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Cultural brokers play a critical role of helping researchers navigate cultural and language barriers to gain insight into communities. This paper focuses on one cultural broker who helped facilitate community-based research among the refugee community. Her professionalism, expertise and knowledge of the community made her a valuable resource for both the researchers and the community. This work acknowledges the position of power and privilege that cultural brokers hold in community research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactive book reading is an active practice that aims to stimulate children's language and literacy development. The interactions that take place during book reading are essential to understand; however, there is limited research on the practice of interactive book reading within refugee families. This qualitative study utilized observation and focus group data to capture the interactions taking place between six refugee mothers and their preschool aged children (3–5 years). The two broad aims of the study were first, to explore interactive book reading experiences of refugee mother–child dyads with the goal of understanding the strategies mothers used during book reading. The second aim was to identify how dual language books benefited families during and beyond interactive book reading. Results demonstrated that mothers incorporated multiple interactive reading strategies while navigating interesting language dynamics. Findings further highlighted the need for continued research on the reading practices of refugee families with preschool-aged children to develop culturally relevant literacy programming and support for these families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Yosso's community cultural wealth framework, this qualitative study explored the strengths families, a refugee agency and preschool program have as they support the educational needs of preschool-aged refugee children. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine refugee mothers, two agency directors, and one teacher. Data were analyzed using a deductive approach revealing multiple cultural capitals, including aspirational, social, familial, and linguistic, that the refugee mothers possessed and utilized. Agency and program strengths included: strong goal-driven practices, external supports, and knowledge of the families they serve. This study gives insights on forming family-program partnerships and supporting young children's learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of guiding young children to learn to read and write may hold unique challenges for refugee families who are transitioning to a new culture and a new language, yet areas of strength and resourcefulness may lead to successful literacy readiness for these young learners. This qualitative descriptive study examined refugee mothers' (N = 9) literacy practices with their preschool aged children (3–5 years). The study goals were first, to explore the literacy practices among refugee families and their children, and secondly, to understand how these families navigated their new environments as they prepared their young children for school. Qualitative data collected via interviews indicated that the literacy practices of families varied and were mainly focused on storytelling and writing activities. The findings also suggested that mothers face challenges in promoting literacy due to lack of literacy resources. However, all the mothers highlighted that learning to read, write, and speak English were top priorities for their young children before starting school. Implications on effective strategies for supporting literacy development among refugee families with young children are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilized the qualitative phenomenological approach to explore pre -service teachers’ experiences in their engagement with parents of young children as they practiced building partnerships with parents. Pre-service teachers (N=50) were each assigned a preschool child with whom they interacted together with the child’s parents and teacher; completing a semester-long assignment created within a family, schools and community course for students in an early childhood teacher preparation program. Preservice teachers’ responses to a survey and their final written reflections were analyzed using the process of axial and open coding. Results indicated the importance of communication and understanding different dynamics and challenges in parent-teacher partnerships. Therefore, educators should continuously strive to equip pre-service teachers with the skills they will need to succeed as they work with schools, the community and especially in their work with parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essentiality of family involvement in the schooling process is evident from the vast directives embedded within federal mandates, professional standards for teachers and administrators, parent organizations, and advocacy groups. Yet, as explicit as legislative mandates and professional standards are regarding parental rights and involvement, they do not require definitive roles of the family. Several factors influence the lack of a decisive definition regarding the role of the family in the schooling process. Those include the different perspectives on what constitutes a family structurally and functionally, the socio-cultural and political diversity within and among populations, the move to an inclusive education framework, the various terms used to describe parental involvement, the realization that no one family model fits the demographic diversity existing in today's school districts, and the rights of family members to select their level of involvement. Given the importance of family engagement and student outcomes, three fundamental questions addressed in this chapter are, "How can inclusive schools enhance productive collaborative family engagement networks?" "How can the family be empowered to voluntarily participate within those networks?" and "How can inclusive schools connect with teacher preparation programs to promote the competency of educators for those collaborative family/school engagement networks?" In this chapter we delineate an interactive triad conceptual model with the school as the "connecting agent" to build relationships with families and teacher preparation, setting the stage for productive family engagement as partners in inclusive settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report the results of a study which investigated the affordances of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) for collaborative learning from a design perspective. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, we conducted a comparative study of the effect of varying representational and interactional design features on a collaborative design activity in three online synchronous environments. We compared environments featuring multiple modes of interaction (MUVEs), shared representations (text chat and 2D still images) and text-only features. Sixty-one students enrolled in an undergraduate course on Child Development participated in the study. Participants were asked to design a theoretically-based, developmentally appropriate, preschool classroom setting. Students were randomly assigned to one of three online learning environments that provided varying levels of representation and interaction. Significant differences in collaborative problem solving interactions were found. Participants in the shared representations + text condition evidenced stronger learning outcomes as regards substantive discussion and integration of child development concepts; while participants in the MUVE condition reported the most enjoyment with the experience. These findings are explained by the concepts of representational guidance, representational bias, educational affordances and interface design metaphors. Suggestions for the design of MUVEs for collaborative learning are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]