Family-school collaboration: review of a decade of empirical literature in Spain (2010-2019)

INTRODUCTION. During the last years, educational research has given increasing attention to the issue of collaboration between families and school both inside and outside of Spain. However, while research reviews and meta-analysis on the subject are common in the international arena, in our country there are still no reviews that allow for the systematizing of the findings of the studies carried out around this topic. For this reason, the objective of this article is to present an updated vision of the research focused on family-school collaboration carried out in the Spanish context over the last decade. METHOD. A systematic qualitative review of the Spanish empirical literature has been carried out based on a total of 43 research articles published in scientific journals between the years 2010 and 2019, identified by means of the WoS, Scopus, SciELO, InDICEs-CSIC and Dialnet Plus databases. RESULTS. The basic characteristics of the studies are presented, and the main results obtained in them are summarized. Specifically, five major thematic lines are identified in the research carried out: levels and modalities of family-school collaboration; conditioning variables of the collaboration; effects of collaboration; obstacles to family-school collaboration and collaboration among immigrant groups. DISCUSSION. Although the heterogeneous nature of the studies reviewed requires taking some caution when establishing generalizations, it is possible to identify the most relevant results obtained by the research around the five lines outlined above. It is also possible to detect certain thematic gaps that should be addressed and some theoretical and methodological limitations that should be considered in future research on family-school collaboration in Spain.