Conference Agenda

mproving student performance, regardless of background factors, is an important objective in educational research, policy, and practice. Academic optimism responds by identifying key variables that enhance performance for all students(Hoy, 2012). This study aims to advance this exploration by outlining critical antecedents for fostering such optimism in secondary schools. The academic optimism of schools comprises three interrelated subcomponents that positively impact student performance, even when controlling for background characteristics such as socioeconomic status (SES) or migration background (Boonen et al., 2014; Hoy et al., 2006a; McGuigan & Hoy, 2006). Teacher teams that demonstrate greater collective efficacy beliefs (1), prioritize academic emphasis (2), and foster trust in both their students and the parents (3) are more likely to achieve the goal of improving performance, in contrast to teacher teams lacking this academically optimistic focus (Hoy et al., 2006b). Previous studies have shown a link between authentic (Srivastava & Dhar, 2016), distributed (Cansoy & Parlar, 2018; Hasanvand et al., 2013), instructional (Allen, 2011),transformational (Atif & Abid, 2021) and social justice (Feng & Chen, 2019) leadership to increase the level of academic optimism. Building upon these findings, we hypothesize that, in terms of effectiveness, a leadership approach that directly evaluates and guides teacher performance in alignment with academic optimism – whether explicitly stated or demonstrated through the leadership's own actions – will generate an even more profound impact. This type of leadership behavior, which we will refer to as performance management for academic optimism, embodies a direct and purposeful approach, underscoring the notion that leaders play a pivotal role in shaping the organizational culture. In addition, we anticipate that a principal’s proactive efforts to enhance the team’s collective efficacy, foster trust in students and parents, and believe in the capabilities of all students will also deepen the connection between teachers on the one hand and increase the participation and involvement of parents and students on the other. Principals who take the initiative to emphasize the importance of reaching out to others are more likely to foster social bonds that can enhance the density of relationships within schools (Bishop Harris, 2015; Bryk, 2010). Research from Scott (2016) showed the importance of ongoing communication from teachers to parents to increase involvement. Clearly articulating these expectations by school leaders is anticipated to boost the likelihood of teachers investing more in such interactions (Epstein, 2002). Additionally, principals who cultivate a positive learning climate are anticipated to enhance teachers’ connectedness with the school (Hallinger et al., 2018). As these alignment practices become more widespread, we anticipate it will further augment the academic optimism of the school. The heightened connectedness and interaction will contribute to an increased confidence within the teacher team, build more trust in students and parents, and foster a stronger belief in the potential of all students. In prior qualitative research, teachers themselves highlighted the significance of connectedness as a vital condition for academic optimism, as well as the importance of authentic relationships with students and parental involvement (Lelieur et al., 2023). In summary, we hypothesize that school leaders who explicitly focus on academic optimism not only generate more academic optimism but also foster more alignment between teachers, students and parents, which, in turn, will further elevate the level of school academic optimism. In that way, this research seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by uncovering critical antecedents that promote academic optimism, paving the way for a more comprehensive understanding and practical application in educational settings.

The accelerated pace of life and heavy workloads have made it increasingly difficult to engage parents in parental involvement, and the lockdowns during COVID have also weakened this relationship (Brown et al. 2011, Wright, et al. 2022). It is a current research challenge to re-examine the factors that promote and hinder parental involvement. Researchers classified the factors affecting the quality of the family-school partnership into child-related, parent-related, and school-related types (Epstein, 2001, Magwa & Mugari, 2017). Perents influence students’ school performance in many ways, and the biggest challenge for the education system is to compensate for the resulting disadvantages. Education policies aimed at reducing social inequalities in the school system emphasize the importance of involving parents in their children’s school life and studies, and of developing family-school partnerships (Epstein 2001). Current research suggests that school policies, district leaders and principals’ support for family and community involvement can dominantly influence parents’ attitudes toward schools (Epstein, et al. 2011).

Significant differences can be observed in parental involvement by social background. Parental involvement is much higher for parents from favorable social backgrounds even today(Guo et al., 2018; Pribesh et al., 2020, Gibbs et al. 2021). A key reason for this lies in parents’ different communication, worldviews, and attitudes due to social differences and in the resulting teacher-parent distance. Unfavorable social status influences parenting through low educational attainment, lack of positive school experiences, lack of information, and insufficient confidence in the educational process (Morawska et al. 2009; Bæck 2010). Some explain the low intensity of parental involvement to economic disadvantage, low income, inflexible and longer working hours, the need to supplement income, and time constraints due to overtime (Dyson et al. 2007). It is the low SES families, for whom an effective Family-School-Community Partnership (FSCP) would be key to promoting their children's success in school. This raises the critical educational policy question of how to support parental involvement of low SES families. Epstein argues that the school policies that support FSCP can reduce the disadvantageous impact of low-SES families on PI. Research results do not clarify which school policies effectively involve low-status parents in different school cultures.

This research aims to reveal the types and effects of FSCP policies in Central and Eastern Europe. The main question of this research is: Which policies are successful in involving low-SES parents? Our research focuses on the most hard-to-reach, yet most significant actors: how parents of different SES perceive the schools' FSCP policies—hypotheses: (1) A more favorable SES results in a more active home-based and school-based PI. (2) Parental SES impacts parents’ perceptions of FSCP policies. (3) Parents’ perceptions of FSCP have a greater impact on home-based and school-based PI than individual student- and parent-related factors.

Rapid changes in society and new knowledge in the field of education require that teachers learn to support students’ development as a natural part of every school’s daily work. McLure and Aldridge (2022) emphasized that the link between new and ongoing changes in schools should be balanced with the flexibility of the school, taking into account the socio-cultural factors present in the context of each school and ending with the capacity of the school leadership to manage change.

The development needs of schools during the recent COVID-19 pandemic were particularly acute. Research findings highlight the critical importance of leadership, emphasizing, in particular, the central role of school leaders in both problem-solving and fostering collaboration among teachers. Research shows that pre-existing (pre-Covid) practices in schools, such as distributed leadership, peer networks, and collaboration, were beneficial factors that helped successful schools lead the learning process calmly and respond to challenges (e.g. De Voto & Superfine, 2023; Watson & Singh, 2022). Nonetheless, the willingness to learn together and systematically renew one’s own practices is an effortful and time-consuming process, and requires a supportive environment and from leaders to maintain focus, share responsibility, and create a collaborative learning culture among teachers (Sims & Fletcher-Wood, 2021).

Teacher collaboration constitutes one of the key elements of school improvement, quality, and effectiveness (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2010). It is also argued that collaboration represents a general characteristic of good schools and encourages teachers to view innovation as a common and continuous process of change rather than as an additional task (Vangrieken et al., 2015). In an effective collaboration process, certain organizational routines provide structure and enable the coordination of various tasks by helping teachers and school leaders interact in a way that is consistent with organizational goals. Organizational routines have been understood in the literature as driving forces for improvement and change in schools (Maag Merki et al., 2023).

The most commonly mentioned strategies that leaders employ to increase the collaborative nature of school culture are implementing distributed leadership (Spillane, 2006), creating a shared vision and setting goals focused on the quality of teaching and learning (Leithwood et al., 2020).

External support is an important element in the school improvement process, and one form of external support that has received significant attention is joint university-school programs (e.g., Bryk et al., 2010; Timperley et al., 2014), where school and university staff collaborate in the development process. This partnership between researchers and practitioners aims to build the capacity of educational systems to engage in research-informed improvement efforts (Bryk et al., 2010). University-school partnerships often aim to collaboratively develop and test interventions and work out new practices, which is a process that engages researchers and practitioners in designing and testing solutions for improving teaching and learning (Coburn et al., 2016; Sjölund et al., 2022).

In line with Coburn et al. (2016), this study aimed to identify the factors that foster the development of a collaborative culture in the school improvement process.

The study is guided by the following research questions: 1) How was the arrangement of teamwork perceived in the school improvement process? 2) How was the goal setting perceived in the school improvement process? 3) How was external support perceived in the school improvement process?