“Our ability to successfully educate all children is integrally linked to meeting the needs of their parents and families. This is a volume central to the preparation of all teachers.”
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“(Mis)Understanding Families takes a refreshing look at home-school relations, with inspiring examples of how such relations can be reinvented in North American schools. The editors and authors issue an urgent call for repositioning the needs, experiences, and perspectives of diverse families at the center of educating the whole child. Educators and those who teach them would do well to take heed of the call.”
—Susan Auerbach, California State University–Northridge

“This book stakes out new ground in the area of home-school collaboration. The authors position parents, children, and their ‘stories’ where they belong, at the core of schooling, an approach that is not just helpful but vital to the well-being and education of all children.”
—Kenneth Teitelbaum, Dean and Professor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

This practical resource will help educators to identify, address, and meet the needs of the diverse families in today’s classrooms. It is the first book to critically examine how families are represented in the media, schools, and other institutions and apply that information to building effective home-school partnerships. The authors examine how different relationships between families and teachers are defined by discourses that circulate through formal and informal curricula. They explore how families and educators can collectively reconceptualize these conversations to create positive educational experiences for children. Discussion questions are included in each chapter so that readers can examine their working relationships with the families of their students.

Chapter topics include: Parent Involvement in Latina/o Impacted Schools • A History of Hollywood’s TV Families • Families in Young Adult Literature • How Teacher Identities Are Shaped by Their Own Family Stories • A Tale of Two Adoptive Families • Diverse Families Talk About Their Relations with School • Debunking the Myths About the Urban Family • Reaching Native American Families to Increase School Involvement • Social Class, Culture, and “Good Parenting;” The Interwoven Stories of Teachers, Families, and Children in Curriculum Making.