Understanding Family-Professional Partnerships: Bridging the Gap Between Refugee Families and Educators with Project RAFT

Presenter's Name(s)

Jordan KerrFollow

Conference Year

January 2019

Abstract

This study is aimed at developing a deep understanding of the nuances of the gap in family-professional partnership within the refugee population and how this relates to the achievement gap in the Willows and Burrows School Districts. The goal of this research project is to determine what can be done to improve family-professional partnerships to alleviate the achievement gap through the use of project RAFT (Relationships among teachers and families). The project RAFT intention is to collect data on the specific student’s micro and meso-systems in order to understand a) who is the student, b) who should be involved in the student’s education and how, c) what are the hopes for the student in general both long term and for this year, d) how can the different microsystems work together to make those hopes come true, and e) how to continue this conversation in the future. 12 families and 12 respective educators were used in this study to understand how to make these relationships more productive in the classroom. We hope to make the tool RAFT a regular framework that is part of the school districts in Willard and Burrows for teachers and refugee families to be able to access in order to enhance their family-professional partnership by providing both sides of the partnership information that can be drawn upon when considering the hopes for education pertaining to the child of a particular family. The results of this study are still in progress, however we hope to find that by understand who these refugee students are, teachers will be able to use that knowledge to enhance their education in the classroom therefore decreasing the achievement gap that is currently seen.

Primary Faculty Mentor Name

Cynthia Reyes

Status

Undergraduate

Student College

College of Education and Social Services

Second Student College

College of Education and Social Services

Program/Major

Elementary Education

Primary Research Category

Arts & Humanities

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Understanding Family-Professional Partnerships: Bridging the Gap Between Refugee Families and Educators with Project RAFT

This study is aimed at developing a deep understanding of the nuances of the gap in family-professional partnership within the refugee population and how this relates to the achievement gap in the Willows and Burrows School Districts. The goal of this research project is to determine what can be done to improve family-professional partnerships to alleviate the achievement gap through the use of project RAFT (Relationships among teachers and families). The project RAFT intention is to collect data on the specific student’s micro and meso-systems in order to understand a) who is the student, b) who should be involved in the student’s education and how, c) what are the hopes for the student in general both long term and for this year, d) how can the different microsystems work together to make those hopes come true, and e) how to continue this conversation in the future. 12 families and 12 respective educators were used in this study to understand how to make these relationships more productive in the classroom. We hope to make the tool RAFT a regular framework that is part of the school districts in Willard and Burrows for teachers and refugee families to be able to access in order to enhance their family-professional partnership by providing both sides of the partnership information that can be drawn upon when considering the hopes for education pertaining to the child of a particular family. The results of this study are still in progress, however we hope to find that by understand who these refugee students are, teachers will be able to use that knowledge to enhance their education in the classroom therefore decreasing the achievement gap that is currently seen.