The Pillars of Parental Engagement: Translating the Dance of Engagement Framework into Practice

Parental engagement is widely recognised as a crucial factor in children’s educational success and in enhancing student achievement. Despite broad agreement on the importance of parental engagement, educators and policymakers often lack practical, research-informed guidance on fostering meaningful collaboration between families and schools. Building on the Dance of Engagement framework, previously developed through a constructivist grounded theory study of parents and practitioners in community-based family literacy programmes, this article translates its relational, non-linear conceptualisation into evidence-informed pillars for practice. Specifically, this article synthesises the extant literature on parental engagement, family literacy and home learning environments to develop a structured set of evidence-informed pillars of parental engagement for educators and practitioners. Drawing on the relational principles identified in the earlier study, alongside broader research evidence, this article identifies the core conditions that underpin effective engagement and operationalises them as practical strategies across diverse educational and community contexts. Rather than generating new empirical data, this article integrates and applies knowledge from prior research, including practitioner and parent perspectives, to inform guidance that is both theoretically grounded and practically relevant. This article discusses implications for policy and practice, with particular attention to supporting meaningful, sustainable parental involvement in socioeconomically diverse settings.