2002) in Ferguson (2005) on
addressing the needs of the families of diverse populations suggests that if school leaders desire
to increase family-school connections, school staff should take the following steps:
 Adopt formal school- and district-level policies that address issues related to the
involvement of families from diverse populations;
 Engage principals in active support of these programs;
 Help staff learn strategies for working with parents from all cultures;
 Help all families navigate the educational system;
 Practice outreach rather than traditional approaches to involvement;
 Practice trust- and relationship-building strategies and recognize that it takes time;
 Help families learn strategies to support students’ academic needs; and
 Encourage the development of the total child as this greatly impacts academics.

To apply the above strategies in practice, principals are critical to successful family and
community involvement efforts. Therefore, principals need professional development and
adequate resources to implement and support these programs.

The Community: Parents and Local Organizations

There exists an enormous gap between the power and authority of the educational administration
at the national level and that of parents. The educational administration represents a wide and
stable organization. Its personnel have extensive experience in mobilizing resources and public
support for the execution of their decisions. Parents, in contrast, constitute an unorganized body
which lacks a common ideological stand. The natures of the 'community' and of the conditions
which determine its fate are perhaps even more varied than those of the 'school'. Communities
can be defined by law and geography, culture and language, class and caste, 'interest' and
'attachment'. They can be heterogeneous or homogeneous, united or conflictive, poor or rich and
so on. The involvement of parents and the community in school is largely extractive in nature;
that is, community (especially parental) participation is limited to the provision of resources -
money, materials, labor. Other, more substantial involvement in terms of consultation or
management or control - in the diagnosis of needs, the development and implementation of
school policies, the design of educational content, or the delivery or evaluation of such content -
is usually seriously constrained. More involvement in education might therefore permit families
and communities to accept that: "their accountability in the education of children extends beyond
the provision of material requirements for schooling; that it includes the main responsibility of
assisting, guiding, and extending whatever help their children need to harness their potential; and
that they equally share the burden of education children with the teachers".

What are family-school partnerships after all? Family-school partnerships are collaborative
relationships and activities involving school staff, parents and other family members of students
 at a school. Effective partnerships are based on mutual trust and respect, and shared
responsibility for the education of the children and young people at the school. Why are family-
school partnerships important? Families are the first educators of their children and they
continue to influence their children’s learning and development during the school years and long
afterwards. Schools have an important responsibility in helping to nurture and teach future
generations and families trust schools to provide educational foundations for their children’s
future. At the same time, schools need to recognize the primary role of the family in education.
73
This is why it is important for families and schools to work together in partnership. Research
demonstrates that effective schools have high levels of parental and community involvement.
This involvement is strongly related to improved student learning, attendance and behavior.
Family involvement can have a major impact on student learning, regardless of the social or
cultural background of the family.

Family involvement in schools is therefore central to high quality education and is part of the
core business of schools. The aim of the Family-School Partnerships Framework is to encourage
sustainable and effective partnerships between all members of the school community, including
teachers, families, and students. These partnerships should:
• view each partner as making equally valuable contributions, while respecting different
contributions;
• respect student needs and preferences;
• address barriers to involvement in schools by families, in particular indigenous families,
and actively help previously uninvolved families to become involved;
• create better programs, opportunities and learning for students;
• give families appropriate opportunities to contribute to school decision-making and
governance; and
• contribute to professional satisfaction for principals and teachers.

Among the principles which underpin effective family-school partnerships, families are the first
and continuing educators of their children. Therefore, in order to achieve effective school, family
and community partnerships and successfully to improve student learning is to build effective
relationships. A school will not achieve equity and excellence for all of the students in its care if
it does not acknowledge, understand, and include the families and communities of all its
students.

The Government: Bureaucracies and Bureaucrats

What are the general characteristics of 'government' and its officials which affect their usual
reaction to more participatory approaches to development? To answer this question, we must
first differentiate between the political and the administrative sides of government. The political
side is critical for any discussion of participation. Depending on the government's philosophy,
legitimacy, and strength, it may either ignore, resist, or actively prohibit greater participation in
society - or permit, encourage, and actively facilitate it. Especially in large education systems, it
may realize the utility of moving at least some of the responsibility for the implementation of
policies and programs to lower levels of the bureaucracy.

On the other hand, the administrative side of government may also have their own
responsibilities. Commonly, the bureaucracies - in education ministries as well as in other sectors
- may be effective managers of top-down development projects and programs and may have a
range of human and material resources, an extensive infrastructure, and administrators and
experts who bring to their work considerable knowledge, skills, and experience that help to
participatory approaches. But even if the politics of a nation tend to encourage participation, they
also may possess several characteristics which work against more participatory approaches to
development. Some of the problems are: limited knowledge of, or sensitivity to, community
conditions and local experience; a top-down mentality; centralized, standardized, and routinized
74
governmental structures and procedures; limited financial and human resources; inflexible
procedures of planning, decision-making, implementation, evaluation, accountability, etc.
However, as education policy drivers - there are a number of key government policies and
strategies that facilitate the promotion of equal opportunity and good relations in education.
Especially, the creative and cultural development of young people is of concern to several
government departments. But local education authorities still have statutory duties to ensure that
schools in their area meet the terms and requirements of the National Curriculum and to improve
standards and quality in education.

This level is necessarily a crucial actor in any kind of educational change, especially given the
variety of important roles it can play. These include:
• providing professional assistance and technical support to schools and their personnel;
• promoting the exchange of information across schools;
• mediating and channeling communication between the top and the bottom and passing
information both up and down the system; and
• participating in the selection, placement, and promotion of teachers and principals.

Non-government Organizations (NGOs)

NGOs, as a sector of society, are a diverse entity operating under different paradigms with a
diverse range of interests, activities, and perspectives on development issues. At the same time,
other types of umbrella organizations exist that represent groups of NGOs with common
development, ideological, religious, or other affiliations. In most of the cases, NGOs see
development not merely as an activity geared towards producing a certain output but as a process
of developing community motivation and awareness, of promoting people's abilities so that they
can help themselves and, in turn, create a self-reliant community and nation. As NGOs play an
increasingly large role in the collection and distribution of development assistance, their
involvement in the planning and delivery of development programs also mounts.

In most of the cases, NGOs have developed from agencies primarily concerned with relief,
welfare, and service delivery activities, to those encouraging small-scale, self-reliant local
development projects and processes, to those more directly involved with community
empowerment and social transformation. Another is the 'service provider' organization which
sees its role more in terms of supporting, protecting, linking, and developing the capacity of a
myriad of action-oriented.

In ideal terms, NGOs are most often described as people-centered, flexible and responsive,
creative, democratic and non-hierarchical, cost-effective and pragmatic, and often independent
and non-aligned. From the above clarifications one can infer that NGOs encompass many things
and all differ from each other and from their equivalents in different countries. Nevertheless,
regardless of the difficulties, Hall (1986) and Moser (1993) list the following characteristics of
NGOs.
• flexible and adaptable to environmental conditions’
• close to grassroots than governmental agencies;
• stress the participation of beneficiaries in planning, implementation and evaluation of
programs;
75
• have simple administrative structures which require their personnel to be responsible for
multiple tasks in the organizations; and
• subject to fewer rules and regulations.

Whatever their characteristics, NGOs generally seek to carry out several functions: providing
development services in those fields, activities, or regions either underserved by government or
parallel to those provided by the government, often with greater effectiveness and equity. More
and more frequently, they also work directly with governments (and sometimes with donors) in
the provision of services, often as an intermediary between government agencies and the poorest
levels of society especially in education.

Other stakeholders
When we say school community – it is a group of people bound by a common interest in
ensuring a high-quality education for all students in a school or district. School community
members include, but are not limited to, students, teachers, administrators, school counselors,
school support personnel, families, community agencies, businesses, residents, and other partners
in the educational process. Hence, there is a need for greater co-ordination between these
departments in order to promote a more coherent pattern of provision, and a more strategic use of
existing resources (NACCCE, 1999). Because, schools can not achieve the required standards on
their own, and need to work in partnership with a variety of agencies, organizations and
individuals. They have a key role as catalysts in establishing partnerships and encouraging
relationships between schools and outside organizations and individuals. Even though it is
difficult to mention all important partners in education, it is worthwhile to mention some major
stakeholders here under as stated in NACCCE, 1999).
The Youth Service: In recent years, both the voluntary and statutory youth service sectors have
become increasingly active in promoting and supporting creative and cultural programs for
young people. These are important areas of development. The Youth Service reaches out to
young people beyond the formal education sector in a wide range of different contexts: through
youth clubs, community projects, festivals and visits. In many instances they do this in
partnership with a variety of funding and organizational partners. Young people themselves are
often closely involved in the planning and organization of events and initiatives.
Cultural Organizations: We noted earlier the extraordinary growth of interest in cultural
organizations over the past twenty years or so in developing work with education. In recent
years, national and regional funding policies in the arts have strongly encouraged this need.
There is a wide variety of models of organization and of types of practice. Especially, the arts are
important in education because they give young people access to the ideas, values and beliefs of
others and contribute to all aspects of a child’s development. They have been shown to feed the
creative imagination and improve cognitive and academic skills.
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 Business and media, along with famous entertainers, often link with schools by advertising
products, such as sponsoring activities, reading contests.

Sports clubs and organizations: Sports clubs and organizations too have important roles in the
creative and cultural education of young people. The diversity and range of physical activity and
sport provides pupils with many opportunities to develop a variety of skills. Sport also provides
challenging opportunities for pupils to develop their problem-solving abilities, creative thinking,
social skills, and physical competence as part of their continued development within society.
Sport clubs and organizations can support schools in promoting these particular skills in children
and should be regarded as important allies in promoting the creative and cultural development of
all young people in schools.
Business and Industry: Business and industry are valuable resources to education in a variety of
ways. There is a wealth of experience and expertise within business. Industry must be
encouraged to share this through active engagement in education. This investment will be
mutually beneficial. Ways of involving business in education include: experts from business and
industry should be encouraged to visit schools and share their experience of the professional
world with children and teachers; work experience placements could be provided for students
and teachers; business could be encouraged to share equipment with schools or to donate old
stock; cash donations could be made to support specific creative projects of schools. The focus
here is not only on big businesses, but on medium and small businesses that could donate an hour
a week to link with schools. Successful partnerships exist between some schools and private ICT
firms. The firms provide the schools with up-to-date ICT equipment and training for teachers in
return for the use of the facilities out of school hours to provide adult courses. It is only through
business partnerships that education can keep up with the development of new technologies.
Visiting Professionals: Visiting professionals in all subject areas should be encouraged to visit
schools to share their experience of the world of work and about their chosen fields. There are
many examples of professional artists visiting schools. These are important but people from
many other areas of work have much to offer too. Pupils should be offered the opportunity for
work experience placements within the creative industries. It will be involved at least in three
broad activities: (a). helping talented individuals in the fields of science, technology and the arts
to achieve their full potential; (b). helping turn inventions and ideas into products and services
which can be effectively exploited; (c). contributing to public knowledge and awareness of
science, technology and the arts. This is particularly effective where students share the same first
language.
Further and Higher Education Sector: There is a wealth of experience and expertise in further
and higher education in all disciplines. Successful links can be forged between schools and
further and higher education to support the work of the National Curriculum, to provide teacher
77
training and to enrich opportunities for creative and cultural education. Many good examples of
such links already exist.
Professional Associations: Many professional teacher and subject associations also play key
roles in supporting and enriching the school curriculum and teacher training across a range of
subjects and disciplines.

We can mention a lot of partners. However, we should have to take care from factors that affect
the quality of partnerships. For instance, while families may be more diverse than ever before,
they share the common trait that they are all busy. Similarly, teachers and administrators are
busy people with multiple responsibilities. Family involvement may not be a priority among the
many issues that compete for their attention each day. Scarce school resources, in terms of time,
personnel, and funds, may make the adoption of any new initiatives seem unreasonable. Tight
budgets — a reality in most schools — may not support additional activities to encourage more
family involvement (Carter, 2003).

However, for families as well as educators, family involvement need not be a supplemental
activity — one more thing they have to do each day. Working together with strong
administrative support, families, schools, and communities can find effective ways to integrate
the most promising strategies into their daily routines so that they mesh with other school
improvement initiatives. In this way, family involvement can be viewed by both parents and
educators as a valuable and necessary part of what is done each day to help encourage all
children to learn.

To conclude this lesson, the interests of the various partners are mutual but not always identical.
Each partner has different contributions to make and each will gain differently in terms of skills,
understanding and experience. The success of partnerships lies as much in the quality of
preparation and follow-up work as in the event itself. Consequently, partnership projects must
include enough time for research, planning, evaluation and dissemination. Success in improving
education requires tremendous political leadership and commitment by citizens, civil society
leaders, bureaucrats, politicians, parents, and many others outside the education system (UNMP,
2005). Finally, schools need no longer be sole traders in education. We all have an interest in the
quality of education and many people can contribute from different fields of expertise. We see
these partnerships in education not as luxuries but as essential to the kind of education all young
people now need. They do not happen without planning, and they often have implications for
resources.
Activity 3.6. Summary Group Activity (Take home assignment, discuss on these
issues)
Dear Learner!
 To what extent are partnerships occurring in your locality?
 Is there any evidence from your staff and parents on the performance of partnerships?

Unit Summary
Dear Learner! How do you get the content of unit three? Yes, I assume that you said we have
got a lot of lessons. To recapitulate, we have seen that good schools alone will never be good
enough; it can be seen that there are a multitude of levels and types of participation and each has
a necessary role and it is also dependent on the context within which participation is practiced.
78
Participation is the process through which stakeholders’ influence and share control over priority
setting, policy-making, resource allocations and access to public goods and services. We have
seen also without the appropriate institutional forms and strategies, decentralizations will not
deliver the theoretically expected benefits such as efficiency, equity, service provision and
development. Even though, we have tried to mention some strategies at macro and micro-level,
we should have consider that no intervention is guaranteed to work, and the appropriateness and
cost effectiveness of each must be assessed given the particulars of the supply of and demand for
education in a country, and the resource constraints it faces. However, outlined above are
suggested strategies to develop partnerships based on each of the key dimensions. These
strategies provide practical guidance for schools about how to initiate partnerships, how to help
families to initiate partnerships, and how to have families’ perspectives on issues represented in
partnerships overall. Schools or teachers may want to use these strategies one at a time, as a
series, or as an idea bank for planning activities that are more contextualized to a specific
location. Besides, the lesson also shows the more the relationship between families and the
school is a real partnership, the more student achievement increases. From this unit we have got
also that there are a variety of activities in which schools can become involved to build/improve
school-community partnerships. School communities are encouraged to review their current
supporting structures, policies and procedures and develop new ones where necessary. This may
include establishing a dedicated family-school action team of school leaders, teachers and
parents (appointed by the parent body) – or using an existing working group that includes parents
– to develop and coordinate partnership plans and activities.

Review Questions
Part I: Choose the correct answer and write the letter on the space provided.
____ 1. The initial concept of participation defined as:
a. having a share in
b. being part of
c. having a part in
d. All
____ 2. Among the following which one is not considered as genuine participation process?
a. the mere use of a service
b. participation in real decision-making
c. involvement through attendance
d. All
e. A and C
____ 3. Parent involvement is the dedication of resources by the parent to the child in terms of:
a. cognitive-intellectual
b. behavior (activities at school)
c. personal (knowledge of learning content)
d. All
____ 4. What kind of mechanism used for creating a family-friendly school environment
strategy?
a. create an open-door policy
b. father-friendly practices
c. maintain a welcoming bulletin board
d. All
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 e. All except B.
____ 5. Which one of the following are considered as major partners in education?
a. voluntary and statutory youth service
b. Sports clubs
c. Cultural Organizations
d. All except A
e. All
Part II: Write True if the statement is correct and False if the statement is incorrect on the
space provided.
____ 1. Participation has become a necessary, if not sufficient, aspect of development.
_____ 2. Good schools alone will never be good enough.
_____ 3. Families are the first educators of their children.
_____ 4. Strong structures at the top level guaranteed collaborative approaches to education.
______5. The challenge of achieving the education goals is both central to and strongly
influenced by many factors.
Part III: Write short answers for the following questions on the space provided.
1. Write down three major goals of school-community relations.

__2. Explain the rationale for creating partnership in education.

__
3. List down three strategies that are applicable at macro level of education system.

______________________________________________________________________________
Case Analyses

Case Study 7: Village-based schools in Mali

Save the Children’s primary education efforts began in Mali in 1992. At that time, the country’s primary enrolment
rates were among the world’s lowest — under 20 percent in rural areas, and as low as 5 percent for girls. Some
villages sent no children to primary school. Save the Children has played a lead role in the development of village
schools in Mali demonstrating: (1) community ownership, (2) relevant curriculum, (3) absolute gender equity, and
(4) teacher training. Each village school is the result of the efforts of village committees, organized around their
need to provide basic education for their children. To make the schooling relevant, the following components are
incorporated into initial planning and design: (a) the school year is brought into line with the agricultural year; (b)
the language of instruction is the indigenous language of the villagers; and (c) the village school offers a learning
package based on literacy and math to be attained over a three-year cycle. The program also includes school
management training. This school year, 782 village schools are operational with nearly 50,000 students enrolled, 41
percent of whom are girls. In addition, 14 percent of the 1,330 teachers in these schools are women.
Source: Rose, P. 2004. Communities, gender and education: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Background paper
for 2003 UNESCO Global Monitoring Report. University of Sussex, Centre for International Education, p 8.

Write a summary of about a page on which interventions were most crucial by NGOs or other
partners to ensure community participation in schools. Did you notice an exemplary goals and
intervention strategies applied by different stakeholders? Can you draw any conclusions
80
regarding the interventions conducted from the above case study? Does the NGO shape the
community, or the initial planning and design helps to shape the community to improve teaching
learning process in their locality? Explain what type of intervention strategies and goals should
have to be considered in relation to family involvement and how parents and schools can
encourage children’s readiness to learn in your locality.

Methods of Delivery
Up on teaching this unit, the course instructor can apply multiple of teaching strategies. Among
these questioning, discussion and lecture methods could be appropriate.

Students’ Activities
Students are expected to identify:
1. The specific form of educational participation process in Ethiopia from the different
forms discussed in this unit.
Procedures:
• Students will be grouped in to sub-groups
• Discuss in groups the different forms of participatory approach
• Identify the specific form of participatory process implemented in Ethiopia
• Justify why they considered that specific form of approach as educational
decentralization process in Ethiopia
• Present the group’s report to the whole class

2. Identify potential partners with whom certain school can work/participate in its locality.
Procedures:
• Students will be grouped in to sub-groups
• Take one school of their own interest (could be a school in which one member of the
group attended long years of his primary or secondary education)
• Identify the different partners of the school with in that particular society
• Discuss in groups how these partners could help the school to function effectively.
• Present the group’s report to the whole class
Instructional Facility Required
• Laptop, LCD, flip charts and others.
Unit Assessment
Continuous assessment, which based on the evaluation of group presentations and term papers
are more appropriate to assess students’ learning progress for this unit.

Mandatory Reading Materials for the Unit

Boethel, M. 2003. Diversity School, Family, and Community Connections. Texas: SEDL.
Carter, S. 2003. Educating our Children Together: A Sourcebook for Effective Family- School-
Community Partnerships. New York: CADRE.
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NACCCE (1999). All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education. London: NACCCE.
Shaeffer, S. 1994. Participation for educational change: a synthesis of experience. Paris:
UNESCO.
UNMP (UN Millennium Project). 2005. Toward Universal Primary Education: Investments,
Incentives, and Institutions. London: Task Force on Education and Gender Equality.

Supplementary reading materials for the Unit

Christenson, S.L. 2004. The Family–School Partnership: An Opportunity to Promote the
Learning Competence of All Students. School Psychology Review, Volume 33, No. 1, pp.
83-104.
Deslandes, R. 2009. ed. International Perspectives on Contexts, Communities and Evaluated
Innovative Practices: Family–School– Community Partnerships. London: Routledge.
Davis, D. 2000. Supporting Parent, Family, and Community Involvement in Your School.
Portland: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
Ferguson, C. 2005. Reaching Out to Diverse Populations: What Can Schools Do to Foster
Family-School Connections? Austin, Texas: National Center for Family and Community
Connections with Schools.
Hepburn, K.S. 2004. Families as Primary Partners in their Child’s Development School
Readiness. Baltimore: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
82
 UNIT FOUR
DIVERSITY IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY
(Time allotted: 5 hrs.)

UNIT INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner! Would you please once again remember what you discussed in the previous
units? Yes, you have learned the basic concepts, characteristics, importance, barriers in building
school-community relations in unit one. We have seen that different collaborative structures and
organizations, common practices of school-community relations in unit two. At the same time,
we have seen also the essence of participatory approach, major goals, strategies and partners in
school-community relations in unit three. This unit will help you to have understanding about the
diverse nature of the schools and society. Especially we are going to examine the diversity and
differences in schools and community. For these purpose, the whole unit is divided into five
sections. The first part of this unit begins with the diversity and differences in students, family
and communities. At the same time, it gives insights with regard to the cultural values and
practices of the community. Then we will discuss about the importance of accommodating
diversity and cultural values of the community as well as cultural responsive pedagogical
practices. Finally, this unit attempts to provide the diversity management in schools and
education.

Unit Learning Outcomes 

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:
 Manage the existing diversity within the school and the community.
 Analyze the dynamic forces that affect the diverse nature of the school and community.
 Devise the school culture to improve school functioning.

Lesson One
4.1. Diversity and Differences: Students, Family and Communities
Activity 4.1. Investigative Group Activity (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for
reflection)
 In what ways do our individual differences reflect genetics, environments, and cultures?
 What allows diverse groups of people to be productive?
 When is identity diversity relevant? When isn't it?
 What prevents diverse collections of people from being successful? Good job!

To start with, we remember in our primary or secondary school life when we taught natural
science. It says atoms interact to become cells, diverse cells become people, and diverse
 people become societies. The new sciences of complexity give us a way to understand these
interactions. From this fact we can understand that to more accurately understand human
differences, one must draw upon “systems thinking.” In reality, all of the factors in the
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 system—environmental, genetic, and non-genetic-biological —work together to construct our
characteristics. Here, we can ask ourselves what is diversity after all?

According to the dictionary, “diversity” means “difference.” Given this definition, the critical
 question becomes, “Different from whom, or what?” In current educational discourse, the terms
diverse and diversity most commonly refer or include a wide range of student and family
characteristics and affiliations. From the universe of possibilities, this lesson focuses specifically
on three categories: race or ethnicity, culture (including language), and socioeconomic status or
class differences. These three categories reflect the most common use of the term diversity
(Boethel, 2003). From this we can understand that diversity has many dimensions, including
race, sex, age, and organizational membership. Diversity refers to the ways in which we differ
from each other. Some of these differences may be visible (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, age,
economic differences in families, geographic region), while others are less visible (e.g., culture,
ancestry, language, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background) (Boethel,
2003).

From this, we can understand that diversity is a complicated matter because it comes in many
different forms. In any given group there may be several sources of diversity that interact to
affect group functioning. For example, Hoffman in Boethel (2003) notes that almost every
definition of diversity focuses on the experiences of minorities that have historically been ill-
served by education and socioeconomic structure. At the same time, the ways in which “race”
and “ethnicity” are defined and used vary considerably in the conceptual literature related to
diversity. For the most part, however, the studies reviewed here did not concentrate on the
concepts or definitions of “race” or “ethnicity.” However, diverse does not mean deficient. As
we have seen above, diversity includes a number of factors. Each factor can influence the
relationship between teacher, student, family, and community in our context. One struggle now
is to capture those many dimensions on one team (Swafford & Daint, 2009).

So, when we are looking from our educational context, the definition of a “family” have changed
greatly in the past three decades. Today children may live in a variety of family structures.
Because different family structures are associated with different educational outcomes, it is
important to examine how the structure of families has changed over time. At the same time,
different family structures are associated with different educational outcomes, even though the
effects of family structure are likely to be confounded by family income, parents’ education
level, race/ethnicity, and the amount of time that parents participate in their children’s education.
In this lesson, the term ‘families’ is used to describe any of the wide variety of home
arrangements that people establish to care for and rear children. Family structure can be defined
in terms of parents’ relationships to children in the household (for example, biological or non-
biological), parents’ marital status and relationships history (for example, divorced, separated,
remarried) and the number of parents in the family. And these all factors have an impact in our
education system.

On the other hand, there is also another important dimension of diversity: Cultural Diversity.
Many people mistakenly use such phrases as “American culture,” “White culture,” or “Western
culture,” “Ethiopian culture” as if such large, common, and homogenous cultures exist in the
United States, Ethiopia today. These people fail to acknowledge the presence of cultural
84
 diversity, or the presence of multiple cultures and cultural differences within a society. In
reality, many different cultural groups comprise even in the smallest town or city.
Activity 4.2. Take home assignment and explain these issues
Dear Learner
 Relate how families differ in terms of ethnicity, race, culture, economics, gender roles,
religiosity, and geographic region in your surrounding.
 Reflect on implications of family differences for early childhood educators.

Here, we can add one critical issue: Why do we need to address diversity? As more and more
 students from diverse backgrounds populate 21st century classrooms, and efforts mount to
identify effective methods to teach these students, the need for pedagogical approaches that are
culturally responsive intensifies. Because, diversity can lead to synergy when collectives have:
common goals, common identity, and common worldview (agreement on options), but with
different preferences or goals. Otherwise, diversity can lead to competition and conflict. That is
why we said that the issue of how to address diversity in schools promises to be the foremost
educational issue well into the 21st century (Boethel, 2003). For this, we can mention many
justifications, let us see the major ones.

First, families are different in many ways. It is crucial that early childhood teachers work to
increase their understanding of differences in families and interact sensitively with these
differences in mind. It is the responsibility of early childhood teachers to foster a climate that
encourages various types of family involvement so that all children may reap the benefits known
to occur from home and school partnerships. Second, according to Rehm and Allison in
Swafford and Dainty (2009), all students are diverse, even those from the same cultural
background. Respecting diversity requires that teachers look at all students with interest and
openness, and utilize flexibility when providing instruction. Students may be considered at risk
and need the development of resiliency factors to be successful. Teachers who have been taught
to appreciate diversity are more self-confident, have increased abilities, and move beyond
judging students by superficial attributes such as skin, color, speech patterns, and exceptionality.

Third, as we have seen above, factors such as family income, family structure and parents’
education have been shown to influence a child’s educational opportunities. These conditions
have been shown to be associated with children experiencing problems such as repeating a grade,
requiring special education services, and being suspended and dropping out of school.
Especially, students from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds and low income families are more
at risk for poor school outcomes and are becoming an increasing share of the student population.
Changes over time in the composition of students in terms of factors such as student language
proficiency, family income, parents’ education, and family structure affect the social context of
education. Therefore, in order to provide equal educational opportunity, policymakers must be
aware of differences in the background of students, as well as differences in the climate and
resources of schools. The learning environment of schools can be enhanced by what students
with a variety of backgrounds and interests bring with them; however, heterogeneity of student
ability levels and preparation for school may create increased challenges for schools to meet the
needs of students from different social backgrounds.
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Eventually, it is important for schools and community organizations not to simply ignore issues
related to diversity or to act as if differences don’t exist. The study by Lareau and Horvat in
Boethel (2003) showed that ignoring racial issues, for example, can push parents and schools
farther apart. Similarly, a report on community youth programs points out that ‘institutional
silence,’ an atmosphere in which race is never mentioned, can lead to unspoken perceptions of
discrimination and intergroup tensions; group differences must be acknowledged.

Hence, every school should have to have a space open to the plurality of languages and
cultures or any diversity. The school brings together speakers with different repertoires who
have one language in common or several language varieties, which all social actors, and not least
as learners, has already developed prior to their entry into schooling. School is also a place of
contact among those diverse repertoires, and between those repertoires and varieties of the
language of schooling. The purpose of schooling is to contribute to inclusion and cohesion by
developing mastery of languages of schooling and also by taking into account what has already
been acquired.

Case Study 8 Ms. Almaz Practice in work Place

Ms. Almaz is a second grade teacher at Dugum Primary School, Hawzen Woreda, Eastern Zone, Tigray. She feels
that she's under a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed, considering she's a first year educator. Ms. Almaz
has recently attended a lecture about diversity and character education. She was impressed by the lecture, but isn't
sure she can manage merging any new programs with her existing curriculum. What's something Ms. Almaz can do
to implement diversity and character education without effecting her current curriculum too much?
a. Teach a traditional curriculum for the first half of the year, and diversity and character education for the
second half of the year.
b. Try a different technique every day until she find one that's reasonable.
c. Adopt a new curriculum which is completely dedicated to diversity and character education.
d. Integrate moral literature into her daily storytelling time.
Discuss with your peer and check the answer at the end of this unit.

Lesson Two
4.2. Cultural Values and Practices of the Community
Activity 4.3. Questions for Reflection and Discussion (10 minutes)
 Consider the various forms of diversity discussed in this unit.
 Give an example of an experience from your past when you did not feel a sense
of belonging, or included in the situation. What do you think were the factors
related to you feeling excluded?
 Recall some common celebrations that you have observed in early childhood
settings, either when you were a child or more recently. Identify some
situations that were not inclusive. What are some ideas that you have for
making the celebrations more inclusive?

Dear Learner! In the previous lesson we have seen the concept of diversity and the reason for
addressing diversity. In this lesson, when you start to discuss the concept of diversity, you may
probably ask yourself as to why be it really important for the students of school leadership to
86
 study and address diversity. You may answered it correctly by saying it will be important to look
back what it looks like our school profile on the basis of the current theories of cultural
responsive societies. In order to achieve this objective, it is important to examine also cultural
values and practices of the community. So, in this lesson we are going to look culture in the
context of schools and the impact on students’ learning. Then, lets’ start with question: What is
 culture?

Culture is used in its broadest, anthropological sense as including all that is humanly fabricated,
endowed, designed, articulated, conceived, or directed. Culture includes products which are
humanly produced, both material (buildings, artifacts, factories, slum housing) and immaterial
(ideology, value systems, mores), as well as materially derived products such as social class and
the socio/political order. The key aim of liberator education is to regain dominion over the
creation and use of culture. In his study of culture, Schein in Sharma and Sharma (2010) also
created three levels of analysis for culture. Each level is based upon how visible the culture is to
observers. The lowest level of culture, artifacts, is easily visible while the highest level, basic
assumptions, is difficult to recognize by those inside and outside the society or organization. On
the other hand, culture is also considered as a product and a process. Culture is a product because
it has been produced by those previously in the community or organization. Culture is a process
because it is being renewed and recreated as new members enter the culture and make the old
ways their own.

Based on this, each society is characterized and defined by a distinctive culture. Organizations
possess the paradoxical quality of being both ‘part of’ and ‘apart from’ society. They are
embedded in a wider social context, but are communities in their own right with distinctive rules
and values and can thought of as culture producing phenomenon. From the above clarification,
we can draw certain features of culture. Among these, the following are important to mention
here:
1. Culture is characteristic of groups. An individual’s characteristics are both cultural and
individual. Unique personality traits are not culturally based. Cultural behaviors are rooted
in groups. Some cultures may place greater emphasis on individuality or conformity than
others.
2. Culture is a set of rules for behavior. The essence of culture is in the rules that produce the
behaviors, not the behaviors themselves. So, culture is an influence on behavior, often a
sweeping influence, but the behaviors alone are not culture. Behaviors commonly
influenced by culture include types of clothing and flavors in foods (Sharma & Sharma,
2010).

Here, it is important to mention some basic concepts that have great impact on the concept of
culture: norms, folkways, mores, taboos, laws, and values. When we say cultural norms, norms
are the agreed-upon expectations and rules by which a culture guides the behavior of its
members in any given situation. Of course, norms vary widely across cultural groups.
Sociologists speak of at least four types of norms: folkways, mores, taboos, and laws. Folkways,
sometimes known as “conventions” or “customs,” are standards of behavior that are socially
approved but not morally significant. Mores are norms of morality. Breaking mores will offend
most people of a culture. Certain behaviors are considered taboo, meaning a culture absolutely
forbids them. Finally, laws are a formal body of rules enacted by the state and backed by the
87
 power of the state. Virtually all taboos, like child abuse, are enacted into law, although not all
mores are. For example, wearing a bikini to church may be offensive, but it is not against the
law.

Members of a culture must conform to its norms for the culture to exist and function. Hence,
members must want to conform and obey rules. They first must internalize the social norms and
values that dictate what is “normal” for the culture; then they must socialize, or teach norms and
values to, their children. If internalization and socialization fail to produce conformity, some
form of “social control” is eventually needed. Social control may take the form of ostracism,
fines, punishments, and even imprisonment. Similarly, when we are looking cultural values, a
culture's values are its ideas about what is good, right, fair, and just. A culture, though, may
harbor conflicting values. For instance, the value of material success may conflict with the value
of charity. Or the value of equality may conflict with the value of individualism. However, real
culture refers to the values and norms that a society actually follows, while ideal culture refers
to the values and norms that a society professes to believe. The core of culture is formed by
values which are not visible but shared by people even when membership in group changes
(Sharma & Sharma, 2010).

From the above, we can understand that each community has its own norms, values and its own
ideal persons who stand out clearly for the younger generations to emulate. It, therefore, implies
that children have different people to emulate in different societies.

Activity 4.4. Reflection

 Consider each of the above concepts for understanding culture. Share an example
of a behavior or expectation in your culture that relates to each concept.
 Reflect about how your actions or thoughts may be culturally based.

Then, as educational leader when we are looking culture in the context of school, what is the
impact of culture on students’ learning?

To begin with, students bring numerous ethnic cultures, languages and habits of mind to the
classroom, each of which is associated with varying child-rearing and educational traditions.
Layered on these are class cultures, each of which can likewise be distinguished by distinctive
kinds of formal and informal communication. All these interacting cultures and cultural
influences converge upon the schoolhouse, where they are mediated well or poorly, with
fortunate or unfortunate consequences for teachers’ and students’ abilities to do their work
successfully. When we say that we want a better or a different organizational culture in our
schools, we are asking that the people caught up in this complex, highly compromised
environment somehow develop a set of values, beliefs, stories and means of operating that will
transcend all these other influences and tensions and focus everyone more on the central tasks of
learning.

Clearly, this is a daunting task. Like all organizations faced with multiple tasks and influences,
schools develop a homeostasis, an equilibrium that both stabilizes them and makes them
extremely resistant to change. Only the boldest system-wide actions could get anyone’s attention,
88
let alone inspire him or her to act differently for any length of time. This shows that being
sensitive to cultural and linguistic differences among families is important in all school-family
communication (Carter, 2003).

Hence, organizational culture reflects the underlying belief and value structure of an
organization. Members of an organization in a given cultural environment share a common set of
assumptions, beliefs and values which originate from the local environment. These cultural
values from the environment have a very strong impact on the behavior of the persons within the
organization.

This entails to us that we should have to be involved to help staff learn strategies for working
with parents from all cultures. Many times a small action or reaction can have significant
cultural implications and result in disengagement or lack of participation of family or community
members. School staff is commonly unaware of the impact of their actions. When staff are
provided professional development and encouraged to explore contextual factors unique to a
school setting, they will become more adept at discovering potential problems in participation
and solving problems that have already blocked participation.

However, although McGroarty in Ferguson (2005) cautions that knowledge of culture alone will
not provide educators with sufficient knowledge to understand and modify school-related
behavior teacher awareness of their own culturally influenced attitudes and behavior provides a
starting point for increased understanding of cultures. This kind of self-reflection can form the
foundation for a better understanding of students, their families, and their communities.
Therefore, it is important for educators to have a fuller personal understanding of how culture
influences linguistic, social, and mental behavior.
To conclude this portion, we have seen education in particular as a means of cultural
transmission from one generation to another. Hence, the parents are the first teachers of the child
and they still maintain an educative function throughout the early and formative years of the
child. Regarding this point, cross-cultural research indicates that there is no universally
successful way to involve families. Even definitions of “involvement” vary in different cultures.
In some cultures, schools and home are viewed as separate entities, and parents do not view
questioning what teachers do at school as their role. In some culturally diverse families, older
siblings — not parents — help younger ones by tutoring and helping with homework (Carter,
2003). Then, what is the implication to us as educational leaders? The bottom line for leaders is
that if they do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures
will damage them. Hence, cultural understanding is desirable for all of us, but it is essential to
leaders if they are to lead.

Lesson Three
4.3. The Importance/Purpose of Accommodating Diversity
and Cultural Values of the Community
Activity 4.5. Discussion
 What is the purpose or goal of diversity?
 What do think the benefits of diversity in education especially for democratic
citizenship?
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 Dear Learner! Up to now you have learnt the different concept regarding diversity, the reason
for addressing diversity, cultural values and practices of the community and the implication of
culture on students’ learning. Now we will see the importance or purpose of accommodating
diversity and cultural values of the community. In this lesson, we are going to look the necessity
of accommodating diversity and why we honor diversity based on the purpose of diversity and
 cultural practices of the community. So, let us see one by one. Let me ask you one question first:
Why we Honoring Diversity?

Because, diversity is an overarching concept that relies on a philosophy of equitable participation

and an appreciation of the contributions of all. It is a concept that refers both to our uniqueness
as individuals and to our sense of belonging or identification within a group or groups. With the
same token, promoting equality in education is not simply a matter of providing education
services on equal terms to women and men. While it is essential to have equality of provision to
have equality, it is also essential to create cultures in schools and in colleges that are equally
welcoming of both genders (a principle that applies to all other groups named in the equality
legislation). Hence, honoring diversity is based on the principle that if these differences are
acknowledged and utilized in a positive way, it is of benefit to the quality of our learning and
working environments (BC-MOE, 2008).

From the above statements, the goals or purposes for diversity include among others:
 taking into account visible and less visible differences among individuals and cultural
groups;
 Encouraging, understanding, acceptance, mutual respect and inclusion, in order to make
school communities and society as a whole more equitable for all people (BC-MOE, 2008).

On the other hand, while there is no legislation that refers specifically to diversity, there are
moral and legal, human resource, and financial reasons for honoring diversity and promoting
human rights. However, there are some countries coiled the ethical and legal principles based
within their legislation as follows:
 The diversity of people is acknowledged and valued;
 The dignity of people, as well as protection from harm, is intended to be preserved; and
 Fair and equitable treatment should be secured for all people (BC-MOE, 2008).

Based on the above principles, goals and legislation, diversity is an overarching concept that is
supported by the following concepts:
 Multiculturalism;
 Human rights;
 Employment equity; and
 Social justice (BC-MOE, 2008).

Important elements embedded in all of these purposes or goals common across them all form a
foundation for understanding and addressing diversity; so let us look in brief the concepts here:
Multiculturalism recognizes and values the ethno-cultural diversity of our society. It is an
acknowledgement and valuing of diverse ethnic heritages as well as an appreciation and
90
incorporation of diverse approaches to learning and working environments. Multiculturalism
encourages understanding, acceptance, mutual respect and inclusion, in order to make society
more equitable for all people.
Human rights are defined as the provision for every individual to have the right to live, work,
and learn in an environment free from fear, discrimination and harassment. Human rights
emphasize the rights of the individual, the responsibilities of employers and service providers,
and the need for preventive action. Human rights policy goals generally focus on prevention,
remedial action and correction, and are guided by the principle that human rights violations are
harmful to an entire organization and community, and not simply to those who are directly
affected. When we are looking goals or purposes of human rights include:
• preventing discrimination;
• correcting persistent patterns of inequality affecting groups;
• redressing discrimination against individuals; and
• providing an effective, efficient and timely remedy for incidents or situations in which
human rights are threatened, through a fair process (BC-MOE, 2008).
Employment equity is a concept that addresses fair employment practices. It incorporates
strategies designed to create a workforce that is, at all levels, representative of the diverse
population it serves. Employment equity is not simply about hiring and recruitment; it means
examining practices for promotion, and retaining employees and providing equitable access to
opportunities within the organization. The aim is to achieve equality in the workplace so that no
person is denied employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability. Goals or
purposes of employment equity include:
• creating an inclusive work place that provides fair and equitable access for all employees;
• encouraging a variety of perspectives, experiences and work styles;
• correcting conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by women, aboriginal
people, persons with disabilities, and members of other visible and less visible minorities;
• Remedying effects of past discrimination through positive policies and practices and
making reasonable accommodation measures (BC-MOE, 2008).
Social justice is a philosophy that extends beyond the protection of rights. Social justice
advocates for the full participation of all people, as well as for their basic legal, civil and human
rights. The aim of social justice is to achieve a just and equitable society. It is pursued by
individuals and groups – through collaborative social action – so that all persons share in the
prosperity of society. The goals or purposes of social justice include:
• ensuring that socioeconomic background does not preclude any person from achieving
the full benefits of participation in society;
• working in a way that acknowledges the complexity of social issues and the need for
collaborative action; and
• Engaging individuals and groups who have historically been excluded either from full
participation or the sharing of power (BC-MOE, 2008).

From the above we can draw common elements such like: equality, fair treatment,
nondiscrimination, inclusion and access. And common purposes or goals include: full
participation, elimination of barriers to participation, fair and equitable treatment, systems
change and attitude change.
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 Dear Learner! What do you deduce from the above statements? What is the implication as
 educational managers? Yes! The more managers understand this diversity and cultural
environment, the more effective they can be in changing it as per the requirements. Hence, the
successful organizations consider the ideal employees as those who have internalized the
organizations culture into their cognitive and affective make-up. Therefore, schools that are
successful in addressing these problems are able to:
• build on the cultural values of families,
• stress personal contact with families,
• foster communication with families,
• create a warm environment for families, and
• Facilitate accommodations for family involvement, including transportation, translators,
and other similar services (Ferguson, 2005).

Then, what to consider reaching out to diverse populations Epstein (2001) in Ferguson (2005)
notes that there are “overlapping spheres of influence” that create forces on the school, students,
families and community members. Time, experience, beliefs, and daily routines continually
impact the work of all those involved with children. However, she also states that schools can
use various activities to anticipate any negative impact from these factors, and can, in fact, turn
the negative into positive.

At the same time, over time, the role of families and parents has gradually changed as a result of
broader changes occurring in society. Changes in families’ ethnic, linguistic, and racial
compositions; cultural backgrounds; and socioeconomic conditions impact a school’s
interactions with its students’ families. Further, understanding the communication patterns of
culturally and linguistically diverse students can either enhance or discourage school
collaboration with families and communities. This sharing of information is especially important
for the families of children with disabilities. These family members are valuable sources of
information, as they know the history and understand the nature of their children’s disabilities.
Children with disabilities may need special assistance and may have specific medical concerns,
assistive technology needs, transportation needs, feeding issues, or behavioral/social concerns
that need to be conveyed by families to educators (Carter, 2003).
As these studies showed, acknowledging and valuing diversity means more than celebrating food
or holidays. It means making room for a range of voices, perspectives, resources, and styles of
interacting. One important way of valuing diversity is for the school staff to reflect the varied
makeup of your community. Another is to use families as resources for incorporating culturally
relevant material into the local curriculum (Boethel, 2003).

Here, as educational leader we should have to consider the goals, purposes and basic concepts
more specifically on application to early childhood education programs. Then, lets’ come back to
 the previous question: Why we celebrating diversity? People celebrate for many different
reasons. Some people celebrate the same holiday but do it quite differently. Others celebrate
completely different holidays. Celebrations and rituals are an important part of the human
experience. One way to share about differences in the way we celebrate is to have families come
to early childhood programs to share their particular ways of celebrating.
One reason for celebrating diversity is because of Inclusiveness. The goal for understanding
diversity in early childhood education is ultimately to provide an inclusive environment, one in
which each child and family can feel a sense of belonging, no matter what commonalities or
differences they have with others in the group. This is quite a lofty goal, and because of many
societal factors, it may not be easy to achieve. Celebration of diversity leads to inclusive
practices in early childhood education. Teachers’ acceptance of differences in families is
essential for each child to feel a sense of belonging in early education programs. Welcoming all
families is a prerequisite for effective family involvement. Family members who view
themselves as very different from teachers and other school personnel are less likely than other
families to be involved in their children’s education. It is the responsibility of early childhood
teachers to foster a climate that encourages various types of family involvement so that all
children may reap the benefits known to occur from home and school partnerships.

To sum up, when we are looking the benefits of diversity in education it became clear that mere
contact through desegregation was not sufficient to produce educational benefits. Rather, contact
needed to occur under certain conditions — where there was equality in status, existence of
common goals and intimacy of interaction if it was to have positive effects. Educators needed to
create a racially integrated learning environment that went far beyond simply putting diverse
students together in the same classroom. Then, if diversity is to have a positive educational
impact to interact in meaningful ways and to learn from each other — the presence of diverse
students is a necessary but certainly not sufficient condition for diversity to work in a positive
manner.

Practitioners in this field contend that students who interact with diverse students in classrooms
and in the broad campus environment will be more motivated and better able to participate in a
heterogeneous and complex society. Here, we can ask one more question: How do diversity
experiences affect the process of learning to become citizens? The following recommendations
given by different authorities are important: drawing people into the world of participation and
action; expressing ideas publicly rather than merely holding them privately. In these intergroup
dialogues, students examine commonalities and differences between and within groups. Students
need also the following learning skill exposure: mutuality in learning about their own and other
groups; commitment to civic participation and participation in community service; acceptance of
conflict as a normal part of social life; and increase in their sense of commonality in work and
family values with groups other than their own.

Scholars also suggest that knowledge about family and community culture should influence three
major components of education: pedagogy, curriculum, and school policy. Each of these areas
can be informed by knowledge of students’ social, linguistic, and academic strengths. For
example, teachers can observe student-teacher and student-student interactions to understand
how students learn and to determine their prior knowledge in a particular content area.
Pedagogically, when teachers understand students’ backgrounds and cultures, they are best able
to connect academic content to students’ real-life experiences. The above points forced us to see
what type cultural responsive pedagogical practices are important to use for the
accommodating diversity and cultural values of the community? Which will be deal
underneath.
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 Lesson Four
4.4. Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Practices
Activity 4.6. Discussion
 How can teachers involve families from diverse backgrounds to support
classroom instruction?
 In what ways do you draw a lesson plan upon parents’ knowledge and
experiences in students’ learning activities? Very Nice!

Dear Learner! This is the fourth section of unit four. Have you got valuable information
regarding diversity and cultural practices of the community? What is the difference and
similarity between diversity and cultural practices of the community? Have you ever acquainted
 with the concept of culturally responsive pedagogical practices before? What kind of programs
and process of culturally responsive pedagogical practices have you ever executed as
educational leader in your settings? Based on the concepts gained in unit four, What is the
Ethiopian government intention and priorities with regard to culturally responsive pedagogical
practices? Please think on these matters thoroughly. At the end of this sub session, you will
describe the major concepts and dimensions of culturally responsive pedagogical practices;
interpret the problems encountered in this endeavour and implications to our education system.
In order to understand all the lessons indicated in Unit Four, let us examine the practical aspect
of culturally responsive pedagogical practices from different literature review visa vise the
governments’ priority area and emphasis.

To begin with, culture encompasses everything around us; it is a part of every environment.
Often we forget that children and youth bring their very own culture from home into school, and
as a result they may struggle with trying to make it all fit. Successful learning depends greatly on
everyone's ability to accept, listen and embrace cultural diversity so that we can celebrate our
unique strengths and contributions to our school community, one which is composed of families,
children and youth, educators and administrators. Just imagine what can happen if we give
ourselves the opportunity to learn from the contributions that our many cultures bring to the table
(Carter, 2003). Then, to avoid learning outcomes that reflect negative, unrealistic, and
fragmented biases, make sure curriculum and other resources, such as audio visual, bulletin
boards, and posters, represent both males and females in supportive and nurturing roles within
the family. To address invisibility make sure each cultural group in your class as well as
individuals with exceptionalities are also depicted in a positive light (Swafford & Dainty, 2009).
 This means in short we should have to create culturally diverse classrooms. By the way, What
is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy?
In a culturally responsive classroom, effective teaching and learning occur in a culturally
supported, learner-centered context, whereby the strengths students bring to school are identified,
nurtured and utilized to promote student achievement. Culturally responsive pedagogy comprises
three dimensions: (a) institutional, (b) personal and (c) instructional. The institutional dimension
reflects the administration and its policies and values. The personal dimension refers to the
cognitive and emotional processes teachers must engage in to become culturally responsive. The
instructional dimension includes materials, strategies and activities that form the basis of
instruction. All three dimensions significantly interact in the teaching and learning process and
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are critical to understanding the effectiveness of culturally responsive pedagogy. So, let us look
these three dimensions in brief as stated by (Richards & Others, 2006; Sullivan & AVant, 2009).

The Institutional Dimension: What Must the Educational System Do?

The educational system is the institution that provides the physical and political structure for
schools. To make the institution more culturally responsive, reforms must occur in at least three
specific areas:
1. Organization of the school—This includes the administrative structure and the way it
relates to diversity and the use of physical space in planning schools and arranging
classrooms.
2. School policies and procedures—This refers to those policies and practices that impact on
the delivery of services to students from diverse backgrounds.
3. Community involvement—This is concerned with the institutional approach to community
involvement in which families and communities are expected to find ways to become
involved in the school, rather than the school seeking connections with families and
communities.

Although all three areas in the institution must become more culturally responsive, a particular
concern is the impact of school policies and procedures on the allocation of resources. As Sonia
Nieto noted in Richards and Others (2006), we must ask the difficult questions: Where are the
best teachers assigned? Which students get to take advanced courses? Where and for what
purposes are resources allocated? We must critically examine the educational system’s
relationship to its diverse constituents. Hence, developing and supporting equitable educational
systems is the cornerstone to safeguarding the nation’s social, civic, and economic future. In
many educational systems, policies, procedures, and practices need to be reconceptualized in
order to ensure equitable opportunity and access for all students. Here, multiculturalism emerged
as a means of promoting cultural competence and educational equity through various dimensions
of educational practice (e.g., pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, discipline). At its most basic
level, multiculturalism is about recognizing diversity; more progressive conceptualizations focus
on cultural pluralism, challenging racism, and embracing difference (Sullivan & AVant, 2009).

More broadly, the need for multiculturalism in education is defended as a necessary element of
multiculturalism in society at large, with schools characterized as a microcosm of the larger
society. Multiculturalism and pluralism are highlighted as a means of preparing all students to be
contributing citizens in a multicultural society. However, despite decades of attention to this
area, there has been surprisingly little progress in closing achievement gaps or creating more
equitable education systems. So we must ask whether multicultural approaches have been
successful, and what changes continue to be necessary in order to create systems with the
capability of supporting diverse learners (Sullivan & AVant, 2009). This notion entails to us to
move toward culturally responsive school practices.

Because, a culturally responsive approach to education is grounded in the belief that all students
can excel in academic endeavors when (a) their culture, language, heritage, and experiences are
valued and used to facilitate their learning and development; and (b) when they are provided
access to high-quality programs, services, and supports (Klingner et al., in Sullivan & AVant,
95
2009). Such an approach to school psychological practice encompasses several key
characteristics as cited by (Sullivan & AVant, 2009).
Affirmation of diversity. At its most basic level, a culturally responsive perspective requires
affirming diversity and difference. Culturally responsive practitioners respect and value the
cultural differences of students, families, communities and colleagues. This will require moving
beyond superficial descriptions of the differences between groups in order to understand the
social realities and histories that shape individuals’ lived experiences. Attention to diversity must
be infused throughout one’s practices, including assessment, consultation and academic and
behavioral interventions. Practitioners must strive to understand the experiences and cultures of
all students and use that understanding to facilitate the services provided. Being culturally
responsive means negotiating new standards and norms that acknowledge the differences and
similarities among different groups so that the cultural heritage, contributions, and strengths of
all members of school communities are acknowledged and valued.
Cultivation of sociocultural consciousness. In order for practitioners to be culturally responsive,
they must understand how race, culture, language, and experience influence learning and
behavior. This will require the often difficult process of examining assumptions of power and
privilege, in addition to questioning structures that support or hinder equitable access and
participation in educational opportunities for members of different groups. Viewing our field
specifically, and educational systems generally, from a culturally responsive perspective means
considering how certain assumptions or practices benefit some and not others, and for what
purposes, and formulating a vision to prevent the marginalization, denigration, and oppression of
individuals on the basis of membership in a particular group (e.g., students identified as
minorities, disabled).
Examination of the different cultures that shape schools. Fostering cultural responsiveness also
requires recognizing and examining the cultural nature of schooling and educational practices.
We must be cognizant that in addition to the cultures from which individuals come, specific
cultures are created within schools and classrooms. Consequently, systems and practitioners
develop formal and informal “regularities” (e.g., beliefs, theories, policies) that guide
professional behavior (e.g., selection of practices, instruments). Often these regularities are
enacted with little conscious thought; they are simply “the way things are,” which is also
assumed to be the way things should be, which blinds us to the possibility of change or
improvement. We must also be aware of the organization and distribution of power in the system
of education, from the federal level to individual interactions. Power relations are manifested in
classrooms, buildings, districts, and communities—and the way in which they play out must be
considered for their implications regarding student learning and behavior.
Promotion of change. A culturally responsive practitioner should work to foster positive change
and collaborate with educators to promote equity. Given that systemic change is difficult, start
with your own practice and work out and up. An important element will be engaging educators
and families in collaborative work - whether engaging in assessment, intervention, or
consultation, seek to engage all relevant stakeholders, including students and families, in the
processes from the onset. Work to establish positive, respectful relationships with them and
arrange ways for them to engage meaningfully in the process, integrating the input from all in the
final decisions and processes (e.g., problem definition, data collection, generation of option,
implementation plans, evaluation, etc.). Change efforts, whether large-scale or small, have
greater chances at success when they meaningfully involve all of those directly and indirectly
affected by the change.
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Not only must changes occur institutionally, but personally and instructionally as well. The
remainder of this brief addresses necessary transformations in the personal and instructional
dimensions. Especially, school practitioners must provide services that are not only technically,
empirically and theoretically sound, but culturally responsive as well if we are to meet the
demands of an increasingly multicultural society (Richards & Others, 2006; Sullivan & AVant,
2009).

The Personal Dimension: How Do Teachers Become culturally Responsive?

Teacher self-reflection is an important part of the personal dimension. By honestly examining
their attitudes and beliefs about themselves and others, teachers begin to discover why they are
who they are, and can confront biases that have influenced their value system. Because teachers’
values impact relationships with students and their families, teachers must reconcile negative
feelings towards any cultural, language, or ethnic group. Often teachers are resistant to the notion
that their values might reflect prejudices or even racism towards certain groups. When teachers
are able to rid themselves of such biases, they help to create an atmosphere of trust and
acceptance for students and their families, resulting in greater opportunity for student success.
Another important aspect of the personal dimension is exploration. It is crucial that teachers
explore their personal histories and experiences, as well as the history and current experiences of
their students and families. With knowledge comes understanding of self and others, and greater
appreciation of differences. When teachers are unbiased in their instruction and knowledgeable
about themselves and their students, they can better respond to the needs of all their students.

As stated by Gay and Lucas in Richards and Others (2006), the following specific activities for
becoming a culturally responsive teacher are forwarded:
Engage in reflective thinking and writing: Teachers must reflect on their actions and
interactions as they try to discern the personal motivations that govern their behaviors.
Understanding the factors that contribute to certain behaviors (e.g., racism, ethnocentrism) is the
first step toward changing these behaviors. This process is facilitated by autobiographical and
reflective writing.
Explore personal and family histories: Teachers need to explore their early experiences and
familial events that have contributed to their understanding of themselves as racial or nonracial
beings. As part of this process, teachers can conduct informal interviews of family members
(e.g., parents, grandparents) about their beliefs and experiences regarding different groups in
society. The information shared can enlighten teachers about the roots of their own views. When
teachers come to terms with the historical shaping of their values, they can better relate to other
individuals.
Acknowledge membership in different groups: Teachers must recognize and acknowledge their
affiliation with various groups in society, and the advantages and disadvantages of belonging to
each group. For example, for female teachers, being a female presents many challenges in a
male-dominated world. Moreover, teachers need to assess how belonging to one group
influences how one relates to and views other groups.
Learn about the history and experiences of diverse groups: It is important that teachers learn
about the lives and experiences of other groups in order to understand how different historical
experiences have shaped attitudes and perspectives of various groups. Further, by learning about
other groups, teachers begin to see differences between their own values and those of other
groups. To learn about the histories of diverse groups, particularly from their perspectives,
97
teachers can read literature written by those particular groups as well as personally interact with
members of those groups.
Visit students’ families and communities: It is important that teachers get to know their
students’ families and communities by actually going into the students’ home environments. This
allows teachers to relate to their students as more than just “bodies” in the classroom but also as
social and cultural beings connected to a complex social and cultural network. Moreover, by
becoming familiar with students’ home lives, teachers gain insight into the influences on the
students’ attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, teachers can use the families and communities as
resources (e.g., classroom helpers or speakers) that will contribute to the educational growth of
the students.
Visit or read about successful teachers in diverse settings: Teachers need to learn about
successful approaches to educating children from diverse backgrounds. By actually visiting
classrooms of successful teachers of children from diverse backgrounds and/or reading authentic
accounts of such success, teachers can gain exemplary models for developing their own skills.
Develop an appreciation of diversity: To be effective in a diverse classroom, teachers must have
an appreciation of diversity. They must view difference as the “norm” in society and reject
notions that any one group is more competent than another. This entails developing respect for
differences, and the willingness to teach from this perspective. Moreover, there must be an
acknowledgment that the teachers’ views of the world are not the only views. We can remember
our late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi slogan here: “ልዩነታችን ውበታችን፣ ውበታችን
አንድነታችን”
Participate in reforming the institution: The educational system has historically fostered the
achievement of one segment of the school population by establishing culturally biased standards
and values. The monocultural values of schools have promoted biases in curriculum
development and instructional practices that have been detrimental to the achievement of
students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Teachers need to participate in
reforming the educational system so that it becomes inclusive. As the direct link between the
institution and the students, teachers are in a pivotal position to facilitate change. By continuing a
traditional “conform-or-fail” approach to instruction, teachers perpetuate a monocultural
institution. By questioning traditional policies and practices, and by becoming culturally
responsive in instruction, teachers work toward changing the institution. In relation to the
importance of accommodating diversity and cultural values of community and students, Berns
(2010: 232) acknowledge the teacher’s role as socializing agent as follows:
For more than 25 years, I have asked my students to think back over their education in elementary,
middle, and high school and remember the characteristics of their best teacher and those of their
worst. Though the exact wording differs, without fail “best” teachers are interesting, competent,
caring, encouraging, and flexible, yet have demanding standards; “worst” teachers are boring,
incompetent, distant, demeaning, and rigid with inflexible standards, or inconsistent with lax
standards. After exploring reasons for students’ choices, the message becomes quite clear: “best”
teachers make students want to learn and reinforce their efforts, while “worst” teachers turn students
off.

When we are applying the above suggested functions, we may confront with so many problems.
To mention some: a cultural mismatch between teachers and the children they teach can result in
uncomfortable classroom experiences for some children and teachers. Their teachers often differ
from their families in race, culture and language. Classroom expectations and patterns of
communication may also differ from those at home. Still, understanding and acknowledging the
validity of different cultural behaviors and beliefs can present challenges for some teachers.
98
Hence, as teachers plan for their groups of children and as they set their classroom rules and
policies, checking for inclusiveness must be a part of the process. Even the most sensitive and
knowledgeable teacher may err in this process; however, the important act is what teachers do
when they realize that their classrooms are not inclusive.

Today’s classrooms require teachers to educate students varying in culture, language, abilities,
and many other characteristics. To meet this challenge, teachers must employ not only
theoretically sound but also culturally responsive pedagogy. Teachers must create a classroom
culture where all students regardless of their cultural and linguistic background are welcomed
and supported, and provided with the best opportunity to learn.

Eventually, the following is a list of suggestions to facilitate the creation of a culturally diverse
classroom (Swafford & Dainty, 2009).
1. Since teachers are models for their students they should use language that respects all
diversities. An example would be to use person first language by referring to the student
first, such as “the child with special needs rather than the handicapped student”.
2. Display articles and advertisements that discuss diverse cultures.
3. Display simple phrases or label items in the classroom in multiple languages. Visual aids are
more effective when they are graphic and pictorial.
4. Build a classroom community where all are treated with respect.
5. Use cooperative learning and activities that enhance a mutual respect and ones that allow
students to learn about each other.
6. Treat each culture as a unique culture by not lumping together all minorities or
exceptionalities. For instance, do not assume that all students that speak Amharic or
Tigrigna speak the same dialect and can understand each other. For example, there are many
dialects in Amhara Region.
7. Encourage participation of all students even if it requires the uses of nods, hand signals, and
visuals.
8. Use peer tutoring and collaborative activities to assist students.

The Instructional Dimension: How Does Instruction Become Culturally Responsive?

When the tools of instruction (i.e., books, teaching methods, and activities) are incompatible
with, or worse marginalize, the students’ cultural experiences, a disconnect with school is likely.
For some students this rejection of school may take the form of simply underachieving; for
others, rejection could range from not performing at all to dropping out of school completely.
Culturally responsive pedagogy recognizes and utilizes the students’ culture and language in
instruction, and ultimately respects the students’ personal and community identities. As stated by
Bananks in Richards and Others 2006), the following specific activities for becoming a culturally
responsive instruction are important:
Acknowledge students’ differences as well as their commonalities: While it is important for
teachers to note the shared values and practices of their students, it is equally incumbent that
teachers recognize the individual differences of students. Certainly, culture and language may
contribute to behaviors and attitudes exhibited by students. For example, some cultures forbid
children to engage in direct eye contact with adults; thus, when these children refuse to look at
the teacher, they are not being defiant but practicing their culture. However, for teachers to
ascribe particular characteristics to a student solely because of his/her ethnic or racial group
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demonstrates just as much prejudice as expecting all students to conform to mainstream cultural
practices. Moreover, because each student is unique, learning needs will be different.
Recognizing these distinctions enhances the ability of the teacher to address the individual needs
of the students. The key is to respond to each student based on his/her identified strengths and
weaknesses, and not on preconceived notions about the student’s group affiliation.
Validate students’ cultural identity in classroom practices and instructional materials:
Teachers should use textbooks, design bulletin boards and implement classroom activities
culturally supportive of their students. When the school-assigned textbooks and other
instructional materials perpetuate stereotypes or fail to adequately represent diverse groups
teachers must supplement instruction with resources rich in diversity and sensitive in portrayal of
individuals from different backgrounds. By utilizing images and practices familiar to students,
teachers can capitalize on the strengths students bring to school. The more students experience
familiar practices in instruction and are allowed to think differently, the greater the feeling of
inclusion and the higher the probability of success. For example, in some communities, members
work together in a supportive manner to accomplish many tasks in their daily lives. Reflecting
these home practices in instructional approach, such as the use of cooperative learning increases
the likelihood of success for these students.
Educate students about the diversity of the world around them: As the “village” in which
students live becomes more global, they are challenged to interact with people from various
backgrounds. When students are ignorant about the differences of other groups, there is a greater
probability of conflicts. Particularly in the classroom where student diversity is increasing,
students need the skills to relate to each other positively, regardless of cultural and linguistic
differences. Teachers need to provide students with learning opportunities (e.g., have students
interview individuals from other cultures; link students to email pals from other communities and
cultures) so that they might become more culturally knowledgeable and competent when
encountering others who are different. Furthermore, students will develop an appreciation for
other groups when they learn of the contributions of different peoples to the advancement of the
human race. A word of caution, this requires active research and planning by teachers so that
cultural stereotypes are not inadvertently reinforced.
Promote equity and mutual respect among students: In a classroom of diverse cultures,
languages and abilities, it is imperative that all students feel fairly treated and respected. When
students are subjected to unfair discrimination because of their differences, the results can be
feelings of unworthiness, frustration or anger, often resulting in low achievement. Teachers need
to establish and maintain standards of behavior that require respectful treatment of all in the
classroom. Teachers can be role models, demonstrating fairness and reminding students that
difference is normal. Further, teachers need to monitor what types of behaviors and
communication styles are rewarded and praised. Oftentimes these behaviors and ways of
communicating are aligned with cultural practices. Care must be taken so as not to penalize a
student’s behavior just because of a cultural difference.
Assess students’ ability and achievement validly: The assessment of students’ abilities and
achievement must be as accurate and complete as possible if effective instructional programing
is to occur. This can only be accomplished when the assessment instruments and procedures are
valid for the population being assessed. In today’s schools students possess differences in culture
and language that might predispose them to different communication practices and even different
test-taking skills. Hence, assessment instruments should be varied and suited to the population
being tested. When this does not occur, invalid judgments about students’ abilities or
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achievement are likely to result. Further, tests that are not sensitive to students’ cultural and
linguistic background will often merely indicate what the students don’t know (about the
mainstream culture and language) and very little about what they do. Thus, the opportunity to
build on what students do know is lost.
Foster a positive interrelationship among students, their families, the community and school:
When students come to school they bring knowledge shaped by their families and community;
they return home with new knowledge fostered by the school and its practitioners. Students’
performance in school will likely be affected by the ability of the teacher to negotiate this home-
community-school relationship effectively. When teachers tap into the resources of the
community by inviting parents and other community members into the classroom as respected
partners in the teaching-learning process, this interrelationship is positively reinforced. To
further strengthen their bond with the students and their community, teachers might even
participate in community events where possible. Moreover, everyone benefits when there is
evidence of mutual respect and value for the contributions all can make to educate the whole
student.
Motivate students to become active participants in their learning: Teachers must encourage
students to become active learners who regulate their own learning through reflection and
evaluation. Students who are actively engaged in their learning ask questions rather than accept
information uncritically. They self-regulate the development of their knowledge by setting goals,
evaluating their performance, utilizing feedback, and tailoring their strategies. For example, by
examining his or her learning patterns, a student may come to realize that reviewing materials
with visual aids enhances retention, or that studying with a partner helps to process the
information better. It is important, therefore, that teachers structure a classroom environment
conducive to inquiry-based learning, one that allows students to pose questions to themselves, to
each other, and to the teacher.
Encourage students to think critically: A major goal of teaching is to help students become
independent thinkers so that they might learn to make responsible decisions. Critical thinking
requires students to analyze (i.e., examine constituent parts or elements) and synthesize (i.e.,
collect and summarize) information, and to view situations from multiple perspectives. When
teachers provide opportunities for students to engage in this kind of reasoning, students learn
how to think “outside the box.” More important, these students learn to think for themselves.
These students are less likely to accept stereotypes and to formulate opinions based on
ignorance. To foster these skills, teachers might devise “what if” scenarios, requiring students to
think about specific situations from different viewpoints.
Challenge to strive for excellence as defined by their potential: All students have the potential
to learn, regardless of their cultural or linguistic background, ability or disability. Many students
often stop trying because of a history of failure. Others, disenchanted with a low-level or
irrelevant curriculum, work just enough to get by. Teachers have a responsibility to continually
motivate all students by reminding them that they are capable and by providing them with a
challenging and meaningful curriculum. Low teacher expectations will yield low student
performance. It is important to engage students in activities that demonstrate how much they can
learn when provided with appropriate assistance. As students progress, teachers need to
continually “raise the bar,” giving students just the right amount of assistance to take them one
step higher, thereby helping students to strive for their potential.
Assist students in becoming socially and politically conscious: Teachers must prepare students
to participate meaningfully and responsibly not only in the classroom but also in society.
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 Meaningful and responsible participation requires everyone to critically examine societal policies
and practices, and to work to correct injustices that exist. Students must be taught that if the
world is to be a better place where everyone is treated fairly, then they have to work to make it
so. This is their responsibility as citizens of their country and inhabitants of the earth. To foster
this consciousness, teachers might have students write group or individual letters to politicians
and newspaper editors voicing their concerns about specific social issues; or students might
participate in food or clothing drives to help people less fortunate.

To sum up this lesson, a reflective practitioner should instead examine these regularities and
work to make them transparent in order to determine whether they are adequately serving those
intended purposes, and even whether those intended purposes are appropriate. It is particularly
essential to examine their efficacy, and to consider the following types of questions: How do we
know they are effective? Are they the best way to support students? Are they effective for a
particular student? If not, why? Beyond reflecting on our own regularities, as we engage in
assessment, intervention, and consultation, we should always strive to identify the regularities of
the specific setting (i.e., classroom, school, program, etc.) and determine their impact on the
student(s) in question. Consideration of the environments in which the students learn (both
school and nonschool) should be a standard practice in all assessment and intervention cases in
view of their implications for learning and behavior (Sullivan & AVant, 2009).

Put another way, being part of meaningful change will require acting as instructional consultants,
systems consultants, mental health practitioners, and children’s advocates to ensure that the
schools in which we work are transformed to be responsive to the needs of the diverse students
we are here to serve. This will necessitate working to ensure that various parts of the school
system work together to foster equitable outcomes via a shared vision of equity, effective
leadership and teaching, involvement of stakeholders at all levels, ongoing evaluation and
reflection, and a commitment to continuous improvement in order to create system capacity in
which personnel, resources, and professional effort are aligned with the shared purpose of
fostering improved educational access, participation, and outcomes for all. On the other hand,
these inequalities in access, opportunity, and outcomes suggest that our educational systems may
not be organized to adequately support the learning of an increasingly diverse student population.
Given that all demographic indicators suggest that the trend toward increasingly multicultural
populations will only continue, the need to create systems that are responsive to student diversity
is imperative.

What Are the Implications of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to us? Teachers have a
responsibility to all their students to ensure that all have an equal opportunity to achieve to the
best of their ability. If instruction reflects the cultural and linguistic practices and values of only
one group of students, then the other students are denied an equal opportunity to learn
(Remember the trends of our educational system in the Imperial and Dergue period).
Instruction that is culturally responsive addresses the needs of all learners. The educational
system plans, the curriculum for schools, and teachers as their “institutional agents” transfer the
prescribed content to their students.

Although the curriculum may be dictated by the school system, teachers teach it. Where the
curriculum falls short in addressing the needs of all students, teachers must provide a bridge;
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where the system reflects cultural and linguistic insensitivity, teachers must demonstrate
understanding and support. In short, teachers must be culturally responsive, utilizing materials
and examples, engaging in practices, and demonstrating values that include rather than exclude
students from different backgrounds. By so doing, teachers fulfill their responsibility to all their
students (Richards & Others, 2006).

Case Study 9 Mr. Chalachew Practice in work Place

Mr. Chalachew, one of Ms. Almaz's colleagues has noticed drastic improvement in the general behavior and class
conduct of Ms. Almaz's students since she's implemented a few culturally responsive pedagogical techniques into
her lesson plans. Mr. Chalachew is extremely impressed and ponders on the potential of such techniques to help
improve his students' behavior, but is reluctant implement such techniques into his lesson plan. What could be
potentially holding Mr. Chalachew back from implementing character techniques of his own into his current
curriculum?
a. Doing so has the potential to interfere with and/or ruin a preexisting state exam preparation schedule.
b. That implementing such techniques will actually help improve his students' behavior.
c. That his colleagues will judge him for blending character education into his formal curriculum.
d. He feels that character education techniques are not as likely to work on his class of fifth graders as well as it
did for Ms. Almaz's class second graders.
Discuss with your peer and check the answer at the end of this unit.

Lesson Five
4.5. Diversity Management in Schools and Education
Activity 4.6. Discussion
 How can teachers involve families from diverse backgrounds to support
classroom instruction?
 In what ways do you draw a lesson plan upon parents’ knowledge and
experiences in students’ learning activities? Very Nice!

Dear Learner! This is the last lesson in this unit. Until know you have seen what diversity and
differences means and the cultural values and practices of the community. You have also studied
the importance or purpose of accommodating diversity and cultural values of the community. We
have seen similarly what culturally responsive pedagogical practices looks like. In this last
lesson, you will learn about how diversity management applied in schools and education system
as whole. Have a nice reading time!

Schools are established in many societies of the world so as to instill in the students those skill’s
which will afford them the opportunity of taking their rightful positions in the community; but
this function cannot be adequately accomplished without the assistance of the home because both
the home and the school perform complimentary functions in the moral and intellectual
development of the child. This means that the child cannot be educated in a vacuum or in
isolation. Therefore, for a child to be educated there must be interaction between him/her and
his/her physical and social environment. By this we mean that education is the development of
personality. It is something which goes on both inside and outside the home and in the school. In
other words, education is an activity of the whole community.

This means that education is used in the transmission of the cultural values. One important
implication of looking at education as the transmitter of cultural values is the fact that education
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can be influenced by the culture of the community in which it takes place. For this reason, one
may infer that for a child to be educated, he/she must be influenced by his/her environment and,
in turn, be capable of influencing it. And it is only by the concept of the continuous interaction of
the individual and his/her community that the development of personality can be properly
understood. We have noted above that education is a means through which the cultural values of
a particular community are transmitted from one generation to another. Through this process, the
community is able to achieve basic social conformity and ensure that its traditional values,
beliefs, attitudes and aspirations are maintained and preserved.

For this purpose, reaching out to and connecting with families of different cultural backgrounds
requires that educators develop an understanding of cultural differences, demonstrate respect for
the differing values and behaviors of diverse families, and become aware of the unique
communication styles of the various cultural groups that are represented in their programs.
Moreover, educators working with culturally diverse families “need to move beyond stereotypes
that may be grounded in their own limited frame of reference” while they “move beyond cultural
knowledge and develop an understanding of how each individual family expresses its culture”
(Carter, 2003). To do this, we should have to envisage different mechanisms at national and
grassroots level.

Then, when we are looking at macro-level, top management should have to see different
mechanisms to enhance or accommodate diversity and cultural practices of the community.
Among this, policies may address the following:
 adapting materials and activities to accommodate the needs of families of all
backgrounds, languages, and circumstances;
 emphasizing family and community outreach;
 involving families in school planning and decision-making processes;
 training teachers to work effectively with families; and
 Offering to help families build their own capacities to support their children’s
schooling (Boethel, 2003).

At the middle level, recommendations for building relationships among schools, communities,
and families include:
• Adopt formal school- and district-level policies that promote family involvement,
including an explicit focus on engaging families who reflect the full diversity of the
student population;
• Demonstrate active and ongoing support from the school principal;
• Honor families’ hopes and concerns for their children;
• Acknowledge both commonalities and differences among students and families;
• Strengthen school staff capacity to work well with families;
• Provide supports to help particularly minority families (if any) understand how schools
work and what’s expected of both families and students;
• Make outreach a priority; take the extra steps necessary to make it possible for families to
get involved at school, as well as at home;
• Provide families with training and resources to support early literacy;
• Help families use specific communication and monitoring strategies to support their
children’s learning; and
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 • Encourage and support student involvement in a range of school- and community-
sponsored extracurricular and after-school activities (Boethel, 2003).

At the grassroots level, school principals can show their support by:
• communicating often with families (in their native language) through school newsletters,
bulletins, and other written materials;
• stress the importance of outreach and “welcoming” practices or important elements in
any outreach plan;
• ensuring that families and school staffs can communicate in the language with which
family members are most comfortable;
• post welcoming signs and other information in the languages spoken in the community;
• making it as easy as possible for families to participate in school activities; for example,
schedule meetings to accommodate working parents; work with volunteers or
community-based organizations to help with child care and transportation;
• participating in community activities, such as church and social or civic events, is another
way of getting to know, and becoming known by, the varied members of the school’s
community;
• parents partnerships through daily communication, building mutual trust, working to
understand parents’ preferences, and respecting cultural and family differences; and
• Members of each child’s family are encouraged to be involved in ways in which they feel
comfortable (Boethel, 2003).
Finally, at a school level, especially for teachers strengthen school staffs’ capacity to work well
with families has paramount outcomes. Among the strategies used at this level, the following are
important pointes to be considered:
• Teachers need help to build both understanding and practical strategies for engaging
effectively with families, particularly when those families’ backgrounds and life
circumstances are quite different from their own;
• The staff will respect cultural diversity;
• The staff will include all children in all opportunities, speaking favorably about variations
in physical characteristics and cultural heritage;
• The staff will respect the dignity of each family and its culture, customs, and beliefs; and
• The staff will provide the community with high-quality, culturally sensitive early
childhood programs and services (Boethel, 2003).

From the above statements, we can understand that acknowledge both commonalities and
differences among students and families is the main role of educational leaders found at any
level. Hence, differences do exist in families’ experiences, cultural values and practices, and
world views. However, seeking common ground while acknowledging and respecting
differences is a challenging but essential process—for everyone involved. People learn from the
culture how to act and often times what to feel and think (Boethel, 2003).

To conclude this lesson, the need to improve academic achievement among “diverse” student
populations— is one of the most persistent and challenging issues that education faces. Some
studies suggest that, in seeking to close the achievement gap, it is necessary to address the
complex interactions among families, communities, and schools. Focusing on only one of these
factors is not enough. Here, leadership is both dynamic competence and a relational process,
105
which require specific skills and capabilities for envisioning, setting aspirations, and for
motivating others. Then, it has been suggested that leadership style must be adjusted according to
the situation to ensure organizational effectiveness. Similarly, we should have to consider also it
is logical to expect that the type education given in each community will change from time to
time as the community changes. Hence, the cultural assessment would enable the schools to
analyze the gap between the prevailing and desired culture. Identification of such gaps would
help organizations in developing interventions to realign the existing culture with the desired
one.

Unit Summary
Dear Learner! How do you get this unit? I am sure you have got some valuable information
with regard to diversity and cultural practices of the community. Social background factors such
as race/ethnicity, language, family income, parental education, and family structure are
associated with various levels of educational access and different educational outcomes. Such
factors are interrelated, however, and must be examined jointly when trying to understand the
effect of any single factor on education. This unit also introduces students to themes and
concepts of cultural studies, an area of study where we examine culture as something that is
actively produced and deliberated by different people in different socio-political and geo-
political contexts. However, the school can also use these practices for its own educational
mission and be a privileged institution where existing societal multilingualism and individual
plurilingualism are welcomed, valued and built upon, thus contributing to social inclusion. To
make school setting authentic public places, where students from different backgrounds can take
part in conversations and share experiences that help them develop an understanding of the
perspectives of other people. Here, we have seen that formal classroom activities and interactions
with diverse peers in the informal school environment must prompt students to think in
pluralistic and complex ways, and to encourage them to become committed to life-long civic
action. For diverse students to learn from each other and become culturally competent citizens
and leaders of a diverse democracy, institutions of education have to go beyond simply
increasing enrollment of student of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. These institutions
must also attend to both the quality of school racial climate and actual interactions among
diverse students. For this purpose, multiculturalism must move beyond basic knowledge and
appreciation of diversity and cultural difference to embody responsiveness to difference in order
to facilitate real change. In this unit we have seen also a culturally responsive perspective
embraces the varying sociocultural histories and experiences that students come from and
legitimizes their funds of knowledge and lived experiences. Here, we have got important lessons
with regard to school practitioners should think about how students and families are involved in
defining the norms and expectations within a school. Similarly, the unit emphasizes that we
should encourage knowledge and skill building in the areas necessary for cultural responsiveness
throughout our schools; consider learning professional development activities for teachers and
administrators. The family support principles that are particular to the information in this unit
include among others are respond to family cultural preferences and values and provide concrete
help for real-life problems.

Answers: Case Study 5 = d. Case study 6 = a.

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Review Questions
Part I: Choose the correct answer and write the letter on the space provided.
____ 1. Culturally diverse classroom should have to include the following:
a. Display articles that discuss diverse cultures
b. Use cooperative learning and activities
c. Build a classroom community where all are treated with respect
d. All
____ 2. Among the following which one is not a culturally responsive instruction activity?
a. Assess students’ ability and achievement validly
b. Encourage students to think critically
c. Promote equity and mutual respect among students
d. All
e. None
____ 3. Which one of the following is not features of culture?
a. Cultural behaviors are rooted in groups
b. Culture is a set of rules for behavior
c. Culture is characteristic of groups
d. All
____ 4. Which one of the following concepts is incorporated in diversity?
a. Social Justice
b. Human Rights
c. Multiculturalism
d. All
____ 5. Schools that are successful in addressing diversity and cultural environment are able to:
a. stress personal contact with families
b. foster communication with families
c. build on the cultural values of families
d. All except A
e. All
Part II: Write True if the statement is correct and False if the statement is incorrect on the
space provided.
____ 1. Some of the factors of diversity may be visible while others are less visible.
_____ 2. Changes over time in the composition of students in terms family structure affect the
social context of education.
_____ 3. Culture comprises ideology, value systems, mores as well as materially derived
products.
_____ 4. If instruction reflects the cultural practices of only one group of students, then the other
students are denied an equal opportunity to learn.
______5. Every school should have to have a space open to the plurality of languages.
Part III: Write short answers for the following questions on the space provided.
1. Write down three major responsibilities of top authorities with regard to diversity
management.

______________________________________________________________________________
2. Explain the rationale for why we celebrate diversity.
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______________________________________________________________________________
3. List down three areas of institution dimension to make culturally responsive reforms at macro-
level of education system.

______________________________________________________________________________

Case Analyses
Dear Learner! Read the following case study enthusiastically and then examine the teacher’s role
as a socializing agent along with his/her bidirectional relationship with the student and its impact
on learning.

Case Study 10: Who was your best teacher and who was your worst?
My best teacher was Ms. Beletech* in seventh grade. She was very handsome; you could easily look at her all day
and absorb whatever she was saying. I loved her because she was genuinely interested in us, her students. She
would ask us what we planned to do with our lives; you just wanted to succeed to have her approval. I continued to
return to my old junior high school, even when I was in college, just to tell her of my accomplishments. My worst
teacher was Mr. Kurabachew* in high school. He taught chemistry, the first class in which I failed an exam. It
seemed like he enjoyed yelling at us, as a class and individually, more than he liked teaching. He especially chose
the girls in the class to belittle for achievement efforts or behavior. Once, he made me do time in detention because
I turned around to lend the person seated behind me a pencil. I was too intimidated regarding my scientific
abilities to choose physics to meet my science requirement the next year.
Source: Berns, R.M. 2010. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support (8 th ed.). Belmont:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p 232.
* The names were changed to preserve and show cultural responsive pedagogy.

Dear Learner! In order to understand the teacher’s influence on culturally responsive pedagogy
make some kind of observation in your work place you will have the opportunity to reflect on
this issue during the face to face program, therefore, based on your findings, you are going to
give concrete answers for the questions stated below.
1. Choose two primary school classrooms (same grade) to observe. One should be
primarily teacher-directed, or traditional; the other should be primarily learner-directed,
or modern. (You may have to go to two different schools.)
2. Describe the physical arrangement of each classroom environment.
3. Describe the activity going on during the time of your observation in each classroom.
4. Describe the social interaction (for example, warm/hostile, flexible/inflexible,
caring/uncaring) between the teacher and children in each classroom. Note teachers’
responses to gender and ethnic diversity (and disability, if included).
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 5. Can you draw any conclusions regarding the socialization of the children in each
classroom?
6. Describe differences in teacher–student interaction based on gender, cultural
background, and socioeconomic status including how learning is impacted.
7. Define “readiness” to learn and how teachers and schools can encourage children’s
readiness to learn. Define and discuss influences on achievement motivation.
8. What values are important to you? Because values and morals involve making choices,
complete the forced choice exercise that follows.
9. Do different social groups and cultures have varying concepts of “goodness”?
10. List the values, beliefs, or attitudes supported by your cultural group. List the values,
beliefs, or attitudes supported by your religion and make a concluding remark based on
your inquiry. Very Nice!

Methods of Delivery
In teaching this unit, the course instructor may start by posing questions and brainstorming
followed by group discussions and reflections. Finally the instructor may give a brief lecture.

Students’ Activities
Students are expected reflect on issues that are related to diversity, differences and cultural
values and practices of the community. They are also expected to reflect on the purpose of
accommodating diversity and cultural values of the community and identify what measures
should be taken at the school and education system. This can be done through brain storming,
group discussions and reflections. Therefore, students should be grouped in to teams, discuss on
issues and present their reflection.

Instructional Facility Required

• Laptop, LCD, flip charts and others.
Unit Assessment
Continuous assessment, which based on the evaluation of group presentations and individual
participation are more appropriate to assess students’ learning progress for this unit.

Mandatory Reading Materials for the Unit

Boethel, M. 2003. Diversity School, Family and Community Connections. Texas: SEDL.
BC-MOE (British Columbia-Ministry of Education). 2008. Diversity in BC Schools: A
Framework (Rev. ed.).BC-MOE.
Richards, H.V.; Brown, F. & Forde, T.B. 2006. Addressing Diversity in Schools: Culturally
Responsive Pedagogy. Tempe, Arizona: NCCREST.
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Sullivan, A.L. & A'Vant, E. 2009. Multicultural Affairs: On the Need for Cultural
Responsiveness. NASP Communiqué, Vol. 38, 3.

Supplementary reading materials for the Unit

Carter, S. 2003. Educating our Children Together: A Sourcebook for Effective Family- School-
Community Partnerships. New York: CADRE.
Ferguson, C. 2005. Reaching Out to Diverse Populations: What Can Schools Do to Foster
Family-School Connections? Austin, Texas: National Center for Family and Community
Connections with Schools.
Sharma, S.K. & Sharma, A. 2010. Examining the Relationship between Organizational Culture
and Leadership Styles. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, January
2010, Vol.36, No.1, 97-105.
Swafford, M.D. & Dainty, H.T. 2009. Learning Environment: Respecting Diversity and
Exceptionality. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education, 27, 45-59.
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 UNIT FIVE
NETWORKING IN SCHOOL-COMMUNITY RELATIONS
(Time allotted: 6 hrs.)

UNIT INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner! How do you get the previous unit four? Yes, you have learned the diverse nature
of the schools and society. Especially, we have seen the cultural values and practices of the
community and discussed also about the importance of accommodating diversity and cultural
values of the community as well as cultural responsive pedagogical practices by providing the
diversity management in schools and education. This unit consists of five sections. The first
section deals with the essence of networking, lesson two is about the importance and the purpose
of establishing collaborative networking, lesson three gives emphasis to organization and
coordination of network system. The fourth section deals with problems that deter networking
and the last lesson shows you about supporting individuals and teams through networking. This
being the composition of the unit and it is a good idea to grasp the concept of networking.

Unit Learning Outcomes 

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:
 Identify major partners to school-society relations and mobilize them to support
individuals and teams.
 Develop a system that facilitates collaborative networks with schools and different
stakeholders.
 Identify major problems that affect networking.

Lesson One
5.1. The Essence of Networking
Activity 5.1. Brainstorming
 In which social areas did the effects of network society first appear?
 Where does school social work take place?
 What is the essence of networking after all?

School is conceptualized as a community of families and school personnel engaged in the

educational process. People fit into these communities in very different ways. Parents and
families have membership through their children. Teachers and other school personnel are
members with accountability to parents, children and the broader community. The success of the
 process depends on the collective and individual involvement of everyone. Because, learning is
no longer restricted to what goes on within the school walls. It is now universally accepted in
many countries that schools must relate well to their surrounding communities if they are to be
effective. In societies that have been undergoing profound economic and social restructuring, the
school’s role needs to be related directly to the changes that are taking place around it. Here, the
most important mechanism is to establish linkage or network with major stakeholders of school.
111
When we are looking the background, the formation of network society first started in the 1960s.
Network logic has an effect on all subsystems of society, yet at first, only technological and
economic changes could be detected. According to Castells (1996), the social, political and
cultural effects could only be felt some 15-20 years later. By the way what is networking?

Networks have become the most basic elements of human civilization since everyday life would
be unimaginable today without modern road, public utilities and communication networks. All
these developments have led to the network becoming one of the major areas for research into
the information society. However, the scientific investigation of social networks has been going
on for some decades it has only recently become such a popular area of research (Budapest,
2008).

When we are looking social networks in which interactions, attractions and friendly relations
related to the everyday life of people develop and resulted from relations between the individuals
that make up the networks, and influence the social and economic processes of social
cooperation taking place on social and community levels (e.g. family, neighborhood, local and
national). According to Castells (1996), the members of network society are not alienated people,
but rather individuals who cultivate highly developed systems of relationships. The value of the
individual is positively reappraised in the network society – this is one of the most distinctive
cultural characteristics of the new society. Then, when we see in terms of linkage - the network
approach can be used for analyzing relationships within smaller groups and also for analyzing
complex global systems (Budapest, 2008).

Network theory helps us to understand the ongoing process during which in the past few
decades, the interrelatedness of individuals, organizations and economic enterprises, in other
words so-called interconnectivity, has grown significantly. Here they come into contact with
each other through different organizations, clubs, associations and relationships with neighbors,
friends and acquaintances, and affect one another by the mediation of norms and values. This
social linkage has two important components:
1. the social network: friendly meetings, visits, relationships with neighbors, social events,
2. civil commitment: the willingness to participate in communities, expression of opinion,
relationships between members, participation in elections, etc. (Castells, 1996).

On the other hand, networking can be perceived not only on the level of individual or community
social relationships, but it now integrates the economic system as well. So much so that studying
the economic structure of the information society is only possible through networking. The
economic structure of the information society is called the “network economy”. The term
network economy signals that the creation of products and services, the creation of value, take
place within the networks themselves. The reason why networks operate successfully is that in
the new social and economic environment, networks are able to efficiently create knowledge and
process information, they are also able to adapt quickly to the rapidly changing global
conditions, flexibly adjusting to altered conditions. The essence of the network, in an economic
sense, is the long-term relationship of cooperation between different organizations (Budapest,
2008). When we are looking the conceptual framework of the network society, the expression
“network society” first appeared in sociology in the late 20th century. The concept became
better known through the work of Manuel Castells (Castells, 1996). According to Castells,
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 network society has a new social structure and process which is ensured by information and
communication technologies based on microelectronics. In a network society, it is with the help
of computer networks that information is created, processed and transmitted, building on the
knowledge accumulated in the network hubs.
From the study, we found that networks are established with two different characteristics:
1) networks that happen naturally, such as networks of relatives in the same residence that
have the same beliefs and problems; and
2) networks that are established by state agencies or the private sector that gradually
stimulate or arrange organizations that support the administration of activities, such as
state agency networks, state agency/community organization networks – this is our main
concern in this lesson (UNESCO, 2007).

At the same time, when we see the process for expanding linkages and networks, there are two
principal ways to expand or intensify networks. One way is to strengthen and expand
collaboration with existing partners. The other is to seek out, in response to new or emerging
community needs or opportunities, new partners and new forms of activities. The second
principal way of expanding is to look beyond the existing network of linkages and seek new
partners to further widen the organization’s (schools in our case) scope of service to areas not
hitherto tapped. On the other hand, there are examples of expanding networks undertaken by the
organization leaders themselves at the local level. There are, of course, other creative ways of
expanding linkages and networks that do not fall neatly into the above two categories. Some use
the occasion of a national imitative to expand other linkages at a local level. By providing such
an infrastructure, the options for further expansion become much greater and easier (UNESCO,
 2007). After all why we need networking?

To cope with this issue, educational systems are developing a variety of institutional measures
such as reforming teaching practices, getting parents involved and investing in specialized
professional resources. Moreover, educational systems are seeking to develop various school–
community collaborations as a new approach to respond to the academic and social problems of
children from disadvantaged communities. These developments entail links between schools and
community actors who work with children and families, including community organizations,
municipal agencies and health and welfare institutions and other organizations. These links are
intended to produce concrete measures such as programs, projects and interventions that promote
academic achievement, for example, after-school homework help services, family programs
(equipping parents), social programs (cultural, sports, recreation, socialization and violence
prevention), health programs (health education, food security, physical and mental health
intervention) and community projects (neighborhood socio-economic revitalization) (Deslandes,
2009). Castells stresses several times in his work that it is not technology that changes society,
but rather that changing social needs interact to generate the development of technology. In
Castells’ model, there were three equally important consequences of all these changes:
1. Science and innovation played a decisive role in the changes since the spread of
microelectronics made the development of new information and communication
technologies possible.
2. The labor market changed as well with the development of the network economy. The
new network firm forms require a highly qualified, flexible, independent workforce.
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 3. The internal organizational structure of the organizations changed radically according to
the logic of the network, which is our main concern (Castells, 1996).

Hence, social needs can be met through this route, and with the help of the existing network of
connections, the life of the individual and the community can be improved. Prior to analyzing the
process that led to the establishment of these linkages, it may be necessary to remember that
linkages are of many types, and the different types have dictated the different manners in which
these linkages were pursued (UNESCO, 2007). There are other motivations that give rise to
linkages and networks for schools. Even within its original mandate of education, expanding
schools’ links and contacts with local, regional, and national collaborators gives it a wider
resource base, both financially and in terms of human expertise. If, for example, a community is
concerned with health and sanitation, a strong partnership with the local representatives of the
health ministry or with local clinics provides the technical expertise that can become the basis for
the health and sanitation sessions of the school. As can be seen in the research from the six
country reports, the underlying rationale for their networks is clear: it expands the scope and
relevance of the school, giving it more visibility in the community and establishing it firmly as a
true centre of any community activity that is learning-oriented and relevant to the community’s
needs. For the partners, it translates into synergy, so that needless duplication of facilities,
organization, and effort can be avoided by making use of what a school already has to offer
(UNESCO, 2007).

In general, it can then expand its range of activities and services to be of use to the community in
many other ways. But for this to happen, it is necessary for school to identify partners and
collaborators with the necessary expertise, contacts, and resources to support expanded activities.
Hence, the need to establish linkages with partners and develop a network of such linkages to
make schools truly learning hubs and magnets for a variety of activities to serve the community,
address its issues, and meet its needs. As Budapest (2008) point out that we must go beyond the
definition of space-centered, neighborhood-based communities, towards a definition based on
partnership networks: that the borders of a community reach well beyond the actual dwelling
area. Because, networking has become the foundation of the new economic structure of
information society, where human knowledge and information-flow in digital space and the
complex system of connections take the place of traditional elements of capital. The essence of
the network can be grasped in the long-term relationships of cooperation and coopetition
between economic operators. Networking appears not only among independent organizations,
but also within individual organizations as well. Relationships of subordination and
superordination are increasingly replaced by horizontal organization.

To sum up this lesson, a critical concept for school leaders and staff interested in improving
school-family-community connections to improve student learning is to understand there are
many ways schools can link with families and community members. It is important to also
realize that different connections will have different results. Therefore, the initiatives for a
partnership must come from the school. Parents and other stakeholders are generally interested
but adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude. The core elements in the development of a cooperative
relationship between parents and school are parental involvement and parental participation.
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Lesson Two
5.2. Importance and the Purpose of Establishing
Collaborative Networks
Activity 5.2. Discussion (4 minutes)
 What do you think the importance of creating linkage or networks?
 What the purpose of establishing collaborative networks?

Dear Learner! Have you got some basic concepts of networking or linkage? You said Yes, Very
nice. When we say popular participation, it consists of restoring the power of local people to take
the initiative and the decision of formulating and implementing activities and programs
concerning their own future. It consists of recognizing that the people are creators and full-
fledged partners in development. Promoting popular participation, therefore, means instituting a
partnership, a contractual relationship among the various agents of development, in particular
between the people concerned and those intervening from the outside (Shaeffer, 1994). Hence,
the strength of the network lies in the fact that the bilateral relations between the members are
embedded in the network, and their value depends on the value of the network. The greater a
network is the more valuable it is. The various participants in these networks – small enterprises
as well as large organizations, self-employed persons, state, university and company research
institutes – all have a place of their own within the network (Budapest, 2008). Therefore, in this
lesson we are going to identify potential benefits of partnerships and networking, and the
conditions for successful development. For better understanding, let’s start from general to
specific benefits of networking by looking the following case study.
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 Case Study 11: Concept for Entrepreneurial and Educational Excellence:As an Open Learning Community
It is the month of family festivities and religious ceremonies. Approaching the school grounds from the north of Gianyar, the natural
paradise of Bali unfolds before your eyes: rice terraces, rain forests, far below a rushing river, palm trees, small temples and cliffs
with natural breakthroughs affording a spectacular view of slopes, hills, and the glittering irrigation arteries amongst the green.
This is a school? It's rather a Global Village, with a larger radius of other villages and learning centers grouped around it. A school
does not have to look like a school. The architecture of the houses and assembly rooms of the village show how strict adherence to
tradition can be combined with ecological and quality design principles. Conventional classrooms are nowhere to be seen, no rows
of desks and chairs for passive students, no teacher playing circus tamer out in front. No, one is first struck by the mixture of
liveliness and concentration in the faces of these 400 pupils living here: small teams working together intensively on specific
projects, others working alone or in small groups, acquiring systematic knowledge. The Centers of Excellence (COE) are the heart
of the school - resource stations, places where entrepreneurial ideas in the broadest sense of the word can emerge, to be
implemented here or elsewhere. There are classrooms too, but they seem more like stimulating retreats, inviting you to come and
study the subjects offered there. Students can work and communicate with the teachers in person or via computer, and use their
laptops to gain access to library resources all over the world. The COE are expressions of a culture of entrepreneurship. This month
the Center of Cultural Heritage and Economics, cooperating with fashion houses of the Asian Pacific region, is sponsoring a special
show: "The difference is beautiful". Another group of pupils is working with small-scale farmers near Batannyuh, helping them to
develop their production of residue-free rice. In the Center for Culture Authentic Tourism, selected guests competent in the language
and appropriate fields of religious history are working under expert guidance in the attempt to reconstruct written materials from
the works of the deceased High Priest Kakek, with the help of his successors, in order to assure the passing on of religious
traditions. In August the International Academy associated with the school was intensely involved with three choreographers, who
closely cooperated with native masters to further develop Balinese dances. Working with local dance groups, they choreographed
new dances using themes from the history of Bali. The strengths and weaknesses of the World Trade Organization are discussed in
the Think Tank of the Academy: two economists, participants in the round of talks, work with students to devise standards and
regulations for those arbitrators required in this world in order to guarantee that the market remains a level playing field. Daily
sport activities culminate in a weekend championship tournament in Pencak Silat and Kajak: a slalom event in the whitewater
current of the nearby river. Whoever wants to apply knowledge creatively has to gain it sufficiently beforehand. Hence subjects and
subject interrelations are both extensively and intensively studied and good qualifying exams written. National and international
curricula are applied, but whenever appropriate with reference to real-life problems, in order to assess possibilities of application
not in simulated, but in economically, socially, and ecologically meaningful projects. Think globally, act locally: the Open Learning
Community is connected with the whole world, works for international understanding, prepares both for national and world
citizenship, yet maintains a local profile: Bali is reflected in the school curriculum as well as in daily life, with its cultural heritage
and its questions concerning non-destructive modernization. This involves a network of various complementing learning venues,
each designed with the input gained from national and international expertise. The National and International Boarding School Bali
(NISBA) starts out with the claim of competing to be the best school in the world. It doesn't strive for exclusiveness, but r ather
aspires to be a transferable model: other similar communities should emerge in other places on the globe. Elsewhere there are
enough children, parents, and innovative teachers who dream of a new kind of school setting which can truly combine living and
learning, stimulate the joy of discovery, and release human creative powers, thus optimally encouraging and promoting the best in
young people.
Source: Zimmer, J. 1998. Transforming Community Schools into Open Learning Communities. Knutsford/ England: ICEA, p 51.

Generally, the benefits of linkages and networks should be obvious from the expressed rationale
for these networks. Thus, it is to be expected that those schools that have extensive networks
provide a greater number and variety of services to the community. This, is turn, enhances its
visibility, credibility, and value to the local community. Aside from the expected benefits, some
countries have reported welcome but unexpected side benefits resulting from their collaboration
with linkages and networks (UNESCO, 2007). Social scientists perceive that closer ties with
neighbors and major stakeholders form a central part of interpersonal relationships. This is
because, in the first case, it is from individual interest that relationships are built, in the second
case, relationships are formed despite the fact that it is not the general public that develops new
social connections, but the individuals, yet the whole community gains from the benefits of
network mechanisms. It is by realizing their common interests that people start to cooperate, the
cultural traditions of cooperation differ from country to country, and what is more, they might
vary even within smaller regions.
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Second, through networking, we acquire skills and competencies; connect with others and our
communities, and find purpose and meaning in life. Third, from the results of the study, we
found that the most obvious benefits of networks were in the form of resources that helped
schools in their administration and operation. These included budget, personnel, materials and
equipment. Apart from these, network linkages resulted in the exchange of knowledge between
members of internal networks and members of external networks. This resulted in the energy for
thought and new knowledge factors that resulted from the integration of deep background
knowledge. Apart from the direct benefits that have already been mentioned, we found that
network organizations were developed from pseudo networks to become allied networks that
could coordinate, link, create relationships and create activities based on mutual benefits
(UNESCO, 2007).
Specifically, the following components were identified by the community learning centers
surveyed as key factors behind positive changes that emanate from networking and linkages:
 Knowledge of the availability of services is increased;
 Increased knowledge results in new (and higher levels of) demand for additional or
existing services;
 Strengthening community learning centers through linkages and networks;
 There is increased access to the flow of information;
 The scope of communication is increased;
 It is possible to provide services at lower cost; and
 Capacity is enhanced (UNESCO, 2007).

Another advantage, building partnerships or networks is important not only to build trust within
communities, but also between communities and their partners. Genuine partnerships are based
on an understanding that not all parties bring the same resources. A balanced understanding of
what works and why it works is needed. For example, selecting teachers from the local
community who are known and accepted by the community is as important as providing teachers
with the right training. In addition, partnerships need to be developed incrementally with mutual
gains and contributions from all partners. The indirect benefits of community participation in
education programs can be great, particularly when working with displaced communities that
need to restore relationships. Sufficient time for the development of community networks should
be integrated within Community Service Organizations (CSOs) or NGO-initiated community
education programs, working at the level of households where necessary. This in turn is likely to
increase levels of ownership and to extend the reach of the education program. Partnerships
between communities and with the local government or external agencies should be utilized to
advocate for education and integrate community-based approaches into national policy or
strategy. This needs to be done with careful consultation to ensure that communities maintain
ownership at the local community level whilst also enabling initiatives to be scaled up.

Family and other major stakeholders’ involvement in schools is therefore central to high quality
education and is part of the core business of schools. Hence, when we see more specifically, the
benefits of networking and partnerships are:
 provide an opportunity for cross-curricular links throughout the school which
demonstrate that each specialism can affect the development of others;
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 strengthen the relationships between schools in the same area through cross-phase or
cross-disciplinary projects;
raise the profile of the school and the part it plays in the social, cultural and economic life
within the community; and
develop the school itself as a community by building strong and supportive relationships
between students, staff, parents and governors (NACCCE, 1999).

From the stand point of staff development:

 develop professional relationships with a wide variety of other skilled adults beyond the
school;
 develop and promote a wider understanding of their subject from different social and
cultural perspectives;
 deepen their understanding of pupils in different social and cultural situations;
 develop their understanding of different disciplines and how they can interact with each
other; and
 try out new teaching strategies (NACCCE, 1999).

For students - effective partnerships can help students to:

 develop their understanding of the wider community, and their roles within it;
 develop skills and techniques for creative work through contact with skilled adults;
 deepen their understanding of different disciplines and their practical application;
 experience working as part of a team;
 build self-confidence and self-esteem in learning new skills, meeting new people, sharing
ideas; and
 increase confidence and expertise in making judgements and evaluating experience with
a wider range of people (NACCCE, 1999).

Benefits for partners - There are benefits, too, for the organizations and individuals who work
with schools in these ways. These include:
 sharing skills and expertise with young people and adults in a variety of new contexts;
 developing their own knowledge and skills;
 developing and reflecting on their own work and methods in new contexts;
 developing communication and teaching skills with young people and adults;
 finding stimulation for their own creative work through partnerships with other
professionals and young people; and
 the players have found this work not only immensely stimulating, but also beneficial to
their playing in general concert work - working collaboratively with professionals in
other disciplines (NACCCE, 1999).

 Here, we can confront with challenging question: How can collaborative networking support
children’s development? To be effective in supporting children’s development, community
child-care services or schools should be comprehensive in that they link with health, nutrition,
social services, and education for children and their parents. Such collaboration strengthens the
immediate environment of vulnerable children, making them more resilient to stress. Research
demonstrates that effective schools have high levels of parental and community involvement.
This involvement is strongly related to improved student learning, attendance and behavior.
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 Hence, shared or collaborative leadership is successfully achieved when parents and
professionals build effective partnerships and share responsibility, expertise, and leadership in
decisions being made that affect families and communities. Ideally, this shared leadership in
communities’ works toward school readiness by sharing a vision for young children and taking
the opportunity to exchange different perspectives, identify common interests, and discover
solutions to reach this vision and the community goals.
Involving parents in leadership roles and in collaborative leadership with professionals can
strengthen:
 Individuals, parents, families, and professionals through collaboration and empowerment
and experience;
 Early care and education in providing appropriate learning experiences and supporting
parent involvement;
 Service systems that provide services to young children and families and help them be
ready to learn;
 Positive outcomes for young children and their families;
 Initiatives and policies in support of families and young children; and
 Program governance, school reform and community organization efforts to increase
student achievement, school success, and community development (Hepburn, 2004).

To conclude this potion, developing powerful and effective connections between schools,
families and communities is hard work. Yet, time and time again, studies demonstrate schools
across the world are able to reach beyond their boundaries to successfully link with families and
community groups to better the educational outcomes of all children. Successful engagement
initiatives focused on improving student learning and developing meaningful relationships with
family and community partners can achieve great results. Developing a school system and
culture that expects supports and sustains family and community connections to improve student
achievement takes time but is well-worth the investment.

Lesson Three
5.3. Organization and Coordination of Network System
Activity 5.3. Discussion (3 minutes)
 What core competencies in networking, partnership, leadership, and shared
decision-making are desirable for parents and other partners of young children?

Dear Learner! This is the third lesson of this unit. In this lesson, we are going to see what type
of organization and coordination of network system are important so as to restore and apply
participatory approach with different stakeholders. First of all, a descriptive definition of
participation programs would imply the involvement of a significant number of persons,
institutions or actions that enhance their well-being, for example, their income, security, or self-
esteem. Hence, the ideal conditions contributing towards meaningful participation can be viewed
 from different perspectives: what kind of participation is under consideration? who participates
in it? how does participation occur? At the same time, the importance of raising the following
issues is vital in order to assess the extent of community participation: who participates? what do
people participate in? why do people participate? We ask so many questions here, waiting for
some explanation or justifications. There are: cultural explanations (values, norms, and roles,
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 etc.); cognitive explanations (verbal skills and knowledge about the organizations); structural
explanations (alternatives, resources available, and the nature of benefit sought); and
implications (how the benefit contributes to the ends or principles they value) (NACCCE, 1999).

Accordingly, schools cannot achieve the required standards on their own. It is crucial to build on
existing good practice to develop a national strategy of partnerships to support schools. This
should not depend only on geographical location or the personal enthusiasms of individual
teachers. The work of schools can be supported by a wide network of other partners and
providers, including community groups, business, industry, and cultural organizations. There is
room for a huge range of partnerships and joint projects with such organizations. Some offer
one-off events to schools; others provide long-term projects or residencies.

Hence, develop a network of like-minded colleagues from whom you can seek support,
guidance, and assistance in these efforts. Remember that creating equitable systems will require
stepping outside of the realm of education to assist teachers and administrators in creating more
effective general education environments. This may entail becoming involved in planning
instruction, curriculum, policy, and discipline, as well as early intervening, academic and
behavioral referral interventions, and assessment (Sullivan & Avant, 2002). From these cases, it
is possible to describe several ways in which the more active participation by a wider range of
actors in a variety of educational activities can lead and has led to changes both in the nature of
education and among the actors themselves.

The keys to building effective partnerships, therefore entails us to:

 Create programs and initiatives focused on developing trusting, respectful and
meaningful relationships among school staff, families and community members;
 Engage diverse families and other partners by recognizing, respecting and addressing
cultural and other differences; and
 Develop a school culture that encourages involvement and addresses specific parental
and community needs (Shaeffer, 1994).

 Then, to do this, what type of collaborative organizations and structures are necessary in these
endeavour? is one of the toughest functions of any educational leader. So, let us examine
different mechanisms as stated by different practitioners. From the case study, we found that
there were two methods of linking networks:
1) Horizontal linkages: for the exchange of news and information between organizations on
the same level with the school in the community in order to coordinate and promote
cooperation with each other, avoid competition, and reduce the repetition of
activities(that is, linkages with peers, with other agencies, and with other entities not
directly linked above or below the school unit). Horizontal linkages with other agencies
and possible collaborators are largely dependent on the initiative of local leadership and
not automatically inevitable. There is a wide range of examples for this, from those
centers that have very limited horizontal linkages, to those that actively seek and expand
to a large number of linkages. It is from an analysis of the process of establishing these
linkages that this study can be most helpful.
2) Vertical linkages: for the exchange of news and information between community-level
organizations and organizations that are at a higher level – at the sub-woreda level, the
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 woreda level, the regional level or even at the national level(that is, those directly above
or directly below the schools organizational unit). By definition, the vertical linkages are
largely inevitable linkages, as often the schools are themselves created or at least initially
supported by a body (be it a government agency or CSO/NGO) above it (UNESCO,
2007).

Although not exactly a vertical linkage, “internal” linkages or networks also play important
roles. These linkages are groups that form mostly informally from within the community for
special projects or purposes. The major organizations within the community comprise groups of
community organizations that originally resulted from the public sector, including both from
individuals and from groups of people. These groups were established to solve problems within
the community itself, for example, housewives’ groups, youth groups, various groups for the
development of occupations and other organizations that were established in the beginning. The
internal networks comprise various groups and organizations like the community enterprise
group, the community cooperative group, the savings group, and the woreda administration
organization and so on (UNESCO, 2007).

Apart from this, other networks have been formed by leaders or representatives of state
organizations in order to administer the work of schools. These networks coordinate work and
request cooperation from schools. Networks that are formed this way often start from temporary
arrangements without the firm intention to enter into cooperative activities. But later, when a
linkage is formed and activities occur on a continual basis, they then become allied networks.
Here, external networks, especially state agencies such as community development agencies,
agriculture, industry, etc., have been appointed by the government to arrange activities with the
purpose of solving the problem of poverty. These networks participate in the administration
together with internal community networks by having community leaders, who are the chairmen
or members of the school committee, as the core in the linking of the networks (UNESCO,
2007).

Similarly, Shaeffer (1994) brought, at the school-community level three types of structures and
mechanisms can be identified which can help to encourage greater participation:
(1) within and across schools, (2) between the school and parents, and (3) more generally
between the school(s) and the community and local government.
(a) Mechanisms within and across schools - This kind of activity or organization is limited to
the 'school community'; that is, those people involved in the school itself. This includes: regular
staff meetings in schools, subject-specific panels or committees, local branches of teacher unions
or associations able, for example, to run in-service training courses, various kinds of school
discussion groups, teacher clubs, headmaster clubs, and teacher centers, school clusters, with or
without nuclear or model schools and supporting cluster offices. School clusters of various kinds
play an especially important role today in many education systems of the world, often providing
both economies of scale and helping to overcome the isolation of individual schools and teachers
through collaboration across schools.
(b) School/parent/community activities - There are a variety of ways through which the school
can open itself to parents and the community through specific activities rather than through
organized associations. While relatively low on the range of participation (with parents largely
an 'audience' at school-organized events), such activities might be useful in mobilizing parental
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 interest in what is happening in school and as a first necessary step towards the evolution of
greater and more meaningful participation. These include activities such as: open days, speech
days, and sports days; explanations to parents of methods used in schools; parent observation of
classes; school programs seen as being of benefit to local social, cultural, and economic life;
training parents in how better to assist and encourage their children at home.
(c) Structures between the school and parents - These include parent associations and PTAs.
These may be formed around individual classes, grades, and/or the entire school and may,
depending on their mandate, have the power of a school management committee or a school
board. Parent groups may also form into alumni organizations or private foundations in support
of the school. These organizations may do little more than provide a chance for a few interested
parents to listen to news about school activities and appeals for additional resources or serve as a
rubber-stamp to plans and budgets developed by school personnel. Or they may be considerably
more active, helping to establish some kind of forum for dialogue between school and parents
and a means to build and strengthen parental involvement in school life.
(d) School and community organizations: beyond the PTA - One argument against limiting
partnerships to the school community itself is that these are difficult to sustain, especially after a
particularly active cohort of parents withdraws from the organization when their children leave
school. Such turnover may affect the continuity and strength of the organization. Another
argument is that education should be seen as an integrated, location-specific whole, involving all
sectors of the community in some shared responsibility and accountability for educational
activities inside and outside of the school. Both of these arguments call for the inclusion of more
stakeholders in these organizations; that is, people from the surrounding community who are, or
should be, concerned with the quality of schooling provided to, and received by, the community's
children. Such organizations may have different names and structures. They can be a school
management committee, a board of governors, or a school board. Their members can be
nominated representatives of important formal institutions in the community (such as local
religious bodies, local government, and NGOs), individuals selected in some kind of community-
wide election, or community members chosen as representatives of often less organized interest
groups, such as women's organizations and traditional cultural societies.

Whatever the nature of services offered, such community schools usually need to work with
local education committees and councils and agree on shared goals, responsibilities, resources
and complementarities of purpose. Thus, for example, the school staff might advise and assist the
council with education and training activities in exchange for council and community assistance
in maintaining the school, monitoring pupil attendance, supervising home study, and focusing
special effort on children with learning difficulties.

After arranging organizational set up and structures, the next challenging issue is: What type of
 collaborative network systems is necessary to accommodate the above arrangement? Then, let
us look some of the recommendations stated in different literature review. Regarding this point,
UNESCO (2007) suggest the following mechanisms:
1. Formulate Formal/Legal Agreement: After initial and often informal collaborative ventures,
it would be wise to formalize the linkage and network through some sort of formal or legal
agreement, either in the form of a memorandum of understanding, or in the form of a joint
committee or task force to maintain a continuing stream of useful activities. This is at once the
last step in establishing a linkage and the first step in sustaining it. Following on this, other
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measures to assure sustainability can be undertaken. The issue of institutionalizing leadership for
the joint activity is crucial; this implies giving thought and making plans for the issue of
succession, so that when current leaders move on there is a second tier of management ready to
take over. It also includes publicizing the linkages, either by giving the project an identifiable
and hopefully catchy name or slogan, by newsletters, and by other means to signal that the
partnership is there to stay.
2. Establish and Strengthen Personal Contacts: Personal contacts cannot be overemphasized.
The operating heads of both parties concerned must continue to strike a harmonious and regular
working relationship. The on-going relationships of linkages and networks are ultimately not
relationships of abstract entities, but of real persons, and the more successful networks in the
different countries often point to specific persons whose good contacts and standing in the
community sustain the collaboration with the school partners.
3. Formulate Joint Planning: Some community learning centers ensure program sustainability
through the exercise of joint planning for the medium term. The use of calendaring events for the
remainder of the year, so that resources, expertise, and facilities can be set aside and ready for
sustained activity, is a very useful measure. Disseminating the information about the results of
the joint planning is also important. Here the use of media is important. The participation of the
school coordinator in other community activities and organizations, for example in local
government councils, is also an opportunity to speak about the linkages and further increase the
visibility and credibility of the community learning centers.
4. Ensure Community Commitment and Ownership: It is essential to have the approval of the
community (usually through the members of the school committee) and its blessings for
whatever formal arrangements and medium-term plans are created. With its approval, the school
is assured of the community’s commitment for continued participation, ownership and
enthusiasm in network collaboration.
5. Promote and Disseminate the Benefits of Networks: Finally, as a binding force for all of the
above, those responsible must not only make the collaboration succeed, but must make known
these successes. They need to regularly point out to the community, the beneficiaries, the partner
agencies, and the wider public the specific benefits of synergy, community mobilization, and the
increases in income-generating opportunities that this networking brings about. Exposing
everyone to its undeniable benefits is ultimately the surest way of ensuring sustainability.

The sum total of this mutual interaction may be described as a “multiplier effect” that increases
the ultimate magnitude of positive impact much higher than what is anticipated prima facie. It
has helped to identify community needs and prioritize intervention areas, reduce the cost of
implementation and solve difficulties with greater ease. Also, we can ensure that the balance of
power between parents and professionals is altered to enfranchise parents as equal partners.

Similarly, Carter (2003) suggested the following strategies for school communities in developing
partnerships based on each of the key dimensions of Epstein (2001) idea:
1. Create an action team with diverse membership: An action team with diverse membership,
including school, community, local organizations and family members, ensures that various
needs and interests are represented. This team takes responsibility for planning, implementing,
coordinating, and overseeing action; monitoring progress; solving problems; presenting reports;
and designing new directions for building positive connections with families and communities.
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The team works with other educators, family members, and community organizations to carry
out its responsibilities.
2. Obtain funds and other support: The action team will need a modest budget, sufficient time,
and social support to do its work. Federal, regional, and local sources can be explored to support
family involvement programs and the staff needed to coordinate selected activities.
3. Identify starting points: The action team needs to determine starting points for improving
family involvement. This may be accomplished through informal means (focus group sessions,
telephone interviews, etc.) or more formal questionnaires that solicit ideas from teachers,
administrators, family members, students and other stakeholders. Regardless of the methodology
used, the information gathered should indicate the school’s present strengths, needed changes,
expectations, sense of community, and links to goals.
4. Develop a three-year outline or strategic plan and one-year action plan: Based upon the ideas
gathered from the identification of starting points, the action team can develop a long-term,
three-year plan that includes specific steps to reach the vision of where the school wants to be in
three years with its school-family-community involvement program. Additionally, a detailed
one-year action plan should outline the first year’s work, including specific activities to be
implemented, improved, or maintained; a timeline of monthly actions; identification of
individuals responsible for and assisting with activities; indicators of how the success of the
activities will be evaluated, and other important details. The three-year outline and one-year plan
should be shared with educators, families, students, and the community.
5. Continue planning and working: Each year the action team updates the three-year outline and
develops a new one-year action plan. The team also needs to keep educators, families, students,
and the community aware of annual progress, new plans, and how they can help.

However, experiences reported in the country studies include instances where a good linkage
produces good results, but after a successful instance or two of collaboration, the network
weakens and the linkage becomes rarely utilized again. To combat this phenomenon, a number
of measures should be undertaken for the purpose of sustaining these linkages. To achieve such a
relationship, the most important step to cultivate and promote good school-community relations
is to let the school participate in the social, economic and cultural life of the community.
Because, school was a part of the community, not a separate government institution imposed on
the community (Shaeffer, 1994).

To sum up this lesson, every partner within a partnership should know precisely why they are
there, what they bring to the alliance, what to expect from others, and of course what is to be
achieved together – or in other words, what is expected of them. Unfortunately, many
partnerships lack clarification as to the roles and functions of the various partners. So, what roles
and functions are important to a partnership approach? Each individual partner usually has more
than one role and function; for example, a partner can act as a knowledge carrier, financier and
visionary at the same time. In addition, all roles and functions are important to the overall
success of the partnership. It is important that roles and functions are clarified in advance: each
partnership should discuss, precisely define and jointly decide on the roles that each partner has
and the functions that are necessary for their partnership. Not all of these roles are explicit or can
be made explicit, however. The communicative skills required by partnerships are in particular
only noticed and appreciated when they are missing from the process.
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Finally, school leaders should strive to understand "what kinds of connections make what kinds
of impact." They must also recognize that different players—students, parents, teachers,
principals, business leaders, etc.—have different goals, beliefs, and conceptions of their roles in
supporting student learning and community partnerships.

Lesson Four
5.4. Problems that Deter Networking
Activity 5.4. Discussion (2 minutes)
 Dear Learner! In your work place, I think there might be some kind of linkages or
network system. What kind of problems do you observe in such endeavour?

Dear Learner! This is the last lesson of unit five. How do you get the previous lesson? I am sure
you have got a lot of lessons with regard to organization and structure of networking as well as
collaborative of network system. Well! In this lesson, we are going to investigate the common
problems that deter networking.

Obviously, no major undertaking, no matter how successful, is without problems and obstacles.
Because, by its nature, networking is a highly difficult task always, and especially so when
working with many partners. So, let us examine some of the common problems of networking
from different perspectives.

According to Shaeffer (1994), the following factors are considered as problems that deter
networking:
1. Lack of competence, experience, and authority of head teachers and other
supervisors. Heads of schools, as well as supervisors and inspectors, are often chosen
more for seniority of tenure than for expertise and thus may have neither the knowledge
nor the status to assist their colleagues professionally. This can all lead to a lack of
teacher involvement as 'interior' actors in the school. In such instances, getting such
teachers more actively involved in school, as interior participants in educational change,
may be particularly difficult.
2. The 'loosely coupled' nature of schools in relation to the larger education system.
While schools are part of a network of central, regional, and local interests and are
heavily dependent on complementary institutions and sub-systems (training colleges,
examination systems, curriculum development centers), they are often only weakly
linked, at the end of a long chain of command, to this bureaucracy. This makes
problematic both their constructive input to any reform process and the relevance and
feasibility of any decision made by the top about different functions.

Similarly, UNESCO (2007) in strengthening community learning centers through linkages and
networks brought a synthesis of country specific reports as follows:
1) Thailand reported four specific areas as continuing challenges:
• the limitations of the leaders and key groups in the network;
• the activities that do not conform to the problems and needs of the community;
• the need for vigilance, intervention and control; and
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 • communication within the network.
2) Indonesia likewise reported four areas of difficulty:
• the lack of information, facilities, and communication among community learning
centers in initiating the networks;
• the lack of finance and capable personnel to support programs and activities in
maintaining and expanding the networks;
• the failure to accept the existence of the school forum on the part of local
government education officials in some provinces and districts; and
• the diversity of schools in their programs, community-based characteristics, and
geographical location.
3) Bangladesh reported seven areas in some detail, as can be seen below: Some of the
challenges and difficulties reported by community learning centers in establishing
linkages and networking include:
• Lack of sufficient understanding and appreciation about the role of the school at
various levels in and outside the community;
• Indifferent attitude, lack of positive response and lack of reciprocity on behalf of
some government departments/officials/individuals;
• The same (or a disguised attitude of competition) shown by some fellow NGOs;
• Lack of supportive policy provision, inconsistencies between various existing
policies, bureaucracy and corruption;
• Lack of proper communication materials, lack of research and documentation;
• Lack of skilled and trained human resources at schools (the proportion of part-
timers/volunteers is disproportionately higher and the work load is a bar; little time
and energy is left to take up new initiatives; and
• Low salary or honorarium is also a de-motivating factor.

On the other hand, Zimmer (1998) say that usually people are so immersed in their own
traumatic reality, that although theoretically they all find networking a good idea, they never
seem to find the time for it. Previous experiences have shown that networking works either when
concrete unifying projects exist, or when it is directly obvious what the participating institution
will gain from its involvement.

Final but not the least, Carter (2003), when mentioning the barriers to school-family-community
collaborations – said the following: although school-family-community collaborations are
proliferating, many school and community programs and services continue to function “in
relative isolation from each other,” and conflicts often arise over turf, use of space,
confidentiality, and liability when school and community professionals try to collaborate.

For the above stated problems, we furthermore hope to develop a communicative structure that
will permit participating institutions to mutually evaluate their work, thereby making it better and
more apt to achieve the eternal search for funding. In the long run participants will thus obtain a
mark of quality, comparable to the star system used by networking. Using Internet, e-mail,
mobile etc. we will start slowly, building up a trustworthy network from the beginning onwards,
not because it is big - although we would not mind that - but because it is good.
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To conclude this lesson, there was a desire for greater coordination and, in this case, more
regular and more frequent communication was a desirable goal. Hence, there was a need to be
constantly reminded of relevance to the local community, implicitly warning against external or
political interventions, and again underlining the need for community acceptance and ownership.
Despite its promising direction for strengthening families and neighborhoods, partnership
building requires an enlightened vision, creative leadership, and new and multifaceted roles for
professionals who work in schools and communities, as well as for all who are willing to assume
leadership (Carter, 2003). At the same time, school-community partnership development also
takes time; partnerships are built “one relationship at a time” and need continual nurturing.
Collaboration also often requires changes in traditional roles, responsibilities, expectations, and
schedules, which can prove difficult for partners.

Unit Summary
Dear Learner! This unit was concentrated on networking in school-community relations. In the
first place, we have seen that the school is rapidly becoming the place of organization of all
services to children and families. And we have seen also school networks comprise groups
within the community and are groups with various occupations. Because schools depend
primarily on local community support and commitment for their continued successful operation,
they have the advantage of real involvement on the one hand, but the danger of lack of
sustainability on the other hand, especially when the leader who is the driving force of the school
moves on, retires, or is transferred, or when the principal source of financing diminishes. This is
also true with regard to the aspect of linkages.

When we are looking the importance and the purpose of establishing collaborative networking.
We have seen that it’s a welcome bonus that in addition to being intrinsically valuable,
partnership can also be a powerful instrument for achieving a range of valuable outcomes. In
particular, it has the potential to achieve more efficient and equitable outcomes in many different
contexts of decision-making, such as allocation of budgetary resources among alternative uses,
management of common property resources, delivery of community services, and so on. In
lesson two, we have tried to recapitulate that more participatory approaches to development- in a
context of supportive norms and facilitating mechanisms - can result in the involvement of more
partners and more sectors in development activities, particularly at the micro-level.

In lesson three of this unit, we see that parents felt comfortable visiting the school whenever they
wished. They came to expect the school to educate their children and were willing to support the
school in this endeavour. Therefore, one process that describes how schools successfully develop
a culture that honors and validates parents as true partners in children’s educational development
that results in improved student learning is called a good linkage.

Finally, we have seen that developing family-school partnerships may not always be easy. It
requires commitment and time. Because of pressures and circumstances, many families will need
special arrangements, or extra support, to enable them to become actively involved in their
children’s school lives, and to help their children get the most from school.
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Review Questions
Part I: Choose the correct answer and write the letter on the space provided.
____ 1. The social linkage has two important components:
a. the social network
b. civil commitment
c. the willingness to participate in communities
d. All
____ 2. Positive changes that emanate from networking and linkages:
a. The scope of communication is increased
b. increased access to the flow of information
c. Knowledge of the availability of services is increased
d. All
e. None
____ 3. Effective partnerships can help students to:
a. develop their understanding of the wider community
b. develop skills and techniques for creative work through contact
c. decrease confidence
d. All
e. A and B
____ 4. Which one of the following is not considered as methods of linking networks?
a. Vertical linkage
b. Internal linkage
c. External linkage
d. None
e. All except B.
____ 5. Involving parents in leadership roles with professionals can strengthen:
a. Program governance
b. Positive outcomes for young children and their families
c. Initiatives and policies in support of families and children
d. All except A
e. All
Part II: Write True if the statement is correct and False if the statement is incorrect on the
space provided.
____ 1. It is not technology that changes society, but rather that changing social needs interact to
generate the development of technology.
_____ 2. Networking appears not only among independent organizations, but also within
individual organizations.
_____ 3. Partnership building requires new and multifaceted roles.
_____ 4. Each individual partner in any networking usually has more than one role and function.
______5. Vertical linkages uses for the exchange of news and information between organizations
on the same level.
Part III: Write short answers for the following questions on the space provided.
1. Write down three common problems that deter networking.
______________________________________________________________________________
2. Explain the rationale for why we concern about networking.
______________________________________________________________________________
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3. List down three collaborative network systems mechanism to accommodate all partners.

Methods of Delivery
In teaching this unit, the course instructor can apply multiple of teaching strategies. Among these
lecture method, which is supported by brainstorming, questioning, group discussions and
reflections could be used.

Students’ Activities
Students are expected to identify the network structures within their communities in which a
school operates, and how it benefits the school system. In order to do so:
• Identify the different network structures with in that particular community
• Discuss how these network structures influence the school system
• Present their experience to the whole class.
.
Instructional Facility Required
• Laptop, LCD, flip charts and others.
Unit Assessment
Continuous assessment, which based on the evaluation of group and individual presentations and
participation are more appropriate to assess students’ learning progress for this unit.

Mandatory Reading Materials for the Unit

Budapest, G.M. 2008. Information Society: From Theory to Political Practice (1st ed.).
[unknown]: NET-IS.
Castells, M. 1996. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Volume I. The Rise of the
Network Society. Blackwell: Oxford.
Shaeffer, S. 1994. Participation for educational change: a synthesis of experience. Paris:
UNESCO.
UNESCO 2007. Strengthening Community Learning Centers through Linkages and Networks: A
Synthesis of Six Country Reports. Bangkok: UNESCO.

Supplementary reading materials for the Unit

Carter, S. 2003. Educating our Children Together: A Sourcebook for Effective Family- School-
Community Partnerships. New York: CADRE.
Deslandes, R. 2009. ed. International Perspectives on Contexts, Communities and Evaluated
Innovative Practices: Family–School– Community Partnerships. London: Routledge.
Hepburn, K.S. 2004. Families as Primary Partners in their Child’s Development School
Readiness. Baltimore: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
NACCCE. 1999. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education. London: NACCCE.
Zimmer, J. 1998. Transforming Community Schools into Open Learning Communities.
Knutsford/ England: ICEA.
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 UNIT SIX
MOBILIZING COMMUNITY RESOURCE
(Time allotted: 3 hrs.)

UNIT INTRODUCTION

Dear Learner! This is the final unit of the module and it is consisting of three sections. Lesson
one deals with community as a valuable resources for schools and for the overall education
process, lesson two devotes itself in giving you a concert perception community resources and
student learning and we are going to see the contribution of community specifically with student
achievement. Lesson three tries to show you the role of parents and community in facilitating
student learning. As it has been explained else where in this module there is an egg-chicken
relationship between education and community. One is the result of the other. Hence, in this unit
you will study the importance of community resources for the wellbeing of our children and for
education policies in Ethiopia and the relationship that exit between these policies and the
different contribution of community in facilitating student learning. At the end, you will
understand what efforts should be exerted so that education and community complement each
other for the well being of the country.

Unit Learning Outcomes 

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:
 Advocate the importance of community participation.
 Coordinate community participation in facilitating student learning.
 Distinguish the role of parents or community to increase students’ achievement.

Lesson One
6.1. Community as a Resource
Activity 6.1. Brainstorming
 Dear Learner!
 In what ways do you consider parents as valuable resources to schooling?
 Why we need to understand the families and communities as a resource? or
 Why is focusing on family and community important?

To start with, as more people compete for available resources, more people need supportive
services to survive—job assistance, housing assistance, financial support, food subsidies and
medical care. As people live longer, the number of years that they are likely to depend on
social security payments for support in their retirement years, as well as on medicare for their
health insurance, increases. As advances in science occur, more people’s lives are prolonged.
Besides, the increasing urbanization of communities is also important issue to mention here.
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Because, the centralization of industries in certain areas, with the consequent migration—from
rural to urban areas—of people seeking employment, has increased the number of people
living in a smaller amount of space. People living in cities must turn to the community for
various kinds of services. Because of the high density of people living in a small area, for
example, the community is expected to provide open-space areas for recreation. Rural areas,
because they are less populated, have fewer public services than urban areas (Berns, 2010). All
the above points indicate that educators cannot do every thing without the support of major
partners.

Above all, understanding the families and communities in which students live can help
educators develop student potential. Families and communities can also support student
learning. However, to do this means those students’ families and communities must be
considered resources to be tapped. As educational leader, then, the first task will be -
overcoming challenges to involving families and communities – if there is any gap at actual
place is unavoidable function. Families and communities can be valuable resources for schools
and teachers in that they provide knowledge about the culture and language of their students.
Tapping these resources requires changing how schools perceive the parents’ and
communities’, values and beliefs. These changes include building a school culture that will
accept values, beliefs, and ways of viewing the world that are often quite different from those
of the mainstream population. As diverse populations come into the community, changes such
as these will have to take place to ensure excellent and equitable education for all students.

The direction in which education starts at home a child will determine her/his future life

Clearly, family and community are resources that educators need to draw upon. But as Lueder
(1998) points out, it is also important that schools reconsider their assumptions about what
family, school, and community partnerships can accomplish. Above all, the community is a
setting that provides much potential for learning. Libraries, museums, zoos, farms, businesses,
people’s experiences, and collectibles (family heirlooms, antiques, photographs, and so on) are
all rich sources for involving children. To illustrate the community’s potential for learning; an
experiment was initiated in Philadelphia to try a “school without walls”. In sum, the community
becomes a place and a resource for learning when citizens (parents, educators, businesspeople,
religious groups, service providers, legislators) are committed to mutually beneficial goals that
focus on the positive growth and development of children (Berns, 2010).

People from differing professional backgrounds may have also different values and attach a
range of meanings to terms. Hence, learning about the values, skills, and dreams of the students’
families and home cultures, and identifying and reaching out to community resources will enable
faculties to recognize resources and strengths where once they saw only deficits. Therefore, as
educational leader the starting point to work with community is - recognition of family
strengths. Because, parents are a child’s “first and most influential” teachers and often their
strongest advocates. Parents “teach, model and guide their children”. They are the “big picture”
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 team members in their child’s education. Many parents spend 365 days a year with their children
and are the most knowledgeable about their history, interests, and abilities (Carter, 2003). Hence,
we should have to consider that families as primary partners in their child’s development and
school readiness – in other words we consider parents as leaders.
Regarding this point, Hepburn (2004), when explaining key strategies for families, providers,
and administrators, stress what families can do as follows:
 View themselves as the primary decision makers in their child’s health, development,
early care and education;
 Communicate opinions and concerns clearly and firmly when interacting with providers,
administrators, and community members; and
 Take on leadership roles and become involved in decision making activities.

Quite simply, families and communities are at the heart of students’ identities and experiences. A
school will not achieve equity and excellence for all of the students in its care if it does not
acknowledge, understand, and include the families and communities of all its students.

Strong families provide for the health and safety of children, and maintain a home environment
that encourages learning and positive participation in school community life.

On the other hand, we should have to consider also the community as a support system. How
 can the community service families? What does it mean when we say community as a support
system? Well, the community can provide informal support to families, as when neighbors watch
each other’s children or share resources, or it can provide formal support through its publicly or
privately funded community services. Community services are necessary for several reasons.
Though the child remains central, engaging families and community in education will not only
help the children but help the family, school, and community as well. Therefore, when families
and communities work collaboratively with the school, everyone’s role becomes less stressful,
more productive, and more rewarding. There will be fewer conflicts and problems. Because,
providing opportunities for parents to share information about their children can help families
and educators avoid conflict and develop collaborative relationships that encourage the best
educational opportunities for students (Carter, 2003).

From the above we can understand that schools must look for practical ways to build meaningful
partnerships with families and communities. You can ask may be why is focusing on family and
 community important as a big issue? Well, it is hard to imagine an aspect of school reform that
is more important yet more neglected than strengthening the involvement of families and
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communities in the life of their school. It is impossible to imagine an excellent school that does
not engage families and community members in meaningful, productive ways (Rugan, 1995).

At its core, strengthening family and community involvement—and creating partnerships—is

about equity. Too often schools that serve poor students and students of color are isolated islands
in which both teachers and families fear, mistrust, misunderstand, or disrespect each other.
Students are in the middle—asked to move without difficulty between disconnected worlds. True
equity of opportunity, access and achievement cannot be realized in such an environment. Now
imagine a school in which family, community, and school personnel meet in the middle with the
best interests of the child at heart. Schools can begin to make this happen by recognizing the
strengths and opportunities inherent in a diverse community (Rugan, 1995).

Hence, with this base of respect and understanding, schools, families and communities can create
productive partnerships in large and small ways. So, lets’ wind up this lesson by giving - ten
truths of parent involvement – as forwarded by Carter (2003) the following tips:
1. All parents have hopes and goals for their children. They differ in how they support their
children’s efforts to achieve those goals;
2. The home is one of several spheres that simultaneously influence a child. The school
must work with other spheres for the child’s benefit, not push them apart;
3. The parent is the central contributor to a child’s education. Schools can either co-opt that
role or recognize the potential of the parent;
4. Parent involvement must be a legitimate element of education. It deserves equal emphasis
with elements such as program improvement and evaluation;
5. Parent involvement is a process, not a program of activities. It requires ongoing energy
and effort;
6. Parent involvement requires a vision, policy, and framework. A consensus of
understanding is important;
7. Parents’ interaction with their own children is the cornerstone of parent involvement. A
program must recognize the value, diversity, and difficulty of this role;
8. Most barriers to parent involvement are found within school practices. They are not
found within parents;
9. Any parent can be “hard to reach.” Parents must be identified and approached
individually; they are not defined by gender, ethnicity, family situation, education, or
income; and
10. Successful parent involvement nurtures relationship and partnerships. It strengthens
bonds between home and school, parent and educator, parent and school, school and
community.

Lesson Two
6.2. Community Resources and Students Learning
Activity 6.2. Brainstorming (for 5 minutes)
 Do you see any importance of involving the community in diagnosis of
educational needs, priorities and resources?
 Do you think it is important or possible to involve local people in an
instructional process? Why?
 What those factors that can affect the participation of community in the
instructional process? Can you list some of them?
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Let’s star with words of UN Millennium Project, UNMP (2005), who comprises more than 250
experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians,
policymakers, representatives from civil society and UN agencies ideas. When they are looking
the relationship between education and society: they try to mention multiple benefits – and
considered as unrealized potential. Because, education is society’s main instrument for
reproducing itself and can be a key ingredient for social change.

Education is about much more than children sitting in schools, acquiring skills that can be
objectively tested. Both the inputs to and the outputs from education are far more complex than
much of the usual international discourse suggests. This means that the concept of providing
every child with a good-quality education is not simply a function of having enough schools,
textbooks, and teachers. It is very much a result of a social context in which education is seen as
a right for all and in which all people have the opportunity to improve their economic and social
welfare and participate in public life (UNMP, 2005).

It is necessary to adopt a longterm approach to community participation. This often requires a shift in roles
for the community from the operational aspects of education towards management and governance.

Hence, a decision affecting what is taught, who is taught and how people are taught are parts of
the process of social reproduction. With respect to what is taught, the leading figures within one
generation transmit to the next generation their understanding of history and the essential skills,
knowledge and beliefs for the perpetuation of the society. At the technical level, this translates
into the content of the curriculum, the standards for progression to the next grade, and so forth,
but it is never completely removed from the much broader (and often highly politicized) context.
With respect to who is taught, policies and practices related to resource allocation, placement of
schools, the scope for private sector involvement and overt or invisible barriers to access lead to
outcomes that can either reduce or reinforce social stratification. With respect to how people are
taught, the methods and practices in education are also means of communicating the ways in
which societies are structured and should be structured in the future (UNMP, 2005).

Greatly increasing access to good education, which almost always means making societies more
inclusive and egalitarian, is not necessarily the result desired by those with the power to make
decisions. But rather, community citizens have bona fide interest in the local school. They have
invested their money, time and effort in the building of the school. Besides, their children attend
the local school. They deserve to know what is taught at the school and also should take part in
the building of the curriculum. They should be directly or indirectly involved in the teaching and
learning process as resource persons (Shaeffer, 1994).
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 Our concern in this lesson is with ways of enabling young people, through education, to
understand and make their way in the increasingly challenging social and personal circumstances
of the contemporary world. For these reasons, and because of its inherent importance for
education, the probability of higher student achievement, as well as more excitement and joy in
the classroom and at home, is greater when this kind of learning community is created.

Teacher commitment to community partnerships then matters because parent involvement in

their children’s education is linked to higher student achievement in a pattern of reciprocal
causation. Parent participation (e.g., in reading to their children) increases achievement and
parents of successful children are more likely to participate in activities that support student
learning.

In a recent study, Dr. Gerardo Lopez and fellow researchers (2001) observed different migrant
families living in Texas to understand the roles the families played in supporting their children’s
educational development. Due to living conditions, poverty and other issues related to migrant
work, many students of migrant families struggle in school. However, the children in these
families were considered successful in school, in both academic and non-academic ways, and the
researchers wanted to understand how these families were positively influencing how well their
children did in school (LOWA, 2007). This research study found that although parents of
successful migrant students did not regularly attend school functions, they strongly perceived
themselves as being highly involved in their children's educational lives. These families appeared
to be quite strategic in their choice of involvement; they saw the transmission of a work ethic as
their way of being involved in their child's education. Parents participating in the case study
recognized traditional forms of involvement (attending PTA meetings, parent-teacher contact,
volunteering at school functions) as noteworthy, but did not necessarily see them as important
forms of involvement that would make an impact on their children's academic development.

From the above case study we can understand that the academic level of the parents, their
socioeconomic level, and their ethnic or racial origin were not determining factors for academic
success. In addition, these studies reveal a relationship between parental involvement and
enhanced student self-esteem, improved student behaviour and better student attendance. The
parents of successful students had a positive attitude regarding education and exhibited a belief
that their children could do well. For most schools, building partnerships entailed a
transformation of the school’s relationship with families, and required that the school take steps
to create a more welcoming, inclusive environment (Rugen, 1995).

 Then, we can ask ourselves that what is family involvement after all? We use the term “family
involvement” in this lesson in an expansive way to include and recognize the value of a broad
spectrum of activities that involve family members and/or guardians helping children to learn,
both at home and at school. When working together, families, schools and communities can
successfully make a difference to improve student learning. In fact, evidence from numerous
studies confirms what educators have long known: families can and do have a positive influence
on how well their children do in school. In fact, family involvement appears to have a protective
effect on student learning. That is, the longer families stay meaningfully involved in their
children’s education, the more likely their children will be successful in school. Overall finding -
home-school partnerships show that there is a positive and convincing relationship between
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 family involvement and benefits for students, including improved academic achievement. This
relationship holds across families of all economic, racial/ethnic and educational backgrounds and
for students at all ages (LOWA, 2007).

Studies also show that communities, too, can have a positive impact on school effectiveness.
Although less abundant, research on community engagement has found that when communities
mobilize around school improvement efforts many positive outcomes can be achieved, including
improved student achievement (LOWA, 2007).

 What does the research say about family and community engagement? LOWA (2007) and
Rugen (1995) say the following:
 Students whose families are involved in their learning earn better grades, enroll in higher-
level programs, have higher graduation rates and are more likely to enroll in
postsecondary education;
 When families take an active interest in what they’re learning, students display more
positive attitudes toward school and behave better in and out of school;
 Children do best if parents can play a variety of roles in their learning; helping at home,
volunteering at school, planning their children’s future and taking part in key decisions
about the school program; and
 Middle and high school students whose families remain involved in these ways make
better transitions, maintain the quality of their work, develop realistic plans for the future
and are less likely to drop out.

From the above cases, we can grasp that fundraising campaigns and efforts to promote
volunteerism may increase resources and improve classroom support, but these efforts will have
little if any impact on improving student learning. Carter (2003) and LOWA (2007) state: the
evidence is now beyond dispute; when schools work together with families to support learning,
children tend to succeed not just in school, but throughout life. Hence, family involvement
significantly contributes to improved student outcomes.

In a bibliographical analysis of more than 60 research articles published during the past decade
on the impact of family involvement on student outcomes, Carter (2002) made 12 key findings:
1. Effective parent/family involvement improves student outcomes throughout the school
years;
2. While parent/family involvement improves student outcomes, variations in culture,
ethnicity and/or socioeconomic background affect how families are involved;
3. Parent/family involvement at home has more impact on children than parent/family
involvement in school activities;
4. The nature of effective parent/family involvement changes as children reach adolescence;
5. Parent/family involvement in early childhood programs helps children succeed in their
transition to kindergarten and elementary school;
6. Parents/families may need guidance and assistance in how to effectively support their
children with homework;
7. The many ways that families of differing cultural/ethnic backgrounds are involved in their
children’s education are valuable and should be respected when planning parent/family
involvement programs;
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 8. Improved student outcomes have been documented in mathematics and literacy when
parents/families are involved;
9. The most promising opportunity for student achievement occurs when families, schools
and community organizations work together;
10. To be effective, school programs must be individualized to fit the needs of the students,
parents and community;
11. Effective programs assist parents in creating a home environment that fosters learning and
provides support and encouragement for their children’s success; and
12. Teachers and administrators must be trained to promote effective parent/family
involvement.

Overall finding of effective practices indicate that parent and community involvement that is
linked to improving student learning has a greater effect on achievement than more general
forms of involvement. However, while research findings show school, family and community
partnerships can result in improved student learning, many efforts designed to build these
 linkages often fail to improve student achievement. Why?

Too often, collective energies are focused on well-meaning but more general forms of
“involvement” such as volunteerism or fundraising. While these efforts are helpful and even
important, studies demonstrate these critical findings:
 School, family and community connections linked to student learning are most effective
at improving student achievement; and
 The most effective programs and interventions are those that engage families in
supporting their children’s learning at home (LOWA, 2007).

Therefore, the strongest support for learning occurs at home through positive parenting styles,
nightly reading, homework policies, and high expectations. Schools that measure their success in
reaching out to parents by the number of volunteers and attendance at workshops and meetings
could be missing valuable opportunities to connect with families who can’t be there or who are
not comfortable coming to school.

In analyzing and correlating more than 85 rigorous studies, Anne Henderson and Nancy Berla
(1994) in Rugen (1995) concluded that the most accurate predictor of a student’s achievement in
school is the extent to which that student’s family is able to:
 Create a home environment that encourages learning;
 Express high expectations for their children’s achievement and future careers; and
 Become involved in their children’s education at school and in the community.

However, it is important to underscore that each of these three activities—creating a home

environment, expressing high expectations, and becoming involved in children’s education—can
look very different in different cultures. Unfortunately, too often schools do not recognize and
honor different ways families are involved in their children’s learning. Unfortunately for many
school woreda, true family and community connection remains a challenge. Too often, beliefs,
attitudes and fears inhibit the ability for families and schools to join together to support
children’s learning (LOWA, 2007).
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Parents are more likely to be involved if teachers and administrators engage in status equalizing
activities that signal to parents that their contribution is valued. Our third dimension of teacher
commitment relates to willingness to exert effort for the organization, one of the dimensions
identified by Ross and Gray (2006), for example, willingness to work collaboratively on school
tasks. High levels of individual teacher efficacy are associated with a commitment to a
collaborative school culture. Then, the solution is reaching a shared understanding of what
constitutes appropriate parent involvement has been found to be fruitful. Especially important is
two-way communication that builds a shared vision of the goals of education, rather than one-
way transmission of information to parents. Through joint work, teachers developed new
teaching strategies, which enhanced their effectiveness, thereby increasing perceptions of their
current success and expectations for the future. A commitment to collaboration is more likely to
be linked to teacher efficacy when teachers have control of classroom decision-making, and
participate in school-wide decisions (Ross & Gray, 2006).
Evidence continues to mount in favor of the notion that when schools, families, and community
groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school
longer, and like school more. Though they cannot do it alone, school principals are of course
key players in making these connections. Professional development for school leaders should
provide lessons and tools concerning school, family, and community relations and partnerships.

Therefore, it is important for schools to expand the notion of parent involvement, recognize
different ways families and community groups can be involved and understand the kind of
impact those connections will make. Changing those systems requires political leadership and
institutional reform, as well as additional investments and inputs. Given the intangible function
of education in social reproduction, “solutions” to shortcomings in the education system cannot
be mechanistic, nor can they easily be transferred from place to place (UNMP, 2005). Most
educational leaders and staff understand the importance of engaging families and communities to
support school improvement efforts. Before we can build strong and effective partnerships with
families, we have to believe not only that it’s important but also that it can be done – and that
we can do it. That means it’s necessary for school staff to hold a set of positive beliefs about
family engagement (LOWA, 2007).

LOWA (2007) has identified four core beliefs of educators, principals and other school staff that
have served as a foundation for successful family engagement efforts across the nation. These
are:
 All parents have dreams for their children and want the best for them.
 All families can and do have a positive effect on their children’s learning; and
 Families of all cultural backgrounds, education and income levels encourage their
children, talk with them about school, help them plan for higher education, and keep
them focused on learning and homework.
All parents have the capacity to support their children's learning.
 Regardless of how little formal education they may have or what language they speak, all
parents can contribute to their children’s learning; and
 All parents have “funds of knowledge” about their children and the community that
should be respected and tapped by school staff.
Parents and school staff should be equal partners.
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 The relationships between school staff and parents are commonly built on a lopsided
power base; instead the power should be shared; and
Every person who is interested in supporting children’s development should have equal
status, value and responsibility.
The responsibility for building partnerships between school and home rests primarily
with school staff, especially school leaders.
 To create a climate and culture that supports partnership with parents, strong leadership is
essential from woreda leaders, principals and teachers;
 School leaders must provide the resources, energy and leadership to implement and
sustain partnership programs; and
 Administrators and teachers can create a culture of partnership by modeling their beliefs,
in both words and deeds to the entire school community.

In summary, there are major roles which teachers within schools and parents, community, and
NGOs from outside of schools - can play in attempts to improve educational quality. The
conditions necessary to introduce some kinds of collaboration (the establishment of PTAs, for
example) may appear quite simple to put in place. But to guarantee genuine participation as we
have defined it to empower teachers and the community to gain the necessary knowledge and
skills to participate in education and the necessary power to take action – requires a considerable
change in the way education is planned and managed, the conscious enhancement of those
factors and conditions which encourage participation, and the development of concrete
mechanisms and procedures to guide planners and managers in developing such participatory
activities. These will be examined in greater detail in the next lesson.
Lesson Three
6.3. The Role of Parents/Community in Facilitating Students
Learning
Activity 6.3. Group Discussion (5 minutes for discussion, 5 minutes for reflection)
Dear Learner!
 Before you proceed to the reading, try to mention some of the roles of community
participation in education?
 Can you give some examples of community participation inside and outside
schools in Ethiopia?
 Which one of the potential areas of participation do you think is very difficult to
create and maintain for schools?

Dear Learner! This is the last lesson for this unit as well as for the module in general. This
section provides an illustration on the role of parents or community in facilitating student
learning. You are advised to read each topic in detail and relate with the parents or communities
that you are working at your surrounding school.

When we are looking in practice, school improvement efforts have focused on professional
learning communities and professional collaboration for the last two decades. The literature
describes professional learning communities in many forms, which cover a wide spectrum of
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 practices. Among these, the literature describes best practices, school cultures, and leadership
behaviors.

Therefore, as schools have been pressed to be more effective and more productive, out-of-school
influences on academic learning have escalated in importance. Even where the school day and
school year have been lengthened, the amount of time children spend in school during the first
eighteen years of their lives is small (perhaps 13% of waking hours) compared to time spent with
the family and the broader community. In other words, an alterable ‘curriculum of the home’—
including the family’s relationships, practices and patterns of life—is a more powerful predictor
of academic learning than the family’s status. Schools can work with families to improve the
curriculum of the home, regardless of the family’s economic situation.

Hence, by consciously working to develop stronger connections with the families and
communities of students, schools may alleviate some of the alienation and isolation experienced
by students, especially students from families with low incomes. Because, if you are looking
practically now, recent studies estimate that putting every child in the world in a good quality
primary school would cost around 7-17 billion Dollars a year (UNMP, 2005). For this and other
reasons, family and community involvement has many positive consequences for the family, the
school and especially for the young adolescent.
As schools are both reflections of the wider society and potential centers for change then What is
 the role of parents? What is the role of the community? Together – What are the contributions
of parents and communities in facilitating student learning? All these questions are important
issues to be raised here. Then, let us examine one by one in detail.

First, let us look parent involvement and their leadership roles. Engaging parents as leaders,
advisors, advocates and decision-makers related to young children and school readiness must
begin with a review of the concepts of parents as primary partners and a family-centered
approach. Family-centered care represents a reciprocal relationship between providers and
families. It is based on the philosophy that recognizes the pivotal role of the family in the lives of
their children. This approach ensures that families are supported in the natural care giving and
decision-making roles for their children by building on their unique strengths. Family-centered
services are designed in an equal partnership between parents and providers; individualized for
the child in the context of their family; and tailored for the family in the context of the service
systems and supports within the community (Hepburn, 2004). The concept of family-centered
partnership or family-centered care grew out of the health, mental health and special needs
communities. Families challenged with meeting the needs of their children, working closely with
specialty service providers and supporting or providing intervention services, pushed for an
equal voice and shared decision-making in the interest of appropriate care, education and
intervention for their child. Eventually, vigilance and advocacy efforts were supported by
legislation and continuing efforts have impacted many child-serving systems. Over time,
experience, and the passionate work of many, various human services and education systems
have moved along a developmental continuum to expand the perception and role of parents as
primary partners and truly establish family-centered partnerships, family-centered care and
family-centered schools (Hepburn, 2004).
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 Key elements of family-centered care and true partnerships with families that can cross service,
early care and education systems reflect the values of family involvement in leadership roles.
These elements are:
 Recognition that the family is the constant and primary influence in the child’s life;
 Treating parents and families with dignity and respect, including with regard to cultural
and linguistic diversity;
 Sharing complete and unbiased information with parents and families in ways that are
useful and affirming;
 Recognition of parents and families strengths and individuality and building upon them;
 Assurance that the design and delivery of services is flexible, accessible, and responsive
to family needs, including issues related to cultural, gender and linguistic diversity;
 True partnership and collaboration that occur in policy and program development,
provider education, as well as in the delivery of services;
 Implementation of appropriate policies and programs that support this approach; and
 Encouragement and facilitation of parent-to-parent support (Hepburn, 2004).

Hence, developing such strong parent-professional alliances is a critical first step in improving
the quality and cultural and gender responsiveness of services to young children and their
families. In addition, it is the first step to expanding family involvement to include families in
 advisory, advocacy, and leadership roles. Then, What are family involvement and leadership
roles? Parent involvement in leadership in early care, education, and other services to young
children and families encompasses many roles and activities. So, let us see some of the roles of
parents in detail here below as stated by Hepburn (2004):
Parents as advisors: Share their perspective and experience in any part they play, whether it is
time limited, ongoing, formal or informal. The term “advisory” describes any role that enables
family members to have direct input and influence on policies, programs, and practices that
impact on the care and services children and families receive.
Parents as advocates: Engage in any activity that attempts to influence someone on behalf of
another. For parents this may be for themselves or their child, but can move beyond to advocacy
for children, programs or policy. Parents may take on a formal role and responsibilities within a
program or organization or join a parent advocacy group or organization.
Parents as leaders: May have formal positions, roles, and responsibilities in collaborative efforts
toward service or system implementation, improvement, or change. Leadership is a combination
of values, skills, and observable behaviors that can be learned, improved and expanded; can be
adapted to address various situations in a changing environment; and will result in mobilizing
people to expand their capacity to learn together and create the vision they share.

In the context of early care and education, the role of parent as a decision maker or leader goes
beyond active involvement in their child’s learning to include decision-making in leadership
roles. For example, parents may serve on the child care center board, on site-based management
teams, or on advisory councils. They have the power to affect the offerings and climate of early
care and education programs and the school. The trend towards site-based management and
collaborative decision-making in early care settings and some schools illustrates these
opportunities for parents to make a difference. When families participate as decision makers at
all levels, they influence policies, programs, and practices (Hepburn, 2004). Families as advisors,
advocates and leaders may also take on the role of change agents. Dear Learner! Let us look real
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change that draw lessons from Africa – fron one of severe poverty, conservative cultural and
religious traditions affected region in Senegal.

Case Study 12: Community participation in government primary schools in Senegal: Boosting Community
Involvement in Primary Schools
Gouye Gui (meaning 'Baobab tree' in the local language) is a rural community located 40 miles from the regional capital of Diourbel and
120 miles from Dakar. This region has some of the lowest enrollment rates in Senegal. Severe poverty is a deterrent for schooling as
illiterate communities can afford neither health nor education services. Girls are further hampered by conservative cultural and religious
traditions, including early marriage for girls (by their mid-teens). In 2000-2001, the village primary school had 150 students with just 12
girls in first grade. Low attendance in school, combined with a lack of basic supplies and an unhealthy school environment made
schooling a low priority for poor families. In April 2001, the Education for Development and Democracy Initiative (EDDI) in Senegal
launched a community sensitization campaign focusing on girls' education as well as training in overall human rights, literacy, and life
skills. Two months later a School Management Committee (SMC) was elected with more than 50% women members. The SMC
received training in leadership, budgeting, and management, and the skills thus developed have enabled them to first maintain an
inventory of school supplies and successfully manage and complete a school renovation project. The renovations have included the
construction of two sets of latrines (one for boys and one for girls), rehabilitation of the three classrooms, as well as construction of a
protective wall surrounding the school. Finally, in December 2001, teachers received training in gender awareness pedagogy. The effects
of this integrated system of interventions for the academic year 2001-2002 have been many. 27 girls are now enrolled in first grade (an
increase of 125%), and the total of 150 students is now divided evenly between boys and girls. Several teachers interviewed stressed the
importance of subsidized school supplies to increase the likelihood of the most vulnerable students (including girls and the very poor) to
attend school, as well as in improving daily attendance rates of those already in school. Protective walls, renovated classrooms, latrines
and water points have improved the security and hygiene of the school environment, attracting interest from the community and
providing opportunities to apply the lessons learned on environment, health and resource management. Teachers also proudly point out
their new class duty rosters, on which chores are now evenly distributed between boys and girls - a significant break from the tradition
of having girls sweep and clean while boys play! The SMC has even played a role in arbitrating a long-running dispute within the village
regarding a grain mill, the result being that the village cooperative now has an income-generating project and the workload of women is
reduced. The Gouye Gui school community, through the SMC, recently made an independent request for adult literacy classes, showing
that their new skills are enabling them to initiate and organize their own development activities.
Source: Rose, P. 2004. Communities, gender and education: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Background paper for 2003 UNESCO
Global Monitoring Report. University of Sussex, Centre for International Education, p 10.

Dear Learner! What do you deduce from the case study stated above with a more active role of
community in schools in this regard in Senegal? Yes, attempts to promote overall enrolment and
girls’ enrolment in particular through community initiatives can result in success for access, the
success of this example can be partly attributed to a holistic approach being undertaken to
address the range of identified problems.

Meaningful parent leadership occurs when parents address the challenges of parenting, gain the
knowledge and skills to function in meaningful leadership roles and represent a “parent voice” to
help shape the direction of their families, programs and communities. By having a voice, sharing
their expertise, and helping to address the challenges to school readiness for children, their
schools, and their community, families become leaders in school readiness efforts.

The values and principles associated with family involvement and leadership roles dovetail with
the elements of family-centered care. Values and principles put forward by various resources
include those listed below:
 Parents are the decision makers for their child and their child’s strongest advocate;
 Families should be full participants in all aspects of their children’s early care, education,
and services planning and delivery;
 Families have strengths and the capacity for self-help and self-determination;
 Partnerships, leadership, and decision-making experience strengthen parents and families;
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  Empowered parents have increased capacity as parents and higher aspirations for
themselves;
 Continuity of care between family, early care, education and other services is
developmentally appropriate and vital for young children;
 Effective parent involvement is comprehensive, long-lasting and well planned; and
 Collaboration between families and providers is a powerful force that can improve the
quality and cultural responsiveness of services to children and families and make them
more tailored to the community’s needs (Hepburn, 2004).
Research on the impact of parent leadership in early care and education for very young and
preschool age children and systems change related to school readiness is limited. Only a few
studies have examined the particular impact on children of empowered parent involvement in
decision-making roles in educational programs for children. The studies included here found
evidence that this level of parent involvement impacted both child and parent achievement.
Gillum (1977) in Hepburn (2004) studied the adoption of reading programs in three elementary
districts. Each district shared information with parents about the program, but one of the three
also involved parents in decisions about implementation of the program as well as strategies for
reinforcement in the home. The children of these families had significantly higher reading
scores. In another study, Bromley (1972) found that when head start parents participated in
program decision-making, they were motivated to increase their own learning as well as
increased their overall program involvement. More recently, Henderson and Mapp (2002) cited a
study related to parents as decision makers or in leadership roles and their impact on
achievement. Moore (1998) studied parent majority school councils in Chicago and found that
schools with strong councils had increased reading scores for children in that school. He found
strong relationships between the “cooperative adult effort” among the teachers, parents,
community members, and administrators involved in the school and student achievement.
Parents as decision makers and in leadership roles is an important area for further research and
validation as more communities engage families in system change and efforts to improve
services and education for young children and their families.
Very often, roles that parent leaders can play are limited by perceptions about parents and about
what constitutes leadership. Leadership roles for parents are varied, and can include, as well as
be expanded beyond, those traditionally associated with governance and formal support systems.
The following list is intended to expand the thinking of leadership roles for parents in initiatives
focused on school readiness as indicated by Hepburn (2004):
• Advisory Board Member • Quality Improvement Reviewer
• Task Force Member • Speaker or Presenter
• Program Evaluator • Mentor and Guide
• Trainer or Co-trainer • Peer Support
• Focus Group Member • Community Guide
• Translator/Interpreter • Panel Member
• Materials Reviewer • Interviewer
• Materials Developer or Contributor • Key informant
• Group Facilitator • Paid staff
• Recruiter • Fundraiser
• Ambassador or Spokesperson • Representative
• Advocate • Consultant
• Hiring Committee Member • Networker
• Witness
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From the above clarification, we can conclude that whether parents act as an advisory or
advocacy, the family coordinator or liaison plays a vital role in coordinating family involvement
activities for the school.

Genuine partnerships are based on an understanding that not all parties bring the same resources.

Similarly, communities may be asked to take on unfamiliar roles as part of their support for
education initiatives. These roles need to be fully explained to ensure active and appropriate
participation and to assist the functioning of community liaison points and governance
mechanisms such as PTAs. The community at large has a significant role in terms of acting as a
countervailing force in areas where the traditional bureaucratic controls on educational services
fail or become less effective (Shaeffer, 1994). There are many examples of how community
participation has helped make development programs more relevant to local needs and
conditions.

Research reveals that families and communities play an important role in a child’s learning
process. Although, parent and community organizing efforts extend beyond the bounds of
parents as decision makers and in leadership roles in the context of involvement within education
programs, the potential impact on services to young children and families and school readiness is
worth considering. The survey of recent research describes the new effort related to school
accountability and the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act. It represents an opportunity for
parents of young children to become involved in community-wide leadership, collaboration, and
advocacy in the interest of school readiness that impacts the entire community—and beyond. In
addition, there may be valuable opportunities for learning leadership roles and skills to empower
and support parents as decision makers that impact other systems of care (Hepburn, 2004).

Some systems have been significantly impacted by parents as valued partners in decision-
making, and community organizing efforts. In the last thirty years, progress has been made to
shift from provider-driven to family-driven services and systems of care. Grassroots activities,
the family movement, and legislation, in the communities of early intervention, disabilities, and
mental health services have shifted the focus to families as essential team members and true
partners in decision-making for their own children as well as the systems that serve them. This
paradigm shift of parent involvement from expert model to family-centered care to true
partnership and collaborative leadership can be illustrated in the diagram below (Hepburn, 2004).
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 Table 6.1. This paradigm shift of parent involvement from expert model to family-centered
Professional- Family-Focused Family-Allied Family-Centered Team-Centered
Centered
Parent is the Families “One down” Family caregiver Parents know Team makes
problem to the professional are is an equal best decisions
helpers and allies
Professional is Professional is Family and professional Professionals are “One Team includes
the expert the expert work collaboratively to down” to families and their family, provider,
address mutually agreed role is to support families child & others
upon goals to help their child
Adapted from: McManus, M. 1998. Family-professional relationships: Moving forward together, A summary of the National Peer Technical
Assistance Network’s. In FOCAL POINT: A National Bulletin On Family Support & Children’s Mental Health.

Having looking the roles of parents and communities, then the next questions are: What
providers can do? and What is the role of educational leadership in these endeavours? and so
 on, might be valuable issues. Well, for family involvement efforts to be effective, they need to be
considered a priority by schools. Administrators must provide positive leadership to develop
partnerships with families and communities and be able to translate talk into implementation,
commitment and resource allocation. Improving family involvement may require changes in
resource allocations, time commitments and priorities. Administrators leading these efforts will
need to monitor and nurture the effort continuously (Carter, 2003). Then, what providers can do:
first understand and value parents as primary decision makers for their child; and support
families in taking on leadership roles (Hepburn, 2004).

Hence, as regions and countries stabilize, it is necessary to adopt a long-term approach to

community participation. This often requires a shift in roles for the community from focusing on
the operational aspects of education (contributing resources, etc.) towards the management and
governance of education. Creating a shared sense of ownership around education needs to be
emphasized from the start and retain a focus on activities and interventions to encourage locally-
generated participation and avoid participation fatigue. These changes in roles need to take place
incrementally, supported by training and guidance so that community members feel empowered
and confident in these roles (UNESCO, 2009). However, while family involvement is crucial, it
is not easy to achieve. The key ingredient of success is commitment. The problem, then, is how
to construct relatively orderly ways for people to engage in activities that have as their
consequence the learning of new ways to think about and do their jobs, and how to put these
activities in the context of reward structures that stimulate them to do more of what leads to large
scale improvement and less of what reinforces the pathologies of the existing structure.
Then, how can we achieve effective school, family and community partnerships? Evidence
 across studies show the most important aspect to successfully connect schools, families and
communities to improve student learning is to build effective relationships. To be truly effective
and sustainable, education interventions need to recognize stakeholders’ contributions, but also
their limitations, so that expectations are appropriately managed (LOWA, 2007; UNESCO,
2009).
Creating a new model of distributed leadership consists of two main tasks: 1) describing the
ground rules which leaders of various kinds would have to follow in order to engage in large
scale improvement; and 2) describing how leaders of various kinds in various roles and positions
would share responsibility in a system of large scale improvement. It should go without saying
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that this model is necessarily provisional and tentative since it is a considerable departure from
the status quo and its basic premise is that improvement involves both learning the ground rules
and sharing responsibility for implementing them over time (Elmore, 2000). At same time, an
alternative approach to school reform centers on the notion of accountability and systems to
support accountability. Elmore views school improvement as something that goes together with
strong internal accountability.

The real challenge facing most schools is no longer how to improve but more importantly, ‘how
to sustain improvement?’ Further, sustainability will depend upon the school’s internal capacity
to maintain and support developmental work and that sustaining improvement requires the
leadership capability of the many rather than the few and that improvements in learning are more
likely to be achieved when leadership is instructionally focused and located closest to the
classroom. Effective leadership in schools in this era is linked to the leader's ability to facilitate
school improvement. The obvious core of school improvement is the role of the leader as an
instructional leader; which is such a complex role. The review of recent relevant research and
literature revealed there is not one singular act that schools can engage in to become more
successful. Rather, it takes years of hard work focused on school improvement to achieve
success (Elmore, 2000).

To sum up this lesson, being part of a learning community means contributing to the learning
and knowledge base of the school and the school community. It is not simply about the pursuit of
individual learning goals, but sharing knowledge for the benefit of the community and the
achievement of its goals and vision. A learning community values diversity and maintains a
focus on the continuous enhancement of teaching for all members of the community.

Unit Summary
Dear Learner! How do you get the lessons incorporated in unit six? Yes, we have got a lot of
lessons with regard to mobilizing community resource. We have seen from different sources and
research confirms that family involvement is a powerful influence on children’s achievement in
school. It was indicated in this unit that the involvement of schools, parents, and community
leaders in the collecting, processing, analysis, and interpretation of local information may help to
ensure the use of local content, the greater articulation between school and community and the
inclusion of family and community culture in the school, the marriage of traditional and modern
knowledge, coverage of local culture and history, and the inclusion of economically-relevant
practical subjects. The evidence is clear: When parents are actively involved in their children’s
education, their children do better in school. Such a partnership can also ultimately produce
education more relevant to the needs of the community and of their children and greater demand
and support for education. Further, we have got lessons also with regard to schools can help by
creating flexible schedules and forms of involvement, and by seeking community support and
funding. Within the school, different people will play different roles. The main emphasis in this
unit was making sure that parents, school staff, and community members understand that the
responsibility for children’s educational development is a collaborative enterprise. Partnership
means sharing power with families and community members.

Finally, the unit stresses that if the purpose of leadership is the improvement of teaching practice
and performance, then the skills and knowledge that matter are those that bear on the creation of
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settings for learning focused on clear expectations for instruction. As we shall see shortly, large
scale improvement requires a relatively complex kind of cooperation among people in diverse
roles performing diverse functions. In both instances the value of direction, guidance, and
cooperation stems from acknowledging and making use of differences in expertise. For most
schools, building partnerships entailed a transformation of the school’s relationship with
families, and required that the school take steps to create a more welcoming, inclusive
environment. Overall message of this unit reveal that developing powerful and effective
connections between schools, families and communities is hard work. Yet, time and time again,
studies demonstrate schools across world are able to reach beyond their boundaries to
successfully link with families and community groups to better the educational outcomes of all
children.

Review Questions
Part I: Choose the correct answer and write the letter on the space provided.
____ 1. Genuine parent involvement entails:
a. Parent involvement is a process
b. Any parent can be hard to reach
c. Most barriers to parent involvement are found within school practices
d. All
e. All except C

____ 2. Student’s achievement in school is the extent to which that student’s family is able to:
a. Become involved in their children’s education in the community
b. Create a home environment that encourages learning
c. Express high expectations for their children’s future careers
d. All
e. None
____ 3. All parents have the capacity to support their children's learning means
a. All parents can contribute to their children’s learning
b. All parents have “funds of knowledge” about their children
c. Parents capacity should be respected and tapped by school staff
d. All
e. A and B
Part II: Write True if the statement is correct and False if the statement is incorrect on the
space provided.
____ 1. Parents are a child’s first and most influential teachers and often their strongest advocate
____ 2. Families and communities are at the heart of students’ identities and experiences.
____ 3. Providing every child with a good-quality education is not simply a function of having
enough schools.
Part III: Write short answers for the following questions on the space provided.
1. Write down five leadership roles of parents in schools.

2. Explain the rationale for why parents involved in their students’ education.
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3. List down three roles of educational administrators in facilitating community participation.

Case and Field Analyses

Dear Learner! In order to understand community participation in schools attend a PTA or school
board meeting where a controversial issue (school rules, dress code, curriculum, extracurricular
activities, use of federal funds and the like) is discussed. Agendas can be obtained in advance by
contacting the woreda education office. Then make some kind of observation in your work place
and you will have the opportunity to reflect on this issue during the face to face program,
therefore, based on your findings, you are going to give concrete answers for the questions stated
below.
1. Describe the issue in at least a paragraph, giving background information if possible.
2. Explain the views of (a) the PTA/board, (b) the school administration, (c) the teachers,
and (d) the parents and/or students.
3. What was the outcome of the discussion?
4. What was your opinion of the experience?
5. Describe how a community influences on children’s achievement in school.
6. Explain how the community serves as a support system, including the preventative,
supportive, and rehabilitative services it provides.

Methods of Delivery
In teaching this unit, the course instructor can apply multiple of teaching strategies. Among these
lecture method, which is supported by brainstorming, questioning, group discussions and
reflections could be used.

Students’ Activities
Students are expected reflect on issues that are related to mobilizing community resources for
facilitating student learning. They are also expected to reflect on community resources
particularly on the effect of student learning and the role of educational leaders in facilitating
community participation. This can be done through brain storming individually, group
discussions and reflections. Therefore, students should be grouped in to teams, discuss on issues
and present their reflection to the class.
.
Instructional Facility Required
• Laptop, LCD, flip charts and others.
Unit Assessment
Continuous assessment, which based on the evaluation of group and individual presentations and
participation are more appropriate to assess students’ learning progress for this unit.
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Mandatory Reading Materials for the Unit
Carter, S. 2003. Educating our Children Together: A Sourcebook for Effective Family- School-
Community Partnerships. New York: CADRE.
Hepburn, K.S. 2004. Families as Primary Partners in their Child’s Development School
Readiness. Baltimore: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
LOWA (LOWA - School Boards Foundation). 2007. Family, School and Community
Connections: Improving Student Learning. Information Briefing, Vol. 1., No.6.
Rugen, L. 1995. The one-day community exploration: an Expeditionary Learning professional
development experience. In Fieldwork. Vol. 1., IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.

Supplementary reading materials for the Unit

Berns, R.M. 2010. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support (8th ed.).
Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Elmore, R. 2000. Building a New Structure For School Leadership. Washington, DC: The Albert
Shanker Institute.
Ross, J.A. & Gray, P. 2006. Transformational Leadership and Teacher Commitment to
Organizational Values: The mediating effects of collective teacher efficacy. School
Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 179 – 199.
Shaeffer, S. 1994. Participation for educational change: a synthesis of experience. Paris:
UNESCO.
UNESCO. 2009. Promoting participation: Community contributions to education in conflict
situations. Paris: UNESCO.
UNMP (UN Millennium Project). 2005. Toward Universal Primary Education: Investments,
Incentives, and Institutions. London: Task Force on Education and Gender Equality.
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