Revealing the Community Within: Valuing the Role of Local Community Structures Within Evidence-Based School Intervention Programmes

Abstract

Schools and the families they serve are sometimes perceived as deficient and in need of fixing. One response has been the implementation of evidence-based family intervention programmes, which may be highly regulated and prescriptive as a condition of their (often philanthropic) funding. This article seeks to explore and bring to the foreground the often hidden role of the pre-existing, informal community networks with a view to more authentic evaluation of these externally imposed programmes. The article draws on a range of qualitative data reflecting the lived experiences of participants -including parents and other community members -in a family and parenting programme at an English primary school.The analysis uses the work of Tönnies as a theoretical lens. It suggests that while there are tensions caused by the rigid requirements of external programmes, these are overcome in many cases by the highly effective, but often unacknowledged, contributions of the informal aspects of community. It is argued that these operate within and complement the formal programme. Far from subverting the more overt procedures, they actually enable it to function successfully, leading to additional, unanticipated transformations among participants. The article concludes that these organic, often invisible connections need to be identified, documented and nurtured if their full potential is to be recognised and realised when evaluating similar interventions. IntroductionSchools in socio-economically disadvantaged contexts and the families they serve can be perceived as deficient and in need of 'fixing', a stance often, but not exclusively, reflected in the literature on urban education (Tricarico et al. 2015). In response, an increasingly common remedy is a highly prescriptive, externally-funded intervention programme. This article explores how one such philanthropically funded, evidence-based programme, long established in the United States, was enacted in an urban primary school in England. Our observations of the experiences of the diverse facilitators, or 'partners', within this project centre on the ways in which existing school community structures interact with this externally imposed programme. In light of an increase in approaches to intervention predicated on quantifiable measures of impact, we offer in this article an additional, complementary perspective. As teacher educators and researchers with a commitment to social justice and empowerment within local communities, including that served by this school, we hope to demonstrate how such programmes can be more authentically evaluated by also acknowledging the existing assets and workings of the community.We begin with a brief consideration of some of the literatures of policy directions, intervention programmes, philanthropy and community which we have found relevant before outlining Tönnies' ([1887] 2002) metaphors of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, a theoretical perspective that has been helpful in exploring the complexities involved in working with such a programme...