Expanding the concept of parent involvement to special education: Considerations for inclusivity

Abstract

Parents of children with disabilities are distinctly involved with their children inside and outside of school as they partake in special education procedures and support individualized child needs. Yet standards for parent involvement are largely designed for parents of children without disabilities, making them potentially less meaningful for parents whose children are enrolled in special education. Conceptual parent involvement frameworks are the foundation for existing involvement standards and practices; thus, they may benefit from expansions that support the use of these models for families with children in special education. We explore the alignment of existing parent involvement frameworks within the context of special education and parenting a child with a disability. To advance inclusivity for families of children receiving special education services, we offer considerations for future conceptual work on parent involvement and discuss possible implications of such expansions for research, practice, and policy.

INTRODUCTION

Parent involvement is widely viewed in connection to school and academics (Slone, 2021), with the goal of supporting children’s academic achievement and learning outcomes (Devlieghere et al., 2022; Fan & Chen, 2001; Park & Holloway, 2017). Schools heavily promote parent involvement as it can positively influence students’ academic achievement (Wilder, 2023) and their social and behavioral adjustment (Barger et al., 2019). Literature suggests that there are different contexts where parents, caregivers, and guardians (hereinafter “parents”) can be involved in supporting their children’s education, including the school and home. Broadly, school-based involvement is conceptualized as the behaviors and activities used by parents to participate in the school setting, including taking part in parent–teacher conferences, attending school events, meeting with teachers, and volunteering in classrooms, while home-based involvement refers to parents’ strategies at home to promote their child’s academics and learning, including monitoring their child’s school progress, helping with homework, and reading together (Boonk et al., 2018; Tan et al., 2020). Despite distinctions between home and school contexts, the traditional concept of parent involvement has received criticism for being overly school-centric and placing the onus on parents to adapt and meet school standards for participation, thus making them passive participants and relegating relational power to schools (Ishimaru, 2019).

Literature has notably struggled to consistently conceptualize parent involvement (Boonk et al., 2018; Devlieghere et al., 2022). It comes as no surprise, then, that parent involvement is often used interchangeably with related, but distinct, concepts such as family engagement or family–school partnerships (Baxter & Kilderry, 2022; Burke, 2012). These concepts are promising approaches to teaming with families and aim to foster more equitable relationships with families. Family school partnerships refer to collaborative, family-centered home–school relationships (Haines et al., 2022). Family engagement highlights the interactive and dynamic process for parents’ participation in their child’s learning (Garbacz et al., 2017). In particular, recent years have seen a push for schools to prioritize family engagement (e.g., Mapp & Kuttner, 2013). Although the U.S. public school system has historically endorsed parent involvement approaches that skew school-centric (U.S. Department of Education [USDOE], 2010), in 2013, the USDOE published a framework for family engagement that focused on building the “dual capacity” of families and educators so they could better collaborate and support learning (Mapp & Kuttner, 2013). However, in much of actual practice, efforts may fail to capture the essence of proposed family engagement frameworks and continue to advance practices that are more aligned with the traditional conceptualization of parent involvement; this includes an emphasis on school-based forms of participation and encouragement for parents to modify their behaviors and values rather than a push for systemic or institutional change from schools (Ishimaru, 2019). For instance, a 2021 report on U.S. public school principals revealed that more than three quarters offered school-based involvement opportunities to parents, including school open houses or other special events, parent–teacher conferences, involvement in school governance and instructional issues, school volunteering, and input on budget decisions. Less than three quarters of these principals offered more unique, parent-centered forms of involvement, including pacts that acknowledge parent and schools’ shared responsibility of education or parent capacity-building activities, such as workshops and courses (National Center for Education Statistics, 2021). Thoughtful, dynamic frameworks for family engagement and family–school partnerships have been proposed that focus on collaborative, equitable relationships (e.g., Ball et al., 2021; Garbacz et al., 2017; Haines et al., 2017, 2022); yet, parent involvement frameworks (discussed later in this article) continue to be largely cited in literature, practice, and policy (Yamauchi et al., 2017). Although family engagement has principally replaced parent involvement in the modern education lexicon, practices remain largely school-centric, and parent involvement persists as an inveterate, relevant concept in the U.S. education system. As such, we focus on the concept of parent involvement and address opportunities to build on existing frameworks and extend conceptualizations to be more inclusive for families who may participate outside of prevailing, school-centric guidelines. We hope that emphasizing such expansions can support an increasingly inclusive, responsive approach to family research and practice.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN SPECIAL EDUCATION

The traditional, school-centric conceptualization of parent involvement is largely centered on families of children in general education classrooms with relatively limited consideration of parents who have a child with a disability who is enrolled in special education services (de Apodaca et al., 2015). Although, like parents of children in general education, the involvement expectations for parents of children in special education are largely school-centric (Goldman & Burke, 2017), the involvement of these two parent groups is often viewed along a divide, with different functions to their involvement behaviors (Burke, 2012; Goldman & Burke, 2019). In general education, parent involvement is primarily viewed from an achievement standpoint, where parents’ involvement efforts support children’s school outcomes; in contrast, parent involvement in the context of a child’s disability often associates parents’ involvement with their adherence to the procedural aspects of the special education system and fulfillment of procedural mandates (Burke, 2012).

Certainly, parents of children in special education face a complicated layer to their involvement that is not experienced by families of children in general education. In accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), parents are expected to be involved in their children’s education services and actively participate on their child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) team, including providing consent for services and attending annual meetings (IDEA, 2004). Unlike some of the more traditional guidance for parent involvement, IDEA promotes partnerships between parents and educators in developing and managing educational programming and acknowledges that family participation strengthens special education services (Haines et al., 2017).

However, parents’ true participation is less straightforward. In principle, although IDEA emphasizes family participation, it fails to enumerate exact parent roles, leaving school teams to determine strategies for participation and the degree to which parents are involved (Haines et al., 2017), often resulting in practices that favor the school. For instance, parent IEP meeting attendance is strongly emphasized (Goldman & Burke, 2017), yet it is common practice for special educators and service providers to prepare the IEPs before meetings. To schools, this practice increases efficiency, but it consequently positions the school team to control special education decisions; by the time the meeting begins, there is often little opportunity for parent input or new ideas to be included (Öztürk, 2017). Existing practices place enormous burden on parents and require them to fight for both their child’s services and their own place on the special education team (Rossetti et al., 2021). Parents may already struggle to participate actively and confidently in meetings given the unfamiliar and complex nature of special education procedures. They must learn to navigate the highly specialized special education system, including procedures and timelines that lack transparency and dense documents with unfamiliar, technical terms (Parekh, 2023). Such processes further constrain parents’ involvement by requiring them to possess specific economic and cultural capital to participate and advocate effectively for their child (Ong-Dean, 2009; Rossetti et al., 2021).

The concrete implementation of parent involvement in special education is similarly complicated, despite the legal guarantee of parents’ place on the IEP team (Cioè-Peña, 2020; Rossetti et al., 2021). Reviews have found that team members’ roles (e.g., special educator, parent, administrator) influence their participation in meetings. Members from the school team, such as special educators and administrators, tend to speak more in meetings, while families may be positioned as passive participants and provided few opportunities by the school team to make contributions (Blackwell & Rosetti, 2014). In a 2019 content analysis of 88 student IEPs, more than one third of the IEPs contained no parent input. In instances when parents provided input, it was used to inform the child’s services only two thirds of the time (Kurth et al., 2019).

One possible explanation for this gap is tenuous home–school relationships. Although schools report that they desire the involvement of parents in special education, parents overwhelmingly report negative experiences (Sanderson, 2023), often feeling excluded (Kurth et al., 2020) and powerless on school teams (Van Laere et al., 2018). In the same 2019 content analysis, schools’ wording on special education documents lacked terminology that supported parents as equal, active members of the school team and instead indicated that parents were outside sources of information (Kurth et al., 2019). These findings suggest that existing school practices may relegate parents to roles as “token participants” (Ong-Dean, 2009, p. 28) in their children’s education, where they have reduced power and influence (Parekh, 2023). Research has found that if parents assert themselves and push to have an active presence at school, schools may view this as adversarial, annoying (Rossetti et al., 2021), threatening (Reynolds et al., 2015), or overinvolvement (Lai & Vadeboncoeur, 2013). Active parent participation challenges hierarchical power dynamics where schools have historically retained control (Batz & Yadav, 2024; Van Laere et al., 2018). In situations where tensions escalate and parents and school teams disagree over educational decisions without compromise, they may move to a due process hearing, where the matter is settled by an independent officer through mediation or, in some cases, state or federal court. This is a long, arduous process that requires parents to have substantial, additional economic and cultural capital to navigate successfully and have their voices heard (Ong-Dean, 2009).

Despite the specific standards for parent involvement in special education and the distinct participation experiences of parents of children with disabilities, much of current parent involvement conceptualizations and related research remain centered on families of children in general education (de Apodaca et al., 2015; Frew et al., 2013). Of U.S. students aged 3 to 21, 15% are enrolled in special education services (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024) and have parents who participate in special education procedures. Thus, there is a need for more inclusive involvement conceptualizations that consider parents of children in special education and the circumstances of parenting a child with a diability. Theory underlies existing involvement perspectives (e.g., Tan et al., 2020), standards (e.g., Guerra & Nelson, 2013), and practices (e.g., Strassfeld, 2019) and plays an important role in research on parent involvement as it provides a structure to guide researchers in making sense of their observations. However, models and frameworks are not necessarily panoptic, and in too strictly adhering to existing theory, researchers may overlook certain aspects of phenomena; thus, it is critical to contemplate novel or updated approaches to concepts (Yamauchi et al., 2017). We highlight opportunities to expand existing conceptualizations of parent involvement to be more inclusive of families of children with disabilities. First we review conceptual frameworks on parent involvement and explore their alignment with parent involvement in special education through empirical findings. We then suggest considerations for future conceptual work on parent involvement in special education and discuss the potential implications of a more inclusive view.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS ON PARENT INVOLVEMENT

Although numerous theories have been used throughout research to broadly explain families’ partnerships and interactions with schools (for a thorough review of some such theories, see Yamauchi et al., 2017), the distinct idea of parent involvement in education is dominated by two conceptual frameworks: the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model of parent involvement (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995, 1997), and Epstein’s framework of six types of involvement (Epstein, 1995, 2010). Both models are widely cited (Yamauchi et al., 2017) and have been instrumental in advancing parent involvement research, propelling parent involvement into nationwide educational dialogue, and generating momentum for parent involvement efforts in schools (McKenna & Millen, 2013). Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model focuses largely on understanding why parents get involved and the implications for student outcomes and practice (e.g., Walker et al., 2010), whereas Epstein’s framework has been particularly influential within educational practice, providing a structure on which to evaluate and set standards for parent involvement (Auerbach, 2007; Hamlin & Flessa, 2018). Much has changed, and continues to evolve, in both schools and society since these frameworks were initially constructed, including social shifts, modern technologies, increased awareness of individual and family factors, and an overall greater emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Accordingly, each framework has received updates from the original authors over the years. These frameworks continue to play a commanding influence in school practice and guidelines for families. As such, ongoing critical evaluation of their fit with contemporary school populations, including families of children with disabilities, is crucial.

Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model of parent involvement

Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s (1995, 1997) model of parent involvement was developed to help understand why parents become involved in their child’s schooling and the influence of their involvement on children’s educational outcomes. The model consists of five levels (Figure 1), the first focusing on interconnected factors that contribute to parents’ initial involvement decisions for their child’s schooling: parents’ perceived resources (i.e., time and energy, knowledge and skills), beliefs on invitations for involvement (i.e., invitations from the school and child), their sense of responsibility for their child’s education (i.e., role construction), and their views on their contributions to their child’s educational success (i.e., self-efficacy). The second level explains parents’ specific forms of involvement and the contexts where they take place (i.e., school- and home-based involvement), followed by the third level, which describes the mechanisms through which parents influence their children’s academic outcomes, including reinforcement, direct instruction, and modeling. This leads to the fourth level, which comprises mediating factors (e.g., fit between parents’ actions and school expectations) that influence the effects of parents’ participation on student outcomes. The fifth level focuses on children’s educational outcomes, including their knowledge and academic self-efficacy. The Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler team have made periodic updates to this model, including 2005 revisions that combined and expanded constructs to include a more dynamic representation of parent involvement (e.g., time and energy and skills and knowledge were subsumed by a broader category, perceived life context; Walker et al., 2005). At that time, they also developed a scale to accompany the first level of the model (Walker et al., 2005) and more directly acknowledged the influence of certain familial contexts, such as socioeconomic status and culture (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005).

FIGURE 1.

The Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model of parent involvement. Based on Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Walker et al., 2005; Whitaker, 2018.

The Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model has been summarized (e.g., Whitaker, 2018), investigated, and applied to research in a variety of family contexts, including age and grade level (e.g., preschool, middle school; Jarrett & Coba-Rodriguez, 2019; Whitaker & Hoover-Dempsey, 2013), race (e.g., Black families, Latine families; Gale et al., 2024; Walker et al., 2011), and school environment (e.g., rural, urban; Griffin & Galassi, 2010; Murray et al., 2014). Yet much less work has been performed that applies this framework to special education or parents of children with disabilities, making it difficult to fully assess the relevance of the model for these families. The relatively limited existing work in this area centers around the first level of the model and has been performed with parents of children of different ages (Hirano et al., 2016) and varied disabilities, including learning disabilities (Rice, 2017; Yotyodying & Wild, 2016, 2019), autism (Santiago et al., 2022), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Montes & Montes, 2021; Rogers et al., 2009), or a combination of different disability types (Fishman & Nickerson, 2015; Frew et al, 2013; Hirano et al., 2016; Rispoli et al., 2018; Rodriguez et al., 2014). Much of this work focuses on a selection of factors (e.g., school invitations, self-efficacy) that were guided by the model rather than testing the entirety of the corresponding level. With such varied parameters, it is difficult to find consistent patterns, especially given that some parents reported differing perceptions of these constructs (e.g., Rogers et al., 2009). Together, findings from these studies suggest that although several constructs fit with the processes underlying parents’ involvement (e.g., Montes & Montes, 2021), overall, these processes are varied and complicated for parents of children with disabilities. For instance, one study (Santiago et al., 2022) found that parents’ appraisal of their financial resources was linked to their overall involvement (i.e., a composite of school involvement, home involvement, and home–school communication). In the context of school, parents of children with disabilities reported that their school involvement was influenced by the amount of time and energy they had available for involvement (Fishman & Nickerson, 2015), their self-efficacy for involvement (Rice, 2017; Rodriguez et al,, 2014), or how effective they perceived communication with their child’s teachers (Yotyodying & Wild, 2016). Conversely, home involvement was influenced by invitations for involvement from their children, the broader school (Fishman & Nickerson, 2015), their aspirations for their children, or feelings about their child’s disability (Yotyodying & Wild, 2019).

Similarities do emerge across several studies. For instance, family characteristics, such as income, family structure, child age, and family race/ethnicity, play unique roles in shaping the home and school involvement of parents of children with disabilities (Frew et al., 2013; Rispoli et al., 2018; Rodriguez et al., 2014), suggesting that parents’ life contexts may be especially important to consider for families of children in special education. Across home and school-based involvement, teacher and school invitations had a positive influence on parents’ participation. Greater outreach efforts from schools supported parents’ involvement in school and special education (Fishman & Nickerson, 2015; Frew et al, 2013), and moderated the relationship between family characteristics (e.g., education, family structure) and parents’ homebased involvement (Rispoli et al., 2018). This indicates that parents of children with disabilities may especially benefit from receiving support, attention, and partnership from the special education team.

Findings imply a highly personalized involvement process dependent on varying factors, such as disability type, child needs, or child age. For instance, a study of parents of secondary-school-age students with disabilities found that Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model did not fully align with their involvement behaviors as the families were navigating factors unique to secondary special education, such as preparing for their child’s transition out of high school; additional areas were recommended for the model that better fit these families’ circumstances (Hirano et al., 2016). There are likely factors not included in the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model that are unique to the context of parenting a child in special education. To illustrate, one analysis of parents of school-age children with disabilities found that some parents placed higher value on the quality of services and their children’s progress; if they perceived that their children were receiving appropriate services, they were more indifferent to schools’ invitations to participate (Rodriguez et al., 2014). However, these are nuanced processes; parents may also become involved or stirred to advocate after a negative experience, such as when schools do not attempt to engage them or if they perceive issues with their children’s services or progress. Conversely, parents may be demotivated to participate when schools do not invite their participation or when they feel devalued, exhausted, or powerless (e.g., Gaspar & Jahromi, 2024; Rossetti et al., 2021).

The Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model provides a highly comprehensive explanation of why parents may become involved in their children’s education at home and school. Its numerous, measurable constructs and levels reflect the complexity of parent involvement and set a strong foundation for expansion (Yamauchi et al., 2017). Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2005) acknowledged the importance of continued examination and improvements to such conceptual and theoretical foundations. As part of this, we posit that there are specific opportunities for expansion in relation to parents of children with disabilities. Notably, the comprehensive model remains largely untested for parents of children with disabilities and without disabilities; most research has focused on the first two levels with less emphasis on the final three levels (Walker et al., 2005; Yamauchi et al., 2017). This lack of full exploration may explain the model’s limited applications thus far to parents of children with disabilities. Although the first two levels have received substantially more attention, relatively little research has studied these two levels in the context of special education, thus, it is difficult to determine whether they encompass all potential variables that influence the involvement of this parent group (Fishman & Nickerson, 2015). Greater research is needed to test the entirety of this model and examine it in relation to families of children with disabilities. As work progresses on this model, a systematic review may be helpful to inform broader research.

Epstein’s framework of six types of involvement

The most widely cited parent involvement framework in empirical articles (Yamauchi et al., 2017) is Epstein’s framework of six types of involvement (Epstein, 1995, 2010). The framework was developed to support practitioners’ efforts to partner with families and guide researchers’ study design and interpretation of data (Epstein, 2010). It defines six types of parent involvement (Table 1): Type 1 - Parenting: the creation of home environments that support children’s basic needs and their development as students; Type 2—Communicating: channels of communication between different settings on topics such as children’s academic progress and school events; Type 3—Volunteering: parents’ dedication of time to support school-related activities; Type 4—Learning at Home: activities at home that parents use to promote curriculum-related learning, decisions, and planning, such as homework help or discussions about school; Type 5—Decision-Making: parents’ involvement with school policy and partnership in school decisions; and Type 6—Collaborating With Community: integrating community services and resources in support of children’s education, school programs, and family practices (Epstein, 2010, 2016; Epstein & Sheldon, 2023), Since its original publication in 1995, Epstein has continually updated the framework; for instance, a recent version was published in 2023 (i.e., Epstein & Sheldon, 2023). Updates include concrete and varied illustrations on how educators can promote each type of parent involvement, revised definitions of parent involvement that reflect research findings from different contexts, and recognition that the results of each involvement type may vary based on individual families and schools (e.g., student achievement pertains to skills beyond test scores; Epstein, 2016; Epstein & Sheldon, 2023).

TABLE 1.

Epstein’s framework for six types of involvement.

Type 1: Parenting	Type 2: Communicating	Type 3: Volunteering	Type 4: Learning at home	Type 5: Decision-making	Type 6: Collaborating with the community
Help all families establish home environments to support children as students; help schools know their families	Design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs and their children’s progress	Recruit and organize parent help and support for the school and for students	Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning	Include parents in school decisions; develop parent leaders, advocates, and representatives; include all parents’ voices	Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning and development
Sample practicesa
- Suggestions for home conditions that support learning at each grade level. - Parent education and other workshops or training for parents (e.g., GED, college credit, family literacy). - Home visits, neighborhood meetings, or welcoming events at school at time of transitions. - Neighborhood meetings to help families understand schools and to help schools understand families.	- Conferences with every parent at least once a year, with follow-ups as needed. - Weekly folders in print, on a website, or in electronic form of school notices and memos. Parent–student review of report cards with discussion of goals for next report card period. - Clear information on choosing schools or courses, programs, and activities within schools.	- School and classroom volunteer program to help teachers, administrators, students, and other parents. - Parent telephone tree, e-tree, or other structures to provide all families with needed information. - Punch card or electronic record of times the parent attends student presentations, sports, or other events in a volunteer role as audience. - Parent patrols or other activities to aid safety and operation of school programs.	- Information for families on skills required for students in all subjects at each grade. - Information on how to assist students to improve specific to meeting learning standards. - Calendars with activities for parents and students to do at home or in the community. - Summer learning packets or activities.	- Active PTA/PTO or other parent organizations, advisory councils, or committees (e.g., curriculum, safety, personnel) for parent leadership and participation. - District-level councils and committees for family and community involvement. - Information on school or local elections for school representatives.	- Information on community activities that link to learning skills and talents, including summer programs for students. - Service to the community by students, families, and schools (e.g., recycling, art, music, drama, and other activities for seniors). - Participation of alumni in school programs for students.

Note: From Epstein, 2010; 2016; Epstein & Sheldon, 2023.

Abbreviations: PTA, Parent–Teacher Association; PTO, Parent–Teacher Organization.

^aSample practices are taken from a wider selection; see Epstein (2010), Epstein (2016), and Epstein and Sheldon (2023) for a full list of examples, as well as redefinitions, challenges, and expected outcomes for students and parents.

Like Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model, Epstein’s framework has guided studies on parent involvement in a variety of contexts and parent groups, including parents of different cultural backgrounds (e.g., Carvalheiro et al., 2023), income levels (e.g., Bower & Griffin, 2011), genders (e.g., Abel, 2012), or specific child age and grade levels (e.g., Van Valkenburgh et al., 2021). Also similar to Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model, relatively little of the existing research that uses the Epstein framework has been dedicated to understanding the involvement of parents of children with disabilities (Haines et al., 2022). More research is needed to explore this framework in the context of special education. Much of the relatively limited research of the framework conducted in special education focuses on families across varied countries with different compositions of participants (i.e., all parents, all teachers, or a mix of parents and teachers), and thus few definitive patterns can be identified. The variability in parent involvement behaviors across cultures and geographies is well documented, especially as the promotion of family engagement in children’s special education processes is a relatively newer practice in some regions (Acar et al., 2021) and family perspectives of disability can vary based on culture and influence how they interact with services (Magaña & Vanegas, 2021).

Bearing these variations in mind, findings indicate that parents of children with disabilities may identify with some, but not all, of the six types of involvement. For instance, an investigation of urban parents of school-age children with disabilities in Bhutan found that parents reported engaging in four types of involvement: parenting, volunteering, learning at home, and collaborating with the community (Jigyel et al., 2019). In a sample of Malaysian special education teachers, administrators, and parents, participants reported limited use of volunteering and decision-making involvement types (Nayor et al., 2014), whereas special education teachers in Barbados noted that they encouraged volunteering and parent communication at school but saw limited parent presence in decision-making (Blackman & Mahon, 2016). Similarly, Canadian parents of elementary schoolers with disabilities in inclusive classrooms reported limited opportunities to participate in decision-making, explaining that their schools tended to take over the educational planning and goal setting (Underwood, 2010). To be more directly involved in their child’s schooling, they volunteered at the school, communicated with teachers, and supported learning at home, including reading IEPs and other documents. Compared with parents of children without disabilities, parents of children with disabilities in the Netherlands reported less volunteering but more learning at home (Leenders et al., 2018). Similar findings were found in a study of U.S. parents of children with ADHD, where parents spent more time on home learning than involvement types that required school-based participation (Montes & Montes, 2021). A study of U.S. parents of middle-schoolers with disabilities (de Apodaca et al., 2015) sought to build on Epstein’s framework and reported that parents were the least engaged in more general involvement activities (e.g., searching for information to support child success) and participation (e.g., attending school events) compared with other forms of involvement such as maintaining expectations (e.g., for child progress on IEP goals) and communication (e.g., talking with children about school-related matters). However, parent involvement was influenced by factors such as student educational placement and student grades.

Findings indicate that there are distinct nuances in the involvement of parents of children with disabilities. Some select parent involvement types proposed by the Epstein framework, such as volunteering and other school-based involvement, may be less representative for these families. However, the exact combination of representative involvement types appears to vary greatly across studies. In prior work, scholars have suggested that the framework’s broad categories provide a more generalized perspective of parent involvement and place less emphasis on the unique differences between families and family background (Goodall, 2022). Such a perspective assumes that each of the six involvement types have equal weight where involvement behaviors are black and white, occurring or not occurring; for instance, home learning is assigned the same value as volunteering (Goodall, 2022). This approach may inadvertently conceal the nuances of parents’ involvement. For instance, a 2018 examination of 11,171 parent involvement initiatives in Canada revealed that specific support areas requested by parents, such as access to resources and services, were subsumed by the Epstein framework’s broad involvement categories; this obscured the true nature of parents’ preferences (Hamlin & Flessa, 2018). Understanding such details may be especially important when considering parents from different groups, including those who have children with disabilities. These parents may participate differently and to different extents based on individual contexts and circumstances (e.g., increased involvement activities at home, limited school or community presence in response to child needs; Khetani et al., 2013; Kirksey et al., 2022; Leenders et al., 2018).

Epstein’s framework is a highly influential, digestible model that exhibits the importance of partnerships among parents, schools, and communities (Yamauchi et al., 2017)—elements that have contributed to its substantial and lasting impact (Goodall, 2022). Yet as with Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s model, it covers a dynamic concept that requires continued inspection to support its further development. Epstein has recognized this need for continual reevaluation; for instance, Epstein redefined the six types of involvement to reflect contexts outside of the school setting (e.g., Epstein, 2016) and continues to publish updates (e.g., Epstein & Sheldon, 2023). This model establishes a solid grounding for future work. Moving forward, there are opportunities to extend the model further and enhance qualities that can advance the framework’s application to families in special education.

Considerations for future conceptual work on parent involvement in special education

Given the strengths and opportunities for expansion in present frameworks and the distinct factors that shape the lives of parents of children with disabilities, we encourage the following areas to be carefully considered in future conceptual work on parent involvement and special education. Examples of such considerations in application to the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model and Epstein framework can be found in Figure 2 and Table 2, respectively. First, future work should be mindful of the lens from which frameworks are designed. Although both frameworks acknowledge the influence of family, home, or community contexts, they remain largely school-centric, focused on these contexts in connection to academics or school-initiated activities. Past criticisms have maintained that a school-centric focus conceptualizes involvement on school terms rather than family preferences (Griffin, 2011) and captures the behaviors of parents who are already active members of the school and require little encouragement or additional skills for involvement (Baquedano-López et al., 2013; Goodall, 2022). This focus benefits schools because it enables them to align more easily with the frameworks, with only superficial adjustments to their practice that are not necessarily designed to address unbalanced power dynamics or misconceptions of parents (Goodall, 2019). Meanwhile, parent perspectives may be overlooked. In special education, parents often must battle for a seat at the table (Rossetti et al., 2021) and make significant adaptations to their behavior to align with the special education team (Love et al., 2021). This reinforces existing power dynamics within special education, including hierarchies of expertise that favor professional insights over parents (Beratan, 2006) and deprives parents of the rights they are guaranteed under IDEA, such as equal decision-making (Öztürk, 2017). Unbalanced dynamics are particularly debilitating as they reinforce barriers to parents’ special education participation and further disempower them through deficit-framing and withdrawal of supportive opportunities when they do not meet involvement standards (Love et al., 2021; Ong-Dean, 2009). A school-centric view also further reinforces the emphasis on parent procedural mandates and parents’ compliance with the expected involvement behaviors under IDEA (Kirksey et al., 2022), including IEP meeting attendance. Although important, IEP meeting attendance may not be the most accurate representation of parents’ involvement given that these meetings are only mandated to occur once annually (IDEA, 2004). Too strong of an emphasis may overlook other critical ways that parents participate (Goldman & Burke, 2019).

FIGURE 2.

Example of the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model expanded for special education (levels 1 and 2). Based on Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Walker et al., 2005; Whitaker, 2018. All added special education considerations are in bolded text. The gray boxes include specific special education or disability-related considerations that may influence Level 1 factors. Abbreviation: IEP, Individualized Education Program; SES, socioeconomic status.

TABLE 2.

Example of Epstein’s framework expanded for special education.

Type 1: Parenting	Type 2: Communicating	Type 3: Volunteering	Type 4: Learning at home	Type 5: Decision making	Type 6: Collaborating with the community
Help all families establish home environments to support children as students and to support learning and IEP goals; help schools know their families, including families’ values, backgrounds, and skills. Integrate knowledge of families at school and in practice to support consistency and collaboration across settings.	Design effective and flexible forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs, children’s progress, and special education processes. Eliminate jargon from all communications. Take time to work with families to individualize these communications based on family preferences. Check in with families to ensure understanding and answer questions.	Recruit and organize parent help and support for the school and for students. Recognize family circumstances and understand their perspectives on involvement. Give space for families to contribute to child learning outside of school-related activities. Learn about, earn from, and acknowledge the contributions that families make to learning outside of school.	Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with curriculum-related activities, decisions and planning. Provide frequent, in-depth information and ideas of how to support child IEP goals in the home. Ask families questions, learn about family values and preferences at home; work with families to incorporate these into school context.	Include parents in school and special education decisions; develop parent leaders, advocates, and representatives in school and on the special education team; include all parents’ voices, values, culture, and strengths in decisions, plans, instruction, student goals, and policies.	Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, IEP goals, and student learning and development. Connect families with activities, therapies, external services, and professionals that align with their goals for their child and their individual family values and circumstances.
Sample practicesa
- Collaborate with parents to ideate activities for home and school that can support IEP goals and child learning. - Parent education and other workshops or training for parents on special education processes, services, and interventions. - Programs that help school special education teams understand parents’ views on disabilities and special education, as well as their priorities, goals, expectations, and dreams for their children.	- Weekly conversations with each parent (in parents’ preferred format). Share child progress and work in the school setting; provide opportunities for parents to share child activities and updates in the home setting. - Weekly folders in print, on a website, or in electronic form of special education notices and memos; translate all communications as needed. Eliminate jargon and annotate to support parent understanding. Follow up on important documents with a phone call to clarify and answer questions.	- Parent listserv, forum, support groups, or other structure to allow for parent–parent sharing and connections. - Parent ambassador or match program where parents can connect with peers or mentors one-on-one. - Weekly conversations with each parent where parents share insights and ideas with educators/school teams, including family activities, interests, personal research or knowledge-gathering, and strategies they find useful for their child.	- Information for families on the specifics of practices and strategies used by the school to support IEP goals, including in-depth explanations of particular interventions, therapies, and services. Ask parents to provide similar information on home activities. - Collaborate with parents to work adapted versions of home activities into school and school activities into home. Practice together on implementing new strategies.	- Active parent organizations, support groups, advisory councils, or committees for parent leadership and participation. Include parent representatives and leadership and input when making practice and policy decisions at a school, district, or broader level. -In IEP meetings (and at all times) encourage parent advocacy and input. Prompt parent sharing and validate their expertise and role on the team. Advocate for parents to be heard and listened to.	- Information on community activities that link to child IEP goals and interests, including summer or after-school programs, extracurriculars, and external therapies and services. - Attend community events that are of interest and importance to families, including disability or cultural-specific celebrations, programming, and other activities. - Team with families to facilitate service integration between school/special education services and families’ community connections (e.g., cultural, recreation, or health agencies).

Note: Based on Epstein, 2010; 2016; Epstein & Sheldon, 2023. All added special education considerations are in bolded text.

Abbreviation: IEP, individualized education program.

^aSample practices provided in this figure are guided by practices listed in Epstein, 2010, Epstein, 2016, and Epstein & Sheldon, 2023 but modified to align with special education-specific cirumstances, processes, and activities.

Moving involvement beyond school settings

Expansions to conceptual work should consider further accounting for contexts beyond school. Scholars have suggested shifting involvement perspectives from children’s schooling to children’s learning more broadly (Goodall, 2022). Research in general education has indicated that forms of involvement outside of school may take more subtle, intrinsic forms, such as parenting styles or individual family factors, and may have a comparable, if not stronger, influence on child outcomes (Castro et al., 2015; Tan et al., 2020). Parents themselves may view involvement as their behaviors at home or in the community, in contrast to schools, which often consider parents’ involvement as it relates to school-based activities (Grice, 2020). Research on parents of children with and without disabilities has found that parents felt their involvement did not stop at the school environment but rather continued into the home (McKenna & Millen, 2013). Parents of children with disabilities indicate stronger desires for their children to work on skills at home and in the community versus in school (Liao et al., 2019). Other parents report focusing on involvement outside of school as a strategy to escape the anxiety and confines of school expectations and potential feelings of judgement from their special education teams (Sousa, 2015).

Parents’ emphasis on their participation outside of school suggests that there is valuable involvement occurring at home that risks being overlooked with a predominantly school-centric approach, especially for parents of children in special education who bring distinct capital that should be better recognized, valued, and incorporated by school teams (Rossetti et al., 2021). However, relatively less is known on these forms of involvement for parents of children with disabilities (Rispoli et al., 2018). Everyday interactions with their children, such as providing moral support or living by example (Auerbach, 2007), can be important opportunities for all parents to support their children’s learning robustly and transmit distinct, useful skills that may not be directly related to the content of school (i.e., funds of knowledge; Moll et al., 1992). Understanding these involvement opportunities beyond school is particularly critical for parents of children with disabilities. While they also participate through everyday activities (Morris et al., 2023), the circumstances of parenting a child with a disability often require additional involvement efforts that are unique to their child’s needs and development (e.g., Garbacz et al., 2016; Sousa, 2015). For instance, in a study of parents of children in early intervention services, parents reported participation with their children in activities that supported their developmental goals, such as taking walks, engaging in social interactions, guiding emotion regulation, and steering household routines and chores. To facilitate these activities, parents needed to employ additional strategies, such as supplemental, intentional planning and preparation, ensure they had certain materials on hand (e.g., toys, picture schedules), and prearrange spaces ahead of time (Khetani et al., 2013). Parents of children with disabilities often spend substantial time coordinating their children’s services (Kervick et al., 2019), researching and gaining knowledge (Karns et al., 2022), attending parent trainings and support groups (Sousa, 2015), and acting as important models for their children’s development (Lai & Vadeboncoeur, 2013). Compared with parents of children without disabilities, these families’ lives are often exceptionally child-driven, with parents spending additional time and effort modifying family life to be aligned with their child’s support needs (Axelsson et al., 2013).

Recognizing family nuances

Future work should also prioritize consideration of individual family factors, characteristics, and backgrounds. American schools may sometimes assume that all parents share the same knowledge, understanding, and response to disability and parenting expectations as schools do (Lalvani, 2015; Valle, 2011) and that all families contribute and equally leverage social and cultural capital (Batz & Yadav, 2024). However, this is far from the case: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to family involvement (Parr & Vander Dussen, 2017) and research suggests that more nuanced models better represent the involvement of parents in special education (Duppong Hurley et al., 2019). Indeed, families exist within particular contexts, with varied and complex influences and factors that influence their behaviors (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1986) and special education experiences (e.g., Ruppar et al., 2017). For instance, parent involvement is developmental in nature; thus, the age of the child can play a role; a parent of a preschool child may participate differently from a parent of a high schooler (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005). Special education services and procedures in elementary school vary greatly from those of high school, where parents play an active role in deciding goals, services, and supports as the school team prepares the child for the postsecondary transition and shift to adulthood (e.g., Hirano et al., 2018). Parent gender can also be a factor; mothers of children with disabilities may engage with their children differently and with different outcomes than fathers (Lai & Vadeboncoeur, 2013). Family culture can have a substantial influence on parent involvement in special education; parents may use different involvement strategies (Chang, Lo, et al., 2022) or have different expectations and beliefs around disabilities and their participation (Acar et al., 2021) based on their cultural background. Other factors, such as the format or type of school (e.g., online or in-person, charter or public), geographic region or neighborhood context, political climate, religious beliefs, family income and education levels, and others, can also shape parents’ involvement. Further, there are certain influences distinct to parents of children with disabilities, including their child’s disability and specific needs (e.g., de Apodaca et al., 2015; Garbacz et al., 2016), experience with the special education system, and quality of their children’s services (Ong-Dean, 2009; Slade et al., 2018).

Better recognizing the realities of different family contexts and individual family characteristics is a strategy that can support the development of effective, inclusive parent involvement models (McKenna & Millen, 2013). Moving forward, these contexts should be fully understood and incorporated within conceptual work to partner optimally with parents and center their voices (McKenna & Millen, 2013). In research, special education professionals have reported that having an in-depth perspective of family experiences supports their relationships with families (e.g., Gaspar et al., 2025b). Families of children with disabilities hope to engage in two way, reciprocal relationships (Gaspar et al., 2025a; Sanderson, 2023) and are willing to share their lives with professionals, yet may also feel that schools make assumptions about their families. These assumptions can affect partnerships and prompt increased hesitation to share details (Haines et al., 2021; McKenna & Millen, 2013).

Parents largely base their participation on their expertise as a parent and what they feel is best for their child (e.g., Parr & Vander Dussen, 2017). Future work should acknowledge parents’ intentions and emphasize family-centeredness, nonjudgmental attitudes, and a strengths-based, holistic understanding of families, particularly in the context of special education. Parents of children with disabilities have reported lower perceptions of the usage of family-centered approaches in their child’s services than service providers (Mandak & Light, 2018), suggesting a need for practitioners to better understand parents and individual family characteristics to ensure authentic incorporation of family contexts. Successfully incorporating a family-centered approach can have positive influences on parent self-efficacy, parenting beliefs, psychological well-being (e.g., Mas et al., 2019; McIntyre & Brown, 2018), parent views of special education procedures (Sanderson, 2023), and the practices of their service providers (Dunst & Espe-Sherwindt, 2016).

Guidance from family–school partnership models

Future expansions to parent involvement models may also benefit from drawing guidance from the concept of family–school partnerships (Rossetti et al., 2021). Like parent involvement, literature on family–school partnerships is broad with divergent views (Johnston & Burke, 2024), but unlike parent involvement, many proposed family-school partnership frameworks are intentionally tailored to include families of children in special education (Haines et al., 2022). These models could offer paradigms essential to steering the evolution of the parent involvement frameworks that are so deeply entrenched in U.S. education structures and scholarship (e.g., Yamauchi et al., 2017). For instance, the sunshine model (Haines et al., 2017) includes indicators and specific partnership strategies that are relevant for special education, such as obtaining and monitoring services and supports and determining and meeting needs. A model on cultural reciprocity (Kalyanpur & Harry, 2012) recognizes the role that culture plays in partnerships; this approach outlines steps for school teams to identify and reflect on school and family culture, then collaborate with families to find respectful, appropriate solutions.

IMPLICATIONS OF EXPANDING PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN SPECIAL EDUCATION

Expansions to conceptual frameworks on parent involvement that incorporate these considerations have the potential to support structural changes with important implications for practice, research, and policy. In educational practice, schools and special education professionals could be guided by a more inclusive approach that aims to better partner with parents as an equal part of the special education team, rather than potentially viewing their involvement as checkboxes in the IEP process and a hindrance to school-centered power dynamics (Parekh, 2023). Having an effective, functional IEP team is critical to high-quality special education services; thus, power imbalances and organizational issues should be addressed (Talbott et al., 2016). Schools can shift to view each IEP as a unique opportunity to build home–school relationships (Blackwell & Rosetti, 2014) and shift away from a “battleground” approach to partnerships (Sanderson, 2023, p. 359). As we have proposed here, by recognizing the significant contributions and nuances of home, community, and family contexts, practitioners can be better equpped to empower parents and meet them where they are (Day, 2013). Such recognition could also build parents’ self-efficacy and capital needed to effectively navigate the special education system and participate as equal, proficient members of the IEP team (Sanderson, 2023; Trainor, 2010). As parents gain confidence, comfort, efficacy, and skills, they are better able to participate in decision-making and advocacy (Burke et al., 2016; Rodriguez et al., 2014). Research also suggests that an understanding, supportive approach from practitioners can lessen rates of mediation or due process (Burke & Goldman, 2015).

This teamwork and support should empower parents and promote their existing values and expertise. In past perspectives of involvement and partnerships, parent support, although perhaps well-intentioned, was sometimes used to control parent behavior and guide it to meet school standards of involvement (Love et al., 2021). Schools must be careful to avoid a savior perspective that focuses on “teaching” parents to be involved (McKenna & Millen, 2013) and work to understand parents’ strengths, existing expertise, and contributions to their children’s lives; this includes championing parent perspectives, advocating for parent input on the special education team, and guiding parent capacity building (Chang, Avila, & Rodriguez, 2022).

Research implications

In research, such conceptual expansions could influence the design of research questions. Rather than studies on strategies to increase parents’ involvement behaviors or student achievement, a greater understanding of parents’ perspectives could generate increased investigation into the power structures, bureaucratic practices, and systemic structures that pose barriers to parent involvement and partnership in special education (Valle, 2011). This could include questions about how best to meet parents where they are through changes to existing oppressive structures in special education and broader standards for involvement. As part of this, researchers should consider the tools used to measure parent involvement. There is a shortage of assessments of parent involvement that are validated on different samples, including groups of individuals with disabilities (Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation, 2012; Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2016; Goldman & Burke, 2019), thus studies examining parent involvement must use caution when selecting measurement tools. Future efforts should develop and validate tools to capture the involvement of parents of children with disabilities.

Better consideration of family variations could support the use of holistic and culturally responsive research approaches to examine parents’ involvement, including interviews, observations, focus groups, and longitudinal work that provides in-depth perspectives of family contexts and lived experiences (Garbacz et al., 2017; Hardy et al., 2024; Sabol et al., 2018). As part of increasing inclusivity, researchers can pursue “responsible research on parent involvement” (Fennimore, 2017, p. 173) and engage in research with families rather than on families (Gershwin et al., 2022). This includes considering community-engaged, participatory, or collaborative research approaches that partner with families, individuals, and practitioners and root the research process in the perspectives of those with lived experiences (Gershwin et al., 2022; Ruppar et al., 2018). Special education is a particularly critical space for these research approaches as recent years have seen a push to include disability communities in scholarship to incorporate their voices and implement meaningful, responsive work that combats ableism, stigma, and objectification in research (e.g., Botha & Cage, 2022; Rodríguez Mega, 2023).

Policy implications

At a policy level, conceptual expansions could set a foundation for more inclusive involvement standards that recognize the varied ways parents of children with disabilities participate and the multitude of factors that shape their involvement processes. Prior research seeking to expand involvement standards found that Latine parents’ involvement was more nuanced than the established, existing standards used by the National Parent–Teacher Association (adopted from Epstein’s, 1995 framework) and that their involvement behaviors were strongly tied to their culture (Guerra & Nelson, 2013). These findings indicate that standards could be further adapted for other parent groups, such as parents of children with disabilities.

More inclusive frameworks could also lead to implications for special education policy, including parent representation in policy-making. During the most recent IDEA reauthorization in 2004, families provided minimal input and made up <20% of witnesses at the congressional hearings (Hardy et al., 2024). Yet research on parents and IDEA clearly delineates that families hold strong opinions on special education policies (e.g., Hardy et al., 2024; Rossetti et al., 2020). Policymakers should truly listen to and include the voices of all parents, as input and ideas may vary based on individual factors such as child disability, race/ethnicity, or socioeconomic status (Hardy et al., 2024). Parents have requested changes to IDEA that support their knowledge, empowered choice, and overall active participation in the special education process (Hardy et al., 2024), indicating that they desire to participate more meaningfully, beyond meeting attendance. Informed by parent voices, future reauthorizations of IDEA could incorporate other approaches to involvement that consider individual family characteristics, values, and backgrounds and build parent capacity in navigating the special education system (Haines et al., 2017; Rossetti et al., 2021). Regarding procedural requirements (e.g., annual IEP meetings), rather than measuring parents’ involvement based on their attendance, later IDEA reauthorizations may consider refraining involvement to include standards for the quality of parent participation and interactions among the team, including efforts by the school to incorporate parent input, facilitate authentic discourse, answer questions, and encourage parents to interact as an equal, respected members of the team (Cioé-Peña, 2020).

CONCLUSION

Parents of children with disabilities experience distinct factors that influence their involvement inside and outside of school, including special education procedures (IDEA, 2004) and specific child disability needs or characteristics (Khetani et al., 2013). Dominant conceptual frameworks on parent involvement (i.e., Epstein, 1995, 2010; Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995, 1997) play an instrumental role in parent involvement research, practice, and policy, yet they largely focus on the involvement of parents of children in general education. Expansions would support the alignment of frameworks with parent involvement in special education. Future conceptual work should consider incorporating contexts and behaviors beyond school and academics, with greater emphasis on individual family characteristics, values, and parent perspectives as these factors can substantially influence the involvement processes and behaviors of parents of children with disabilities. As education and related fields shift and respond to the continually changing sociopolitical climate, we hope to motivate other scholars to address these expansions and further develop the inclusivity and relevance of research on parent involvement.