Raising Engagement and Enhancing Learning: School Community Partnerships That Work for Students at Promise

doi:10.4236/ce.2011.24053

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Creative Education

2011. Vol.2, No.4, 375-380

Raising Engagement and Enhancing Learning: School Community

Partnerships That Work for Students at Promise*

David Zyngier

Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Email: [email protected]

Received August 22nd, 2011; revised September 27th, 2011; accepted October 9th, 2011.

This paper reports on a pilot study that investigates the widely reported issue of underachievement of students

from Culturally Linguistically and Economically Diverse (CLED) backgrounds. It involves 15 university educa-

tion faculty student volunteers and over 40 students and their families in primary (elementary) schools situated

in disadvantaged communities of Victoria whose students come from 40 different nationalities, speaking 36

languages and with 75 per cent of its student cohort coming from Non English Speaking Backgrounds. A part-

nership was formed to focus on the problem of CLED children’s disengagement from their academic learning.

We focus on how a productive partnership between schools and a university impact on inclusive teaching and

learning practices both at the school and the university level. We investigate whether such an intervention can

have an impact on engagement levels and the learning and social outcomes of students from refugee, migrant

and working class families. Privileging participant voice we analyze data from interviews, surveys and focus

groups with students, teachers and parents to argue that such a program has the capacity to re-engage under-

achieving students at a minimal cost to the community as an alternative model to other expensive and unsuc-

cessful intervention programs. We conclude that at the core of this successful program is the need for both par-

ticipants to feel they are empowered in the process. We know that student outcomes can be enhanced when the

students feel connected to and involved in their community. Through this project, the students have the opportu-

nity to experience greater community engagement leading to improved school attendance and retention, as well

as better academic outcomes.

Keywords: Community P artnerships, Culturally Linguistically and Economically Diverse Students, Student

Engagement

Introduction

We live in a society where despite widespread concerns

about children and teenagers, the vast majority of adults are not

actively involved in the lives of young people outside of their

own families. This reality has a profound impact on community

life and on young people’s development. Without the attention

of many adults in all parts of their lives and community, young

people are deprived of important sources of guidance, nurture,

care, and socialization. (Scales, Benson, & Mannes, 2002)

This paper analyzes a specific community engagement pro-

gram, the Enhanced Learning Improvement in Networked

Communities (E-LINCs), an innovative project that partners

university and community volunteers with schools where stu-

dent learning difficulties and disengagement are significant issues.

The focus of this research is school-community engagement, as

productive and authentic work with cultural, linguistic and eco-

nomically diverse (CLED) communities in order to redress social

disadvantage. Theories of community strengths underpin sup-

port to teachers “meeting and partnering with community

members and agencies, to learn about the important community

strengths that can be utilized in a more culturally relevant edu-

cation” (Noel, 2010: p. 10).

We ask whether such an intervention can have an impact on

engagement levels and the learning and social outcomes of

students “at-promise” from refugee, migrant and working class

families.

Privileging participant voice we analyze data from interviews,

surveys and focus groups with students, teachers and parents to

argue that such a program has the capacity to re-engage under-

achieving students at a minimal cost to the community as an

alternative model to other expensive and unsuccessful interven-

tion programs. This multi level approach required buy in from

teachers, researchers, the community and other young people to

make it a success.

We conclude that at the core of this successful program is the

need for all participants to feel they are empowered. We know

that student outcomes can be enhanced when the students feel

connected to and involved in their community. Through this

project, the students have the opportunity to experience greater

community engagement leading to improved school attendance

and retention, as well as better academic outcomes. The re-

search was awarded a competitive national award for its sig-

nificant contribution to Australian education.

Engaging Pedagogies and Achievement

The problem of Cultural, Linguistic and Economically Di-

verse (CLED) children’s disengagement from academic learn-

ing (Naidoo, 2008) is evident in the primary schools involved

in the project. In contrast with individualist models, a critical

transformative understanding (Zyngier, 2010) con siders “whether

engagement is a key centralising factor in the successful im-

plementation of empowering classroom pedagogies” (McFad-

den & Munns, 2002: p. 359). This approach delivers improved

outcomes for young people by challenging “the school context

in which the young people are located” (Stewart, 1998: p. 4). A

transformative approach involves pedagogical reciprocity where

*Swardener (1995) uses the positive term children “at-

romise” rather than

negative children “at-risk”.

D. ZYNGIER

376

teachers and students learn together and from each other (Zyngier,

2010).

School-Community Partnerships Enhance

Social Capital

Case & Hadfield (2006: p. 3) warn against a view of educa-

tion that considers the work of schools in isolation from their

communities and note a cultural shift away from “previously

isolated and entrenched modes of working” towards “more

inclusive and holistic” multi-agency partnerships in education.

Schools are increasingly looking to communities to help build

capacity and improve educational outcomes (Berg, Melaville,

& Blank, 2006). Holloway (2004) argues that “efforts to im-

prove student performance must focus on the community as a

whole including the university as a community organisation,

not just on the school” (p. 89). Howard (2006) similarly sug-

gests that while there is no single strategy powerful enough to

close academic achievement gaps, social capital (or networks)

“should be an element of a more inclusive and comprehensive

effort” to narrow and eliminate these gaps (p. 12).

Melaville, Berg & Blank (2006) note the importance of young

people having access to social capital and network of social

supports connecting them to shared values, information, guid-

ance, and contacts. “Each individual needs to belong to a

‘community of practice’ where beliefs are shared, skills are le-

arned, and collective resources and interactions hold them to-

gether” (Melaville, Berg, & Blank, 2006: p. 20).

Strong school-community partnership is associated with bet-

ter school attendance, quality school programs, improved stu-

dent behavior, and discipline (Michael, Dittus, & Epstein, 2007)

while partnerships between schools and other organizations

play an important role in addressing some of the non-academic

barriers to learning, such as poor peer relations, family conflict

and instability, negative community norms and disorganization

(Anderson-Butcher, Stetler, & Midle, 2006).

What makes this project so effective is that it bonds, bridges

and links schools with their communities of practice which

includes the university (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992).

Social capital “has a major impact on student achievement and

health” (Howard, 2006: p. 9), results in better school perform-

ance (Leana & Pil, 2006; Plagens, 2003; Putnam, 1999), and en-

hances the productive capacity of both individuals and groups

(Croninger & Lee, 2001). Social capital can promote educa-

tional achievement because community social capita l influences

students’ educational performance through the variety of pro-

grams, organizations and activities available in the community.

“Whenever there is a collective c ommitment by families, schools

and communities to work in partnership… young people stay

and succeed in school” (Israel & Beaulieu, 2004a: p. 50).

The Enhanced Learning Program

CLED students’ literacy development is often lower than the

expected age level, which means that functioning successfully

in the classroom and obtaining skills and knowledge may be

difficult. The major goal of the program was to establish an

effective, ongoing and well-attended after-school program for

any students who were underachieving and/or disengaged, and

who volunteered to attend in order to improve their learning.

Our focus was o n the problem of children’s disengagement from

their academic learning. The pri ncip al was clea r about who was

to be involved and why:

The idea is for those students who are perhaps not doing as

well as they could, it could be bright kids who are in the pro-

gram as well … It’s not for under performance or the kids who

are low achievers, it’s for kids who perhaps could have the bar

raised for them. It’s an opportunity to do that. I call it vicarious

learning basically, because school for a lot of these kids is a bit

of a pain [but] we don’t want to replicate school again, so

they’re doing more school stuff.

The programs ran for 8 weeks with sessions from 3:30 pm to

5:30 pm twice weekly. The afternoon started with volunteers

playing some vigorous out side games with the children to ‘shake

out the sillies’ before sitting down to a communal afternoon tea

to ‘re-charge their batteries’. Children then had the option to

either complete set homework or work towards their chosen

learning goals. The majority, in choosing the latter, were ex-

cused from homework completion, opting for learning goals as

diverse as story writing, project work, spelling, handwriting,

numeracy activities like times-tables or computer skills. The

volunteers assisted with these choices, which the children’s

parents would not have been able to help with at their homes.

After one hour of games, food and individual work on learn-

ing goals or homework, the groups participated in enhanced

learning that included student choice opportunities in educa-

tionally rich activities. The volunteers developed the following

twice-weekly Enhanced Learning Workshops:

 Animation & movie-making

 Music, Dance & Drama

 Everyday Science

 Everyday Cooking

 Digital Photography

 Art & Mural Development

Findings

We documented through photography, video and audio re-

cording the diverse projects developed by volunteers at two sc-

hools. We also conducted four focus groups with school pupils

and surveyed and interviewed volunteers.

E-LINCs built meaningful relatio nships for young people with

their peers and other community members and provided a space

where young people learned new skills from community mem-

bers sharing their expertise. The program was not designed for

any particular student type—a principal adds that:

Our aim is I think to have as many children who want to be

involved, as well as those who need to be involved because

there’s no reason why children who aren’t already doing well,

can’t even do better.

Enhanced Engagement

As many of the volunteer s were from white, mi ddle class ba ck-

grounds they commented positively about working with CLED

children for the first time:

Getting to know and understand students from different back-

grounds to myself. It’s been fantastic being involved with a sch-

ool where there is so much diversity; it’s been a great experi-

ence in that respect.

The volunteers were also clear about th e i r involvement:

I thought that this project truly benefited disengaged chil-

dren and I wanted to be a part of that … I would like to try to

help the students that have difficulty in engaging with their

classroom school work. … I wanted to work more with students

who find it difficult to engage in school work, by working with

D. ZYNGIER 377

them to make the learning fun and enjoyable, that is of interest

to them.

The volunteers understood that student disengagement was a

real issue for them to tackle and commented about their ex-

periences with the children as they observed the changes in en-

gagement:

The students loved the program; they all had a favorite part

they liked to talk about. I liked that we built a good strong re-

port with them so that they felt they could tell us if they thought

the program needed changing or how to improve it. … For the

majority of the students by midway they were really engaged

and were loving the activities and even doing the homework

(and they liked getting help).

Seeing the students grow to trust us and enjoy the program,

in particular seeing them apply themselves was really reward-

ing. One student who had been quite difficult previously, really

applied herself over the last few sessions and even opened up to

me a little.

The students commented about the program that:

It’s really fun. Yeah we had a photo hunt. And we made post

cards. We made our own videos. It’s funny, it’s fun, yeah.

I’m happy because I get lots of fun work. I don’t like boring

work

I learnt my division.

Now I know how to make harder experiments and they’re

actually easy

It helped me for class and for life as well.

It is was really fun and it makes me get more active instead

of sitting at home and watching TV … or turn the computer.

Many of the students involved spend the time between school

and when their parents arrive home with no purposeful play or

directed activity. Many students were now attending school re-

gularly.

The volunteer reflected that:

According to the teachers she was known as the ‘sick bay

girl’, she would basically live in the sick bay and would not

want to participate in class what so ever. I noticed that after a

few sessions with Enhanced learning, she was becoming more

involved in the Science activities and always had a smile on her

face. One day, the girl’s teacher approached me and said that

she taught her whole class one of the Science sessions I had

taught her and she has become more involved in class.

Enhanced Learning Outcomes

Students were able to distinguish clearly between the kinds

of class work they usually experience in class and the Enhanced

Learning program:

The science we do isn’t really work, it’s just experimenting,

like we make slime, we make tornadoes in bottles and stuff like

that. That’s why I love Enhanced Learning. Enhanced Learning

is fun.

Volunteers reflected on the program and its positive effect on

the students:

Seeing them work hard on their learning goals because they

want to understand what is in front of them and asking you if

they have the right answer after you’ve just helped them and

when you say “yes” watching them smile and keep going with

their work.

This is confirmed by one student who was confident that she

could now even:

Tell my teacher how to make like tornadoes in bottles and,

slime, and how to make the lava lamp.

A number of the volunteers reported on positive change in

the students:

Seeing themselves improve in their performance skills and

actually being given time and help with doing their homework

which they told us they do not get at home.

The students are glad to have us there to help them with their

homework and ask lots of questions and I believe have become

more confident in completing their work.

We had no trouble getting them to do their work as we pro-

vided a place for them to have fun and be themselves, they

weren’t in any competition with each other, as they were all

different.

The students had changed from shy underachievers able to

identify what they had gained from Enhanced Learning as one

commented:

It helps me, like it helps me to learn science and stuff like

that, like they help us with our homework. It’s really exciting

because I’m really excited, like if I grow up I’ll be a scientist or

something.

The enhanced student outcomes were underscored by the

volunteers:

It was also great seeing how the students have relaxed and

gained some confidence over the course of the program … I

believe have become more confident in completing their home-

work. We have had other lessons come to the surface like a

dance that the boys wanted to show us and a standup comedy

sketch performed by a boy that wasn’t very confident at the

start. Their confidence has grown with their fellow peers and

homework. They’ve said that they come to school on a Tuesday

and Thursday because they don’t want to miss out on our pro-

gram.

These students, based on previous school data were hard to

keep engaged in their school environment but their teachers, the

principal and volunteers agreed they had all been fully engaged

in this program. Specifically a Principal was able to identify

individuals who made enormous strides:

[He was a] very, very shy kid, but during that program, you

could see his engagement level was really, really high, and he

was actually experiencing success, where he’s normally one of

those kids who would be sitting in the background and making

himself as inconspicuous as possible.

Enhanced Social Capital—Transforming and

Empowering

The purpose was to use Learning Enhancement as a part of a

strategy to build social capital, enhance learning, and develop

powerful learning relationships. Yosso (2005) developed the

concept of community cultural wealth which “focuses on and

learns from the array of cultural knowledge, skills and abilities,

and contacts possessed by socially marginalized groups that often

go unrecognized, and unacknowledged” (Yosso, 2005: p. 69).

As the principal noted effective school-community partnerships

give schools a much broader range of resources and support

networks on which to draw:

One of the fundamentals of the program is that at the end of

the program there’s a public celebration, it’s very, very impor-

tant, so that the children can show their parents and other sib-

lings and their peers, as well as their other teachers, what we

have achieved. So there’s a public acknowledgement of it.

A student in the program agreed:

We can show our parents how to do what we do at school

and how we do it and the purpose is that we can take it home

and do it.

What makes this program different from the multitude of af-

D. ZYNGIER

378

ter-school programs is that the E-LINCs project engaged dis-

advantaged “at-promise” youth in authentic learning. Coming

from the belief that it ‘takes a village to raise a child’ the pro-

ject provided a space where young people can learn new skills

and grow their own self worth and community members can

share expertise building on the collective community know-

ledge of the young people by improving their experiential base.

By tapping into and cultivating the rich knowledge and concern

of a range of community members it supports the learning of

young people; and builds meaningful relationships for young

people with their peers and other community members.

From the volunteers perspective they identified the strength-

ening of social capital in this way:

When you see their faces light up and they call your name

from across the asphalt when you arrive, then they come inside

and they can’t wait to tell you about something that is impor-

tant to them. Seeing their personalities come out and listening

to them talk at the end of the session about what we achieved

and what they liked about the session.

Building relationships with the boys has been rewarding and

watching them participate and be enthusiastic about their

learning has made the hard work worthwhile.

The principal concluded that:

The children who participated in the program were so ex-

cited to share a skill that they had …. Short term—not big

gain—but if you’ve got a program like this running and chil-

dren know that they can get into it and be involved in it, there

will be growth, and importantly, they’re learning a skill, and

not just a skill, but they’re potentially learning an interest. Be-

cause if kids learn something like that, they say, “I’m quite

good at this.”

By changing the social and cultural capital there was poten-

tial for the children to change their lives. The Principal clearly

understands this effect:

We can’t set kids on that path of thinking about what they do

in a normal primary school, but you can start to develop inter-

ests that are not necessarily going to be developed in the run of

the mill school day, and particularly with the backgrounds they

come from in our area, that they’re not that aspirational.

The schools also provided opportunities for members of the

community to work in after school support and enhancement

activities together with student-teacher volunteers or as leaders

in their own right.

The tension between providing activities that were shaped by

the children’s interests and the skills of the volunteers allowed

the program to be both child and adult-directed where the adult

agenda was relatively modest permitting it to be responsive to

the “changing needs and circumstances in the lives of low in-

come children” (Halpern, 2002: p. 179).

Instead of just doing more of the same that has already led to

the disengagement of the children, this particular outside of

school program offers an excellent opportunity to provide the

necessary experiences and environments to re-engage CLED

children and prepare them for learning. As one of the volun-

teers commented,

It’s not just that the children are failing to learn. They have

failed to become learners.

Conclusion

Community-based after school youth development programs

are well established in the USA but are new to Australia. Re-

search in the USA indicates that these programs:

Foster the development of youth [and have] the capacity for

being a force of transformation. Through developmental ex-

periences young people learn that transformation is possible—

that they can create their own lives—and also that they can, and

need to, develop their own communities. (Onore & Gilden, 2010:

p. 31)

The programs offered as part of the Enhanced Learning of-

fered “a context for socialization, acculturation, training and

problem remediation” (Onore & Gilden, 2010: p. 31), but also

the young people were afforded protection, care, opportunity

for enrichment and also play. By changing the social and cul-

tural capital there was potential for the children to change their

lives.

Teacher education programs must not only transform their

focus and strategy but as Noel concludes must also “work more

intimately with their urban communities and community-based

organisations” (Noel, 2010: p. 11). Volunteers realized this pos-

sibility:

I found it exiting to be involved in such a revolutionary idea.

I liked the fact that this was something different and I wanted to

be involved in that.

By doing so we move towards a more democratic and par-

ticipatory form of education significantly with input from all

involved. It was through “listening to and learning from com-

munity members” (Noel, 2010: p. 15) that the volunteers began

to understand how they saw and understood the school and its

children and their families. E-LINCs was an “extensive com-

munity-based immersion experience” (Sleeter, p. 102) and as

such developed the volunteers’ perspectives on CLED children

as assets rather than deficits.

This research has shown that productive partnerships be-

tween schools and a university can affect inclusive teaching and

learning practices, both at the school and the university level. In

distinction from “homework clubs”; after-care activities; and

other such activities, this intervention can have an impact on

engagement levels and the learning and social outcomes of

students from refugee, migrant and working class families.

From a research perspective what makes this program success-

ful was that all the participants were empowered to enhance

learning outcomes as the students felt connected to and in-

volved in their community (Zyngier, 2003). By not asking the

children to do “more of the same”, the students had the oppor-

tunity to experience greater community engagement leading to

improved school attendance and retention, as well as better

academic outcomes.

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