Collaboration with Families: Perceptions of Special Education Preservice Teachers and Teacher Preparation

The purpose of this study was to explore the integration of family involvement in the courses and field experiences in an undergraduate special education program. This study also explored preservice teachers’ perceptions about what they learned in their program and the perceptions, and understandings of pre-service teachers regarding collaboration with families based on their past experiences with their families. This study used qualitative research methods to answer questions about perceptions of pre-service teachers’ perceptions of collaborating with families and the extent to which their perceptions are influenced by their own family backgrounds as well as their perceptions about what they learned in their program. In order to address the goals and related research questions of this study, the research design will be a descriptive case study. Interviews with six preservice teachers and two professors and document analysis used in this study as a source of data. Three themes emerged from the data. The themes are as follows: perceptions of preservice teachers about family-school collaboration, preservice teachers’ past experiences when they were at K-12 in terms of family involvement and teacher education program experiences of preservice teachers