Collaboration between In-Service School Teachers and Families in the Context of Inclusive Education: A Review of the Recent Literature

Abstract

Collaboration between teachers and parents of children with and without disabilities is one of the key essential elements to ensure effective inclusive education. The purpose of this literature review paper is to examine international empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals and Greek dissertations from 2015-2020. It focuses on collaboration practices between in-service educators and parents in the context of inclusive education in primary and secondary schools. Particularly, the article pinpoints the way teachers and parents collaborate, the factors that enhance successful collaboration, and finally the obstacles that hinder effective cooperation. The analyses showed various levels of parental involvement depending on the type of school studied. More specifically, in exemplary schools, teachers and parents seem to build effective collaborative relationships as they apply holistic collaborative and communicative practices. In the other schools studied, communication is usually limited to mandatory meetings, the main subject of which is the behavior of students. Moreover, the review illustrates a variety of barriers that hinder teacher-parent partnerships with the predominant obstacle being lack of time. Subsequently, it highlights the need for specific factors that strengthen successful collaboration between parents and teachers. Finally, this review indicates the need for additional research to explore specific strategies that educators and families could promote to achieve effective collaboration.