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www.HFRP.org

The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Dear FINE Member,

FINE's announcement email now returns to its regular monthly schedule after a summer break during July and August. Here are September's FINE member announcements. Please feel free to forward this information to friends and other education colleagues.

New on the FINE Website

Recent Reports: Community Organizing

Recent Reports: Technology and Family-School Connections

Other Reports

  • Parent-Child Connectedness: Bridging Research and Intervention Design

    ETR Associates has embarked on a project to better understand the protective factor of parent-child connectedness and to identify effective interventions for improving parent-child connectedness. Results from the first year of the project are reported in the latest edition of ReCAPP and include a comprehensive literature review, a bibliography of research, and a summary of major findings.

  • Finding the Family in Comprehensive School Reform Models: A Guide for Discussion

    This guide is directed at school and district administrators and reviews the family and community involvement components of popular Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models. The guide also assists administrators in assessing parent and community involvement in other reform models and suggests creative approaches to family and community involvement when this component is not emphasized in the reform model adopted by a school or district.

Books and Papers

  • Promising Practices Connecting Schools to Families of Children With Special Needs

    This book is the latest in the Family School Community Partnership Issues series edited by Diana Hiatt-Michael for Information Age Publishing. Chapters address legal issues and policies related to family involvement for children with special needs as well as approaches to family involvement for students with hearing impairments, learning disabilities, emotional disturbances, and psychiatric illnesses. This book is available for purchase from the publisher at the link above. The first chapter is available online at www.infoagepub.com/products/downloads/hiattchp1.pdf.

  • Parental Involvement and Children's Educational Achievement: Immigrant Generational Differences

    In an analysis of Adolescent Health Survey data, the authors found generational differences in the way immigrant parents are involved in their children's education. The authors also explored differences in the effects of parental involvement on academic achievement for three different generations of immigrants and found that parent involvement tends to be more beneficial to adolescents of third-generation immigrant parents, but less so for adolescents of first- and second-generation parents.

Journal Articles

  • African American Parents' Educational Orientations: The Importance of Social Class and Parents' Perceptions of Schools

    The authors of this article studied African-American parents' perceptions of school context and their educational orientations. Middle-class African-American parents were more likely to select their children's schools, assess them favorably, and adopt supportive orientations toward them, while working-class African-American parents were often assigned to schools, assessed them less favorably, and adopted more reform-based orientations toward them. Read the abstract and learn how to obtain this article at the link above.

  • Ecologies of Parental Engagement in Urban Education

    The authors of this article study the ways in which parental beliefs and actions concerning science education reform align with the expectations held by others in the reform process. The authors introduce a new parental engagement model to explain how parents activate nontraditional resources and leverage relationships with teachers, other parents, and community members in order to author a place of their own in urban school settings.

Websites to Watch

  • YesICan.gov

    The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans has developed a bilingual website to help parents navigate the education system. Toolkits on early childhood, elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education advise parents on how they can support their children's learning at each developmental stage.

  • Puckett Institute

    The Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute conducts applied research on topics related to healthy child, parent, and family functioning. Institute activities are organized into seven centers that focus on different aspects of bridging the research-to-practice gap. Center topics include evidence-based practices, promising practices, community linkages, practical evaluation, and dissemination and utilization.

Public Opinion

Toolkits

  • The Many Faces of Parent Involvement: Making Parent Involvement Work for Your School

    This manual from the Lawrence Family Development Charter School outlines best practices of parent involvement in charter schools. The manual includes results from a survey of Massachusetts charter schools on their parent involvement efforts, as well as advice, suggested activities, and sample documents collected at a recent conference.

  • Principals Speak Out

    This video from the Institute for Responsive Education documents the successes of three principals in the Boston area to form outstanding connections with families and communities. The principals talk about their strategies for success and offer advice to administrators who want to improve and deepen their family and community engagement efforts. Available for purchase at the link above.

  • Let's Try Series and Did you Know? Series From the Family-School Linkages Project

    The Family-School Linkages Project of the National Institute for Urban School Improvement has two series of practical publications designed to improve communication and relations between school personnel and families. The Let's Try series contains several activities that school personnel can use to create a more welcoming school environment. The Did you Know? series helps educators connect with families on important issues related to the education of children and youth in urban communities.

Evaluation

  • Checklists and Tools for Use in School Evaluation

    The Evaluation Center's resources on school evaluation include evaluation tools for parent involvement.

  • Assessing Family Involvement

    This issue of Partners in Learning from the Family Connection for the Indiana Center for Family, School & Community Partnerships includes several assessment tools. What is Happening? What Would You Like to be Happening? is a family involvement self-assessment for teachers and Are We Family Friendly? is a survey for families.

Events

  • Two Conferences on Family Involvement in Mathematics Education

    Math and Parent Partnerships (MAPPS) is a school-based program that engages parents in school mathematics. Schools and districts interested in adopting or learning more about MAPPS are invited to a Materials Dissemination Conference to be held October 28–30 in Tucson, Arizona. In addition, family involvement experts, leaders in the field of mathematics education, and educational researchers who are interested in parent involvement will be convening for Building Community: A National Initiative on Family and Community Involvement in Mathematics Education October 8–9 in Tuscon.

Funding

  • Dow Awards

    The Dow Chemical Company is offering awards of cash or products donations to school districts and school boards in communities near where Dow is located. Parent involvement is one of its three priority areas.

Other Resources From Harvard Family Research Project

  • The Evaluation Exchange on Early Childhood

    This lastest issue of The Evaluation Exchange, HFRP's evaluation periodical, charts the course of early childhood programming and evaluation over nearly half a century. Contributing authors share ideas for how best to communicate the importance of investing in a child’s early years and how to improve early childhood programs and policies.

  • Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation Briefs

    Two new briefs are available in HFRP's Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation series. Brief 6, Moving Beyond the Barriers: Attracting and Sustaining Youth Participation in Out-of-School Time Programs, presents promising strategies to attract and sustain youth participation in out-of-school time (OST) programs. Brief 7, Understanding and Measuring Attendance in Out-of-School Time Programs, examines three indicators of youth attendance in OST programs—intensity, duration, and breadth—and offers a few different models for how youth's attendance can influence their outcomes.

Contact Us

Have a problem with the website or questions and comments concerning our work? Send an email to fine@gse.harvard.edu.

Enjoy!

FINE - The Family Involvement Network of Educators

© 2016 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
Published by Harvard Family Research Project