The involvement of families in school is considered an important factor for success in the education of students, the proper operation of the centre and the work of the professionals, the attitudes and knowledge of the centre by the families, etc. However, not all families are involved in the same way, some of them due to socio-cultural issues, some due to the dynamics of the centres, which results in difficulties getting involved. The project aims to focus on families of foreign origin living in a specific situation, although the results obtained will benefit all families and centres. The project's nine partners, from three different countries (Italy, Luxembourg and Spain), belong to three levels involved in education: university, educational administration and school. The coordination and joint work between these partners will enable analysing the current situation regarding the involvement of the aforementioned families and the policies and actions that are carried out. This knowledge will enable designing innovative actions that will be tested in a group of centres (pilot centres, in total 24) during an academic course. The analysis of this applied experience will enable improving the design and disseminating the results to other centres within a territorial scope of the partners so that they can also implement them while the project partners will re-evaluate the proposals. This work plan will enable an analysis of the reality in each country, as well as comparing innovative action proposals tested in multiple situations. Therefore, these can be disseminated with a guarantee that they answer the idea of “good practices”. The project and all its phases and results will be disseminated through a specific website where all the products will be located, as well as a training pill on which a large part of the dissemination of the main achievements beyond our territorial scope will be based. In addition to the aforementioned website, the project will produce two PDF texts summarizing the knowledge acquired, which will be available through free access licenses. One of the books will focus on the involvement of families of foreign origin in each country and the policies and actions taken to improve this involvement; and the second will describe the analysis of the entire innovative process carried out by the project and its main achievements, and will establish the strategic and innovative lines that any primary education centre should apply to improve the involvement and integration of all families, including those families in more disadvantaged situations, such as those of diverse cultural origin.
The involvement of families in their children's education is an important factor in achieving school success and quality education. However, we are still far from achieving a successful partnership between families and schools that allows us to reach the quality objectives described above, especially if we are talking about families of foreign origin, where linguistic, cultural and social differences hinder good relations between both educational agents. Therefore, in this context, and in view of the need for schools to improve their relations with families (especially with families of foreign origin), the project entitled "Families and schools. The involvement of foreign families in schools" was born. This project is divided into two stages, each of which seeks to achieve a clearly differentiated objective. Firstly (stage 1), we analyse the strengths and weaknesses of family involvement in 3 European countries (Spain, Italy and Luxembourg), and we design a set of innovative strategies to improve parental involvement. Secondly (stage 2), the proposed strategies are implemented and evaluated in 24 primary schools, with the final objective of establishing a set of tools applicable to other schools. The project has involved 9 partners from three different countries (Italy, Luxembourg and Spain), belonging to three levels involved in education: the university, the educational administration and the school. In other words, in each country, a university, an educational administration and a school have participated in the project. In addition, 21 other primary schools (7 in each country) have been involved in the project, who have tested and evaluated the innovative strategies designed in the first phase. More specifically, the activities that have been carried out are the following: 1. Meta-analysis of parental involvement in schools in Spain, Italy and Luxembourg. 2. Discussion groups with families of foreign origin and teachers from the participating schools (to detect weaknesses in parental involvement). 3. Design of innovative strategies to improve the family-school relationship and the involvement of parents in their children's education. 4. Implementation, evaluation and redesign of the innovative strategies by the 24 schools (21 collaborating schools plus the 3 partner schools involved in the project). As material results of the project, two digital books have been published. The first one, entitled "Families and schools. The involvement of foreign families in schools", compiles the results of actions 1, 2 and 3 described above. The second, entitled "Foreign families and schools. Innovative strategies for improving the family-school relationship" is a compilation of the innovative actions carried out by the schools, which give a first-person account of their experiences. Moreover, these actions are also included in an audio-visual capsule to facilitate their spreading among the teaching staff. In addition to the aforementioned intellectual products, different dissemination activities have been carried out within the framework of the project. The most outstanding dissemination activities are the international congress in Brescia, where the results of the first phase of the project were presented, and the teacher training courses in the second phase of the project, in which, at national level, each team has disseminated the innovative strategies designed and implemented in the schools, making them known to more than a hundred teachers in each country. More internally, the 24 schools involved in the project have been enriched by the knowledge generated in the framework of the project, having improved their resources and tools to relate to and involve families. Finally, the project has a long-term projection, since during the next five academic years the educational administration of each country will be in charge of supervising and evaluating the continuity of the innovative strategies implemented in the schools involved. In other words, the 24 schools will continue to use the tools designed and implement the innovative actions. To sum up, we will be able to know the viability and success of these strategies also in the longer term.