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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All Publications & Resources WORKING WITH TEACHERS AND FAMILIES DEVELOPMENT PERIODS |
COMPLEMENTARY LEARNING CONNECTIONS
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Making It Work: Low-Income Working Mothers' Involvement in Their Children's Education, Digest Version
This study finds that maternal employment is associated with low-income mothers' involvement in their children's education in complex ways and that working mothers use a variety of strategies to stay involved in their children's education.
Family and Community Engagement in the Boston Public Schools: 1995–2006
This chapter describes the evolution of Boston Public Schools' family and community engagement efforts. The authors discuss how collective community action contributed to a critical reframing of the district's approach to family and community engagement over a 10-year period. Chapter by Abby R. Weiss and Helen Westmoreland in A Decade of Urban School Reform: Persistance and Progress in the Boston Public Schools 2007. Edited by S. Paul Reville with Celine Coggins. Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Family Involvement in Early Childhood Education
This research brief synthesizes the latest research that demonstrates how family involvement contributes to young children's learning and development. The brief summarizes the latest evidence base on effective involvement—specifically, the research studies that link family involvement in early childhood to outcomes and programs that have been evaluated to show what works.
The Federal Role in Out-of-School Learning: After-School, Summer Learning, and Family Involvement as Critical Learning Supports
Four decades of research demonstrate that it is necessary to redefine learning—both where and when it takes place—if the country is to achieve the goal of educating all of its children. This report from Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) makes a research-based case for federal provision of out-of-school complementary learning supports, so that all students gain the skills necessary for success in the 21st century.
Strengthen What Happens Outside School to Improve What Happens Inside
This article by Harvard Family Research Project in the April 2009 issue of Phi Delta Kappan offers research-based recommendations for federal education legislation.
Making It Work: Low-Income Working Mothers' Involvement in Their Children's Education
Article in the American Educational Research Journal , Vol. 40 , No. 4, December 2003, pp. 879–901.
Using a mixed method analysis, this article looks at the relation between employment and family involvement in children's elementary education for low-income women, and finds that work is both obstacle to and opportunity for family involvement. This article may be downloaded only. It may not be copied or used for any purpose other than scholarship.
A Mixed Method Approach to Understanding Family-School Communication
This paper presents the initial findings from an ethnographic case study, focusing on the mixed-method research strategy used in the MacArthur Comprehensive Child Development Project Follow-up Study. The aim of the study was to expand the understanding of children's developmental trajectories as they traverse the elementary school years. This paper presents three case study vignettes of children in the second grade, each highlighting a different aspect of family-school communication from the perspective of the children's parents, and highlights the methodological strengths of ethnography. The third vignette uncovered the complexity and contradictions and race, racism, and informal communication between home and child for one African-American child. (Available in ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED422111)
Family Educational Involvement: Who Can Afford It and What Does It Afford?
This is a chapter in Developmental Pathways Through Middle Childhood: Rethinking Context and Diversity as Resources. Edited by Catherine R. Cooper, Cynthia T. Garcia Coll, W. Todd Bartko, Helen M. Davis, & Celina Chatman. Published by Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. This chapter uses mixed methods to examine associations between school context, family educational involvement, and child literacy outcomes from kindergarten through third grade.
Open Letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times
Heather Weiss and M. Elena Lopez of Harvard Family Research Project sent the following letter in response to the Los Angeles Times article “Parents’ Involvement Not Key to Student Progress, Study Finds,” published on October 26, 2005.
School-Based Services: Traditional and Emerging Models to Address Barriers to Learning
This course will survey various models of community-based services that support students in schools. It will also cover implementation and evaluation of services.
MAKESHOP: Family Engagement in Exploration, Creativity, and Innovation
Jane Werner and Lisa Brahms, from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, discuss the Museum’s innovative MAKESHOP studio space, which invites children and families to co-create projects and transforms the traditional museum visit experience.
Seeing is Believing: Promising Practices for How School Districts Promote Family Engagement
We teamed up with the National PTA to bring you this ground-breaking policy brief that examines the role of school districts in promoting family engagement. The brief spotlights how six school districts have used innovative strategies to create and sustain family engagement “systems at work.”
Philanthropy for Innovation: Promoting Family Engagement through Strategic Funding and Program Development
Helen Westmoreland, Director of Program Quality for the Flamboyan Foundation—a private family foundation focused on improving educational outcomes for children in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico—discusses how foundations and funders can support the development of effective family engagement practices in all schools.
Family Involvement Across Learning Settings
Families play important roles in supporting children’s learning not just in school but also in the many out-of-school contexts in which they learn. Harvard Family Research Project’s Helen Westmoreland talks about how families and nonschool learning settings, such as out-of-school time programs, museums, and libraries, can work together to promote student achievement.
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies, a tool from Harvard Family Research Project, guides school districts to create a logic model that can aid in planning, implementing, assessing, and communicating about their systemic family engagement efforts.
Data Collection Instruments for Evaluating Family Involvement
As evidence mounts that family involvement can support children's learning, there is an increasing call in the field for common data collection instruments to measure home–school communication and other aspects of family involvement. This resource from Harvard Family Research Project compiles instruments developed for rigorous program impact evaluations and tested for reliability.
Mothering the Mind and Soul: African American Mothers' Beliefs and Practices to Ensure Academic and Social Success for Their Daughters in High School
Interviews with African American mothers of successful high school daughters show that mothers maintain intense interest and direct involvement in multiple aspects of their daughters' educational lives but keep little contact with school officials.
Risk and Resilience in Children and Families: Implications for Public Policy
With the implementation of welfare reform, government's increasing reliance on block grants rather than categorical funding, increasing devolution of responsibility for service delivery to the state and local level, increasing use of contracted services, and growing budget shortfalls at all levels of government, the social safety net in the United States is undergoing rapid transformation. How well the emerging “system” will protect children and support families is unknown. This course is designed to examine current and proposed child and family policies.
Youth Out-of-School Time Participation: Multiple Risks and Developmental Differences
This paper examines whether youth who are at risk, according to child-, family-, school-, and neighborhood-level factors, are less likely to participate in out-of-school time activities, and whether the predictors depend on youth's age or socioeconomic status. Findings reveal that child- and family-level risks are most consistently related to youth's OST participation. However, these relationships emerge only in early and late adolescence, when youth have more autonomy in their decisions about non-school time use. For certain types of activities, namely those that require fees and financial commitments, contextual risks are more strongly associated with OST participation for higher SES families than for lower SES families.
Family and School Partnerships for Academic Success
Emphasis is on continuous family-school teamwork efforts. Attention is given to family background and social context. The course will cover effective family involvement programs/models and current research underscoring the dynamic interaction between families and schools on the academic success of pre-K through grade 8 students.
Preparation for Building Partnerships With Families: A Survey of Teachers, Teacher Educators, and School Administrators
This study examined the extent to which Kentucky's teachers are prepared to work with families in the roles which they play in the education of their children. These roles include being teachers, supporters, advocates, and decision-makers. The research questions addressed the pre-service preparation by institutions of higher education, staff development activities of local school districts, and gaps in preservice and practicing teacher levels.