Book excerpt: Preparing Educators to Engage Families: Case Studies Using an Ecological Systems Framework, Second Edition encourages readers to hone their analytic and problem-solving skills for use in real-world situations with students and their families. Organized according to Ecological Systems Theory (of the micro, meso, exo, macro, and chrono systems), the text presents research-based teaching cases that reflect critical dilemmas in family-school-community relations, especially among families for whom poverty and cultural differences are daily realities.