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.
Tomasito: The Research Behind the Story
The story is inspired by a research case in the School Transition Study.
The School Transition Study (STS) looked at the influence of family, school, and community on the development of approximately 400 low-income, racially and culturally diverse children from kindergarten through fifth grade. The study used a variety of methods to collect data on the children, their families, schools, and communities. As part of this data collection, in-depth qualitative case studies were conducted with a small sample of these children from first grade through second grade. These case studies focused on how family educational involvement affected children's development and school achievement.
The story of Tomasito was inspired by the real experiences of one of these children, his family, and his teacher. This particular child was born in the U.S. to low-income immigrant parents originally from Mexico. The child's mother had less than a high school education. The family lived in a large Western U.S. city and was acculturating to the U.S. The fictionalized story draws on some real events in the child's life, as well as on the actual feelings of the child, his mother, and his teacher. However, the plot of the story is the invention of the author, who was a member of the HFRP research team that collected and analyzed data on these children, and the names have been changed to protect the confidentiality of study participants. The key dynamic of the story—the desire of both the mother and the teacher to share information about the child's learning, despite language differences and a child who actively pushes them apart-remains true to the original case study.
The story illuminates research themes from the School Transition Study.
STS analysis showed that family involvement activities at school, as depicted in Tomasito's story, are an important type of family educational involvement for low-income families and can have a positive effect on children's literacy achievement. When STS families were engaged in more school involvement activities over the years, including attending open houses, parent-teacher conferences, and other school organization meetings, and visiting and volunteering in the classroom, their children's literacy achievement increased even more. This was especially true when the mothers in these families had less than a high school education.
The story of Tomasito brings to life some STS findings about patterns of family involvement at school. We found that formal school involvement activities like back-to-school nights were just one way to promote communication between parents and teachers. Informal conversations at the beginning and end of the school day, focusing on issues particular to the child, were also frequent activities. In addition, we discovered that being informally present inside the school building was important for parents as they sought to comprehend what their child was learning at school and that some Latino families with limited English skills learned a lot by active observation.
We also found, as have other researchers, that teachers who reach out to families to encourage their involvement and who welcome them into the school make a difference in families' participation at school. And we found that the children themselves—often neglected in analyses of home–school relationships—exerted a powerful influence on the communication between parent and teacher. These involvement processes are apparent in the story of Tomasito.