Principal Leadership for Parent Engagement in Disadvantaged Schools: What Qualities and Strategies Distinguish Effective Principals?

This book presents and theorises research findings into why and how school principals play a critical role in engaging parents and their school communities to enhance student learning and wellbeing. It highlights the imperative of parent engagement as evidenced by clear, consistent findings from research over the last fifty years and government reforms, policies and frameworks internationally and nationally in Australia which have been driven by the weight of this evidence. It focuses on a research project conducted from 2016 to 2017, titled ’Principal leadership for parent-school-community engagement in disadvantaged schools’. This project investigated four principals identified as successful in parent engagement based on findings of state-wide survey research of principals and presidents of parents and citizens’ associations in 2014 in Queensland, Australia. 

Dr Linda-Dianne (Linda) Willis is Program Director, Bachelor of Education, and Senior Lecturer, in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. She is an experienced classroom and tertiary teacher, having taught extensively in the primary and middle years in schools and primary, middle years and senior secondary courses in universities. Linda has held leadership roles in government and independent schools and was the Program Director of the Master of Teaching (Primary) program at The University of Queensland for four years (2014–2018). Linda completed her PhD on parent-teacher engagement in 2013 and has since led significant research projects across Queensland in Catholic and state schools which examine parent engagement in inquiry curriculum using social media and the role of principals in leading parent engagement. She uses dialogic approaches throughout the design and implementation of her research projects as she worksalongside students, parents, teachers, principals, preservice teachers, researchers and industry stakeholders to generate authentic partnerships for enhancing student learning and wellbeing and the success of schools. Her work focuses on how usually marginalised individuals such as parents in schools may be enabled to play more participatory roles as co-educators in their child’s learning and wellbeing. Linda was the Lead Chief Investigator (2016–2020) on the project, Principal Leadership for Parent-School-Community Engagement. This research was supported by the Queensland Department of Education’s Education Horizon Grant scheme in partnership with Parents and Citizens’ Associations Queensland. Linda has published widely in the area of parent engagement and presented on this topic at national and international conferences. Her other research interests include literacy, preservice teacher education, inquiry curriculum, dialogic pedagogies, and Humanities and Social Sciences education. Linda is the National Publications Director of the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association (ALEA) and a member of the ALEA Executive and National Council.
Assoc Professor Jenny Povey is a Research Group Leader at the Institute for Social Science Research and an Associate Investigator in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence on Families and Children over the Life Course (the Life Course Centre) at The University of Queensland, Australia. Jenny's research group focuses on the utilisation of research by policy-makers and practitioners to address educational disadvantage. Jenny also has considerable experience and expertise in complex policy and program evaluations. Jenny’s research interests include research utilisation, research translation, education effectiveness, school leadership, school culture, parent engagement and improving student learning and wellbeing. She has extensive experience in mixed methods research using administrative data together with survey and qualitative data. Jenny’s work has attracted over $11 million in research funding from the ARC, the Australian Government, the Queensland Government, the Tasmanian Government, the New South Wales Government, The University of Queensland, and not for profit organisations. Jenny has published in leading education, sociology and psychology journals and produced over 40 reports for various stakeholders. As a Chief Investigator on the Principal Leadership for Parent-School-Community Engagement (2016–2020) research, Jenny contributed to the development of a parent engagement course and led the development of a Parent Engagement Toolkit.
Dr Julie Hodges is a Research Fellow at the Parenting and Family Support Centre, the School of Psychology, at The University of Queensland, Australia. Her research activities draw on her background as a clinical psychologist, a teacher and a parenting educator. She has conducted research focused on the wellbeing and self-regulatory capacity of children and adolescents and the influence that a working relationship between schools and families can have on young people’s educational and wellbeing outcomes. Julie has coordinated large-scale, longitudinal research projects and her research has attracted grants from the Queensland Government and The University of Queensland. Julie has published in leading psychology journals, and in addition to her Chief Investigator role in the Principal Leadership for Parent-School-Community Engagement (2016–2020) research, Julie is collaborating with a doctoral student to develop and evaluate a skills-based program for teachers that is focused on building positive home-school partnerships. Julie is also leading the development of a reciprocal online skills-based workshop for parents. 
Professor Annemaree Carroll is Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Educational Psychology inthe School of Education at The University of Queensland, Australia. Annemaree is a registered psychologist and teacher. Her research activities focus on understanding the impact of emotions, attention, and behaviour on learning throughout child and adolescent development, developing innovative self-regulatory interventions for children and young people to bring about positive change in their lives, and implementing strategies that can be translated into educational outcomes. Annemaree’s work has attracted over $20 million in research funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Queensland Government, The University of Queensland and other Australian universities and she has published extensively in leading education and psychology journals.