Martine van der Pluijm

181 General discussion Teachers will be willing to improve their SFPs in support of child language when these facilities are in place. However, stimulating SFPs may be difficult due to the shortage of teachers in the Netherlands. Schools could involve other professionals. In the schools that participated in our research, we met parent educators and library consultants that were eager to become involved, but due to the lack of policy support and facilities, it was not possible to involve these professionals in classrooms (Van der Pluijm, 2019; 2020). A clear vision on SFPs should include involving a variety of professionals and increasing their engagement to contribute to improved practices in classrooms. However, this requires coordination. This brings us to our next recommendation. Schools that participated in our research reported problems with systematic implementation and coordination of their new forms of parent engagement at the school level. Therefore, we recommend a new position be created at schools for this specific aim (e.g., a coordinator for partnerships with parents). National policymakers can encourage the development of this new position and facilitate schools to find a suitable form for their specific context. A final recommendation for policymakers is to ensure that attempts to develop SFPs in support of child language development are research-based (Epstein et al., 2019). Existing ECEC policy is an example of how continued research monitors policy goals and outcomes. Unfortunately, few effects have been shown in this area (Fukkink et al., 2017). An additional proposal is to stimulate different types of research to customize approaches to the needs of stakeholders and to collect theoretical knowledge from practice (Klatter & Martens, 2019). DBR can contribute to this aim. Subsequently, we recommend that this knowledge be diffused systematically and further developed in teacher networks, teacher education, and in local policy (Martens, 2010; Vermeulen, 2016). These investments by policymakers will contribute to further development of SFPs in support of child language development. Research shows the importance of such policy to connect school and home environments (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Epstein, Jung, & Sanders, 2019; Epstein & Sanders, 2006) and the need for embedding innovations of teacher behavior in policy (e.g., Van Veen et al., 2012). CLOSING REMARKS This thesis revealed that lower-educated parents seem to be underrepresented in research and overlooked in practice. Although family literacy research and research into SFPs aim to prevent inequities, it appears that particularly the parents with the least education are hardly reached. Schools suffer from a lack of knowledge about the importance of the home environment