Presentation – CVC2026-606

Home-school-community collaboration programs for 0- to 6-year-old children: A scoping review

Jinjin Lu, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China

Tong Lin, Wenzhou-Kean University, China

Stefan Reindl, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China

Wenping Zhang, Wenzhou-Kean University, China

Background: Home-school-community collaboration (HSCC) has become a key strategy for fostering holistic early childhood development through shared responsibility among families, preschools, and communities. Although research on HSCC for young children has increased, studies focusing on the 0–3 age group remain scarce, and among those addressing children aged 0–6, few meaningfully involve community participation.

Aim: The aim of this scoping review is to systematically map and synthesise international evidence on home-school-community collaboration programs for children aged 0–6 in order to develop an integrative typology and derive practical implications for localising culturally responsive and sustainable collaboration practices within China’s early childhood education system.

Method: This scoping review synthesises 45 peer-reviewed studies published between 2014 and 2025. The review followed the five-stage framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley and reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines (Tricco et al., 2018). Four major academic databases, ERIC, PsycARTICLES, SocINDEX, and Web of Science (WoS), were searched to ensure broad coverage of the literature across the education, psychology, and social science domains. The search timeframe spanned 2014 to 2025, which reflects a decade of recent research developments.

Results/findings: Most studies draw on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and Epstein’s Six Types of Involvement Framework on school-family-community partnerships, and discuss five major program types: professional development, parental empowerment, community-based integration, digital engagement, and health or sustainability initiatives. Effective collaboration depends on co-designed structures, shared leadership, and trust-based relationships linking families, educators, and local organisations, yet challenges such as limited institutional capacity, fragmented governance, and varying definitions of ‘community’ persist.

Conclusion: This review proposes a typology that connects collaboration design with developmental outcomes and contextual conditions, and offers insights for a transition towards community-embedded, sustainable, and culturally responsive early childhood education in diverse cultural contexts.

Implications for children and families: When schools, families, and communities work together, you benefit from stronger support, more learning opportunities at home, and a caring environment where you can grow, thrive, and feel connected every day.

Implications for practitioners: You are the vital bridge connecting families and communities. To build these trusting partnerships, you need dedicated time, targeted training, and systemic support to thrive as a relational facilitator.

Keywords: home-school-community collaboration, early childhood education and care, parental engagement, community participation

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: