The View from the Lighted Schoolhouse: Conceptualizing Home-School Relations within a Class Size Reduction Reform

In this essay we examine how educators work within a component of a class size reduction reform designed to strengthen the connections between families’ home and school lives. We describe the accomplishments and struggles experienced by educators enacting this “lighted schoolhouse” based on our research in nine schools over three years. Specifically, we consider how educational resources are applied and experienced in schools and how opportunities to share knowledge between home and school are produced. We find educators’ views of families’ roles in schooling are shaped by how they are positioned by the context of the reform.