The parent Involvement issue of UBC’s School Leadership centre is up and online. A range of articles, including my own reflection on the October Teachers’ Strike, can be found that discuss forms of parental involvement. Here is the opening to the editor’s introduction:

Two years ago the School Leadership Centre joined with representatives from several of the major educational partner associations in BC and with UBC researchers to engage the topic of parent involvement. The Parent Involvement Research Committee (PIRC) has since undertaken a number of activities to advance the understanding and practices of parent involvement. Ann Henderson and Karen Mapp (2004) have methodically collected a large array of American research studies that conclusively argue that parent involvement in schools makes a positive difference for students. However, when Ms. Henderson presented in 2004 to an audience of parent leaders from the lower mainland, sunshine coast, and the Island, it quickly became evident that parent involvement in British Columbia was already functioning at a level of sophistication that her research was just beginning to suggest might be fruitful. From that time forward, it has been clear that researching our own parent involvement practices in BC is a necessity. Not only is there much that we can offer to the global educational community, but if we don’t understand and theorize the strengths and weaknesses of what we do, then we are prone to give up valuable traditions that have evolved here through generations for the latest policy flavour of the month. Moreover, as many visitors I have met here at UBC over the last few years have observed, the education community here is like no other. The articles in this issue of the BC Educational Leadership Research reflect our uniqueness: from innovative leadership, to successful experiences, to lack of minority parent inclusion, to political fractiousness.(Continue reading the introduction and Table of Contents)