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.

Terms of Use ▼

• Permission to Use Materials: In consideration for your agreement to the terms and conditions contained here, the President and Fellows of Harvard College, c/o the Harvard Graduate School of Education, grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use Harvard Family Research Project publications hosted on the Global Family Research Project Site.
• User may download material from the Site only for User's own personal, non-commercial use. User may not otherwise copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer any material. The burden of determining that use of any information, software or any other content on the Site is permissible rests with User.
• User will seek permission or licensing for any commercial use requests from the Harvard Graduate School of Education Office of Sponsored Projects.

• Home
• Research Areas
  • Complementary Learning
  • Family Involvement
  • Out-of-School Time
  • Early Childhood Education
  • Evaluation
  • Other Research Areas
• Publications & Resources
  • Search Publications
  • Browse Our Publications
  • Publications Series
  • Copyright and Reprint Permissions
• HFRP News
  • News & Announcements
  • Blog: New Directions in Family Engagement
  • In the Media

• Complementary Learning
• Family Involvement
  • Overview
  • Professional Development
  • Informing Family Engagement Policy
  • FINE: Family Involvement Network of Educators
  • Projects
  • Publications & Resources
• Out-of-School Time
• Early Childhood Education
• Evaluation
• Other Research Areas

• Large text size
• Normal text size
• Small text size
• Print this page

View all interactive cases

The Staying on the Path Toward College Interactive Case explores how schools and communities can work with Latino families to increase young people’s opportunities to attend college and succeed in life. The transition to middle school is a particularly important juncture along students’ academic pipeline to college, because the courses children take early in their middle school careers begin to influence the college and career paths they will be inclined to pursue. Unfortunately, we also know that a large number of ethnically diverse and low-income youth leave the academic pipeline prematurely. This case is designed to help educators understand the home, school, peer group, and com­munity factors that influence decisions Latino youth might make during the transition to middle school, and it explores ways that families, schools, and youth-serving community organizations can work together to ensure that all children have the opportunity to pursue higher education.

What you will learn
The purpose of this case is to give educators an opportunity to explore the complex relationships among peers, families, educators, and staff from youth-serving organizations that influence whether a student stays the path toward college. You will learn:

• How different stakeholders, including parents, teachers, peers, and college outreach leaders, can share responsibility and guidance in helping middle school students transition to high school and stay the path toward college;
• The nature of the transition to middle school as a continuous process that starts in elementary school and continues into the transition  to high school;
• How school climate can shape the transition to middle school; and
• How data can guide efforts to increase college going among middle and high school students.

Directions
On the pages that follow, you will be introduced to the six people in the case. After you read each person’s narrative, you will have a chance to reflect on her strengths and concerns. You can type your reflections right into the space provided on the webpage. A pop-up box will appear with some ideas you might have written about. You can then move on to reading about the next person in the case and reflect on that person’s ideas. Along the way, you will be provided with some supplementary data to consider. When you have completed reading all of the perspectives, you will have a chance to take a step back and think about the bigger issues presented in the case.

Let's Get Started!	Paulo, sixth grader	Paulo’s parents	Math teacher	College student and family friend	Community college outreach program director	Supporting data	Piecing it all together

Explore our Family Engagement Teaching Case series and find out more about our interactive cases. The full-length version of the Staying on the Path Toward College case is available on our website. The original case is featured in the book Preparing Educators to Engage Families: Case Studies Using an Ecological Systems Framework, 3rd edition, available for purchase from Sage Publications.