"Knowing and Serving Diverse Families provides relevant content, discussion, issues, and strategies needed by teachers and others in the field of human services to understand and work with today's diverse families. Several chapters in this book provide insights into working with culturally and ethnically diverse families, such as African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American, Native American, and others. Other chapters are instrumental in informing professionals about diverse family structures, including single teenage parents, divorced single-parent families, stepfamilies, families with special needs, and gay and lesbian families."--BOOK JACKET.

A funny, heartfelt board book championing same-sex parents, inclusive families and the magic of reading! Set off on a series of incredible adventures with an adorable family as the stories they read burst into fantastical life. Battle dragons, dodge dinosaurs, zoom to the moon and explore the world in a hot-air balloon, before winding down in a wonderfully cosy bedtime ending. The bouncy, rhyming read-aloud text is brought to life by bestselling, award-winning illustrator Garry Parsons, illustrator of The Dinosaur that Pooped series. 'This rhyming picture book celebrating same-sex parents is a gentle and sweet read . . . a wonderful celebration of adoption and the different shapes a family can take!' BookTrust

Today's mental health practitioners face a rapidly changing clientele. Divorce, remarriage, multiracial marriages, different types of adoption, openly gay and lesbian relationships--all have significantly altered the nature and composition of families. An indispensable classroom text and an important resource for clinicians working in private practice, managed care, and other settings, this book insightfully examines a range of healthy families with creative family structures.

Candlewick relaunches a modern classic for this generation with a beautifully illustrated edition. Heather’s favorite number is two. She has two arms, two legs, and two pets. And she also has two mommies. When Heather goes to school for the first time, someone asks her about her daddy, but Heather doesn’t have a daddy. Then something interesting happens. When Heather and her classmates all draw pictures of their families, not one drawing is the same. It doesn’t matter who makes up a family, the teacher says, because “the most important thing about a family is that all the people in it love one another.” This delightful edition for a new generation of young readers features fresh illustrations by Laura Cornell and an updated story by Lesléa Newman.

Family Life Education with Diverse Populations is a T2 for courses in Family Life Education. Family Studies and Social Work students often go through the additional certification of becoming Family Life Educators (FLEs). As a family life educator, the student will help educate families in and outside the traditional classroom environment on how to strengthen relationships in the home and foster positive individual, couple and family development. Such education comprises many topics, including marriage education, parenting skills, anger management, to strategies in adjusting to divorce. This book takes the content delivered in courses on FLE a step further by examining and presenting key strategies for working with diverse populations. Diverse is defined broadly in terms of race and ethnicity, but also by setting, such as military families, rural families, families with loved ones in prison, and more. The book is unique in defining the group and presenting their strengths, and then prescribing treatments and strategies for working with each group. In addition, the book takes an evidence based practice approach and demonstrates proven strategies in working with the populations listed above. Sharon M. Ballard, Ph.D., CFLE, CFCS: is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Relations at East Carolina University. Alan C. Taylor, Ph.D. CFLE: is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child Development and Family Relations at East Carolina University.

Educators everywhere confront critical issues related to families, schooling, and teaching in diverse settings. Directly addressing this reality, Home-School Connections in a Multicultural Society shows pre-service and practicing teachers how to recognize and build on the rich resources for enhancing school learning that exist within culturally and linguistically diverse families. Combining engaging cases and relevant key concepts with thought-provoking pedagogical features, this valuable resource for educators at all levels: Provides detailed portraits of diverse families that highlight their unique cultural practices related to schooling and the challenges that their children face in school settings Introduces key sociocultural and ethnographic concepts, in ways that are both accessible and challenging, and applies these concepts as lenses through which to examine the portraits Shows how teachers and researchers have worked with diverse families to build positive relationships and develop learning activities that incorporate children’s unique experiences and resources Disrupting deficit assumptions about the experiences and knowledge that culturally and linguistically diverse children acquire in their homes and communities, this book engages readers in grappling deeply and personally with the chapters’ meanings and implications, and in envisioning their own practical ways to learn from and with families and children.

In Diverse Families, Desirable Schools, Mira Debs offers a richly detailed study of public Montessori schools, which make up the largest group of progressive schools in the public sector. As public Montessori schools expand rapidly as alternatives to traditional public schools, the story of these schools, Debs points out, is a microcosm of the broader conflicts around public school choice. Drawing on historical research, interviews with public Montessori educators, and ethnographic case studies, Debs explores the forces that pull intentionally diverse, progressive schools toward elitism. At the heart of Debs’s book is a thoughtful analysis of the notion of “fit” between parents and schools—an idea that is central to school choice, which is often marketed as an opportunity for parents to find the perfect fit for their kids. By exploring parents’ varied motivations in choosing these schools and observing how families experience—or fail to experience—a “good fit” after having chosen a particular school, Debs makes an original contribution to the literature on school choice and sheds light on the dilemmas entailed in maintaining diversity in progressive charter and magnet schools.