Families and schools. Involvement of foreign families in schools (FAMILYSCHOOL)

The Erasmus+ Project KA2 – Cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices, (specifically, KA201 – Strategic partnerships for schooling), from 2019 to 2021 (monitoring carried out until 2026), analysed, designed and evaluated innovations regarding the integration, communication and involvement of foreign-origin families in schools in Spain, Italy and Luxembourg.

Professionals from 3 universities, 3 educational inspections and 3 schools work on this project.

This project focuses on the school involvement of foreign families, especially those newly arrived in the country, in order to develop targeted actions to support their integration in schools and help them in their educational actions.

More particularly, this action-research worked on identifying effective strategies that are likely to contribute to improving the family-school-community relationship and the parents' involvement in their child's school education.

Two distinct work phases guided the work in this research and had their own objectives:

• The first phase (from December 2018 to August 2019) consisted of defining the social, political and educational discourses about migration and parental involvement (especially of those of foreign origin) in the three countries participating in the study. This knowledge would be the basis for designing effective strategies (according to each context) that could help to improve the family-school relationship and the involvement of parents in the education of their children.
• The second phase (from September 2019 to June 2021 + 5 school years more) sought to implement, redesign and evaluate the “innovation actions for improvement” (suggested in the first phase) in 8 schools in each country (24 schools in total). During 5 school years (until school year 2025-2026), an observation of the implemented actions will be made and analysed.

For more details regarding the research, please refer to the research website: http://familyandschool.eu/

UL members

• Débora Poncelet, Institute for Lifelong Learning and Guidance
• Sylvie Kerger, Institute for Lifelong Learning and Guidance
• Christophe Dierendonck, Institute for Lifelong Learning and Guidance

External Partners

• University of Lleida as well as school inspection and fundamental school partners (Spain)
• University of Brescia as well as school inspection and fundamental school partners (Italy)