Building Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships

Culturally Responsive Family-School Relationships, Second Edition, is a unique text with a fresh perspective. It presents a successful collaborative approach for working with all students’ families to promote learning and resolve problems throughout the early childhood and elementary school years. The underlying premise is that teachers who embrace and adapt to shifting realities can work toward true partnerships between culturally diverse communities and the schools that serve them. Taking into account economic and cultural diversity as well as exceptionality, the text thoroughly describes culturally-responsive instructional and non-instructional practices that educators can use to build family-school relationships characterized by trust, cooperation and motivation to help all children succeed in school. Grounded in research, this book balances theory and application by discussing conceptual issues and linking them to methods educators can use--making it an essential resource for all school-based practitioners, including school administrators, school counselors, and special education consultants.

Ellen S. Amatea is a professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida. She is a psychologist and a marriage and family therapist, and maintains a private practice specializing in counseling children and adolescents and their families. She has authored two books, Brief Strategic Intervention for School Behavior Problems and The Yellow Brick Road: A Career Guidance Program for Elementary School Counselors and Teachers, and co-authored a third book, Love and Intimate Relationships, written chapters for other books, and written over fifty articles. Dr. Amatea’s research interests include: the process and outcomes of family involvement for the development of children and youth, particularly culturally and economically marginalized children and families; interventions for child and adolescent behaviors problems; and the preparation of educators to collaborate with families in the education of their children. Prior to arriving at the University of Florida, she was a school counselor and a vocational rehabilitation counselor specializing in working with low-income youth with special needs. Dr. Amatea teaches graduate courses in school counseling and marriage and family counseling. In addition, she teaches an undergraduate course in teacher education on family and community involvement in education.

Contributing authors to the second edition include: Linda Behar-Horenstein, Professor of Educational Administration & Policy at the University of Florida; Mary Ann Clark, Professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida; Maria R. Coady, Associate Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida; Kelly L. Dolan, university-school assistant professor at the P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida; Silvia Echevarria-Doan is an associate professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida; Heather L. Hanney, private practice of family therapy; Crystal Ladwig, assistant professor, St.Leo University; Teresa Leibforth; Sondra Smith-Adcock, associate professor of Counselor Education at the University of Florida; Catherine Tucker, assistant professor of Counseling at Indiana State University; Franes Vandiver, Director of P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida; Cirecie West-Olatunji, Associate Professor of Counselor Education at the P,K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida.