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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.
This report summarizes the current family involvement standards of practice for teachers and other educators, as described by a variety of professional associations, including the National Parent Teacher Association, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Harvard Family Research Project (August 2001) Research Report
In this Guest Commentary, GreatSchools founder and CEO Bill Jackson offers a vision for the future of family engagement in which parents demand more from both the educational system and themselves to help prepare their children for a complex, globally-connected workforce. He also lays out the steps that educators need to take to realize this vision and help students succeed.
Bill Jackson (February 7, 2013) Research Report
Harvard Family Research Project’s Teaching Cases support teacher training and professional development by highlighting challenges that schools, families, and communities may encounter in supporting children’s learning. In this month’s FINE newsletter, we feature After School for Cindy, which explores the roles that family members, school staff, and community organizations play in one child’s out-of-school time and demonstrates the importance of family engagement across learning contexts.
Harvard Family Research Project (August 2009) Research Report
Harvard Family Research Project’s Teaching Cases are designed to support teacher training and professional development by highlighting challenges that schools, families, and communities may encounter in supporting children’s learning. In this month’s newsletter, we feature Defining “Fine”—Communicating Academic Progress to Parents, a case that highlights one elementary school’s efforts to use and understand data about student progress toward state standards and to communicate the meaning of these data clearly to parents.
Harvard Family Research Project (October 2010) Research Report
Harvard Family Research Project’s Teaching Cases support teacher training and professional development by highlighting challenges that schools, families, and communities may encounter in supporting children’s learning. In this month’s newsletter, we feature Suspension at Aurora Middle School, which highlights the shared responsibility of community groups to resolve home-school difficulties.
Harvard Family Research Project (November 2009) Research Report
These Web documents were produced by HFRP as part of its initial efforts to “map” the out-of-school time field, and detail federal funding streams for out-of-school time programs and related programming alongside their accountability requirements and evaluations. A summary section offers a narrative description of each funding stream. Funding streams are classified as major or minor depending on the amount of money they make available for out-of-school time efforts.
Harvard Family Research Project (2000) Research Report
How do families spend time supporting their children’s informal and formal learning beyond the school day and across settings? Find out how educators and institutions are helping families promote their children’s learning experiences anytime, in school and beyond.
Christine Patton and Margaret Caspe (September 17, 2014) Research Report
Guest commentator Elise Trumbull, EdD, an Independent Educational Consultant and co-creator of the Bridging Cultures Project, discusses the challenges of communicating with families from different cultural backgrounds. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, over one-third of students in Pre-K through grade 12 classrooms are from minority groups, and the families of an increasing number of students are immigrants, many with native languages other than English. However, many new teachers are unprepared to deal with the challenges of this diversity in their classrooms. Dr. Trumbull addresses these concerns and presents a framework to help teachers understand cultural patterns, as well as guidelines for cross-cultural parent–teacher conferences.
Elise Trumbull (March 2011) Research Report
Michele Brooks, the former assistant superintendent of family and student engagement for Boston Public Schools, shares her insights on district leadership for effective and sustainable family engagement.
Michele Brooks (February 8, 2016) Research Report
When organizations invest in developing the competencies of its professionals to engage families everyone benefits. To help accomplish this we share five of our favorite resources on professional development in family engagement along with tips on why they work.
Laura Alves (December 11, 2014) Research Report
This comprehensive, easy-to-read guide to understanding how to engage families in after school programs is a critical resource for after school providers looking to create or expand an existing family engagement program. It offers a research base for why family engagement matters, concrete program strategies for engaging families, case studies of promising family engagement efforts, and an evaluation tool for improving family engagement practices.
Zenub Kakli , Holly Kreider, Priscilla Little, Tania Buck, Maryellen Coffrey (February 2006) Research Report
The transition to school is a process—not just a one-time event—and begins during children’s preschool years and continues into and on through the early elementary grades. Find out four important things research tells us about the transition.
Margaret Caspe, M. Elena Lopez, and Chalatwan Chattrabhuti (March 19, 2015) Research Report
While evaluation needs may vary, all organizations can benefit from utilizing theory-based evaluation tools to frame evaluation efforts. This article explores how three organizations developed their program’s theory of change and logic model.
Carolina Buitrago (November 19, 2015) Research Report
Written by Harvard Family Research Project's Heather Weiss and Naomi Stephen, this chapter presents a comprehensive, integrated family, school, and community partnership framework that can help level the playing field for disadvantaged children and ensure that they have access to the parental involvement and community engagement practices of their more advantaged peers in order to enhance their learning.
Heather B. Weiss , Naomi Stephen (May 2009) Research Report
The outgrowth of a meeting of six national organizations promoting family-school partnerships, this article discusses methods to enhance family involvement through social marketing. By arguing that schools should view parents as “customers,” teachers and administrators can reach out to parents in effective and successful ways.
Sylvia Sensiper (1999) Research Report
This research brief presents preliminary evidence that family involvement in young children's education may contribute to a smooth transition to elementary school for children, and also helps parents remain involved in their children's learning in school.
Holly Kreider , Family Involvement Network of Educators (FINE) (April 2002) Research Report
Kiersten Beigel, Family and Community Partnerships Specialist for the Office of Head Start, discusses the recent work by the National Center for Family, School, and Community Engagement and the Center’s research-based tools designed to help Head Start and other early childhood programs reach out to parents and families.
Kiersten Beigel (March 15, 2012) Research Report
This report discusses the efforts of six Head Start programs to address the challenges and goals raised in the 1993 report, Creating a 21st Century Head Start. It assesses their progress in several key areas: expanding enrollment, strengthening parent involvement, addressing issues such as homelessness and substance abuse, improving staff training, bridging research and practice, and collaborating with schools and social service agencies, and addressing issues such as homelessness and substance abuse.
Elaine M. Replogle (1995) Research Report
Mandy Savitz-Romer is director of the Prevention Science and Practice Program and a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Suzanne Bouffard is a research project manager and writer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In this article, Bouffard and Savitz-Romer discuss findings from their recent book, Ready, Willing, and Able: A Developmental Approach to College Access and Success.
Mandy Savitz-Romer , Suzanne Bouffard (September 20, 2012) Research Report
A new interactive online learning module, Data in Head Start and Early Head Start: Creating a Culture that Embraces Data, developed by the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations, helps Head Start/Early Head Start leaders understand how to use data to inform their decision making.
Harvard Family Research Project (September 17, 2013) Research Report
Heather Schrotberger, Andrea Clements, and Elizabeth Nichols of Project EAGLE talk about sharing data with families and illustrate how program staff and parents work as partners to review child assessment data and co-create goals for children.
Heather Schrotberger , Andrea Clements, Elizabeth Nichols (April 18, 2013) Research Report
Spanish Translation Available. Good communication between parents and teachers has many benefits. This Early Childhood Digest shares information on how to establish good parent-teacher communication.
Holly Kreider , Ellen Mayer, Peggy Vaughan (May 1999) Research Report
Nita Rudy is a Program Director for the Mississippi Schoolhouse to Statehouse program developed by Parents for Public Schools (PPS), a national organization supporting community-based groups that work with parents to improve public schools. In this Voices from the Field, Nita shares her experience using data to engage families around school improvement efforts.
Nita Rudy (December 5, 2011) Research Report
Spanish Translation Available. No matter how busy parents are, there are things they can do to help their children. Parents of first- and second-graders in the School Transition Study research project have discovered creative ways to stay involved in their children's learning and development. Researchers conducting the survey learned important and useful tips to share with busy parents everywhere.
Ellen Mayer , Holly Kreider, Peggy Vaughan (September 1999) Research Report
This paper examines relations between a variety of parenting behaviors and indicators of adolescent adjustment. Variable-centered analyses suggest that parents establish rules in the face of poor adolescent adjustment. Parenting behaviors focused on cognitive stimulation in the home and through school involvement were associated with positive adolescent adjustment. Person-centered analyses identified five distinct clusters based on the pattern of parenting behaviors and confirmed results found in the variable-centered analyses.
Sandra Simpkins , S. Bouffard, E. Dearing, C. Wimer, P. Caronongan, H. Weiss (2006) Research Report
© 2016 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
Published by Harvard Family Research Project