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.
|
All Publications & Resources WORKING WITH TEACHERS AND FAMILIES DEVELOPMENT PERIODS |
COMPLEMENTARY LEARNING CONNECTIONS
|
Family Engagement as a Shared Responsibility in a Digital Learning Environment
HFRP director Heather B. Weiss examines how families and others involved with children and youth can ensure that children obtain the access, supports, and opportunities that they need to get the full benefits of digital media for learning.
Family Support and Education Programs and the Public Schools: Opportunities and Challenges
This study examines the advantages and disadvantages of school-based family support and community education programs. The paper analyzes the contexts that engender successful outcomes in community-based educational programs that are situated in school settings.
The Challenges of Evaluating State Family Support and Education Initiatives: An Evaluation Framework
This paper provided an evaluation framework to analyze four state initiatives that provide multi-generational family support and education programs. The paper documented preliminary findings and was presented at The Public Policy and Family Support amd Education Programs Colloquium in Annapolis, MD, April 26-28, 1989.
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.
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.
Preparing Educators to Engage Families: Case Studies Using an Ecological Systems Framework, Second Edition
This book supports teacher training and professional development in the area of family engagement. This volume helps prepare teachers and other professionals to partner with the families of elementary school children for student success and positive development. This second edition pairs child development theory with 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.
Working It Out: The Chronicle of a Mixed-Method Analysis
Chapter in Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development: Mixed Methods in the Study of Childhood and Family Life. Edited by Thomas S. Weisner. Published by University of Chicago Press. This chapter chronicles a mixed-method analysis of family involvement in children's learning, drawing observations about the process and added value of combining methods.
Making Family and Community Connections
This workshop is part of the Concept to Classroom series of multimedia workshops for teacher professional development. In this workshop, Heather Weiss and Joyce Epstein provide expert insights on creating partnerships among schools, parents, and members of the local community.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.