{"id":20,"date":"2017-04-13T10:24:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T14:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-fall-2014\/?page_id=20"},"modified":"2017-05-15T11:16:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T15:16:40","slug":"page-with-video","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/page-with-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Synthesis of Practitioner-Oriented Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like Han and Love<\/a>, Toso and Grinder identify parent leadership in schools as especially beneficial to children\u2019s educational outcomes, arguing that family literacy programming in particular is \u201can ideal venue to develop and offer parent leadership opportunities (Toso & Grinder, 2016, p. 1).\u00a0Their report is meant to offer administrators and coordinators of family literacy programs best practices to use when incorporating\u00a0parent leadership in their programs.<\/p>\n

Lopez, Caspe and McWilliams, in their report, suggest that public libraries are also ideal venues to foster family engagement. Furthermore, they argue that public libraries can serve to promote equity more generally, by offering programs that diminish opportunity gaps between high and low income families:<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies with high incomes spend nearly seven times more money on out-of-school enrichment activities\u2014such as music lessons, summer camps, and travel\u2014than families from low-income homes. The opportunities for success for low-income children are diminished. Libraries are free, trusted, safe, and welcoming places in virtually every community that can help counterbalance these inequalities\u00a0(Lopez, Caspe, & McWilliams, 2016, p. 1).<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. Toso & Grinder, 2016, p. 6.<\/p><\/div>\n

Toso and Grinder\u2019s ideas surrounding parent involvement are highly grassroots-oriented. They criticize superficial, tokenizing involvement opportunities and instead emphasize the need for involvement activities to \u201creflect the diversity within the school population since\u00a0race, socio-economic status, and culture shape how parents participate in their children\u2019s education and schools (Auerbach, 2012a as cited in Toso and Grinder, 2016, p. 1). Aiming for \u201cparent leadership\u201d as opposed to merely \u201cparent involvement,\u201d argue Toso and Grinder (2016), allows parents to have a more influential, meaningful and equal role in their children\u2019s education (p. 2). To truly involve parents in leadership, according to Toso and Grinder, is:<\/p>\n