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Teachers' Perceptions Of And Collaboration Practices With Non-Traditional Families, Bonnie Kilfoyle

Dissertations

The "typical" American family is becoming more diverse with more families encompassing different configurations of individuals, such as blended families, multi-generational families, foster families, and single parent families (Lambie, 2011). This research study used qualitative research methods (teacher interviews) to investigate the extent to which teachers in a Catholic school received training on collaborating with non-traditional families and family diversity. Additionally, this study investigated the perceptions teachers had about working with foster families, kinship care-givers, grandparents raising grandchildren, and divorced parents and whether these perceptions changed after receiving a brief professional development on working with these types of families. Although …