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.
Family Involvement in School and Low-Income Children's Literacy Performance
This groundbreaking study demonstrates that when families' involvement in school increases over the elementary years, children's achievement increases. Furthermore, the authors show that family involvement in school matters most for children whose mothers have less education.
Free. Available online only.
Basic Applications of Multilevel Modeling
Eric Dearing, from the University of Wyoming, explains some of the basic uses of multilevel modeling, using examples from family involvement research and evaluation.
School Community Leadership
This course will address the identification and utilization of community resources and the creation of family engagement partnerships, community linkages, and collaborative efforts to provide for the educational, cultural, health, lifelong learning, vocational, and out-of-school needs of students and citizens in a community.
Free. Available online only.
“This Is Their House, Too”: An Afterschool Space Designed for and by Teenagers
Engagement in afterschool programming is one way to keep middle and high school youth engaged in their education. Learn about how the Everett Boys & Girls Club located just outside of Boston, uses intentional informality to keep students coming back and wanting more.
Spreading Our WINGS: Using Performance Data to Prepare for Scale-Up
Many nonprofits collect data to measure their impact. But as Ginny Deerin, CEO of WINGS for kids, describes, they can also mine a treasure trove of performance data to improve their program models even before they undergo the scaling process.
Making a Decision About College: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Marisela Castillo, a high school senior, looks forward to going to a good college to prepare her for medical studies, but she knows that she will have to leave her family in order for that to happen. Should Marisela forgo her dreams for the sake of a family who depends on her household contributions? Should she leave her family to pursue those dreams? An interactive version is also available.
Free. Available online only.
Engaging Older Youth: Program and City-level Strategies to Support Sustained Participation in Out-of-School Time
This new report from Harvard Family Research Project and Public/Private Ventures highlights key strategies to promote out-of-school-time program participation among older youth.
Free. Available online only.
Engaging Older Youth: Program and City-level Strategies to Support Sustained Participation in Out-of-School Time (RESEARCH SYNOPSIS)
This research synopsis summarizes the findings from Engaging Older Youth, a new report from Harvard Family Research Project and Public/Private Ventures that highlights key strategies to promote out-of-school-time program participation among older youth.
Free. 12 Pages.
Webinar Archive—OST Data and Evaluation: Collecting and Sharing Data to Support Communities
This presentation examines the “essential data” that OST providers and intermediaries should consider collecting for an evaluation, and the important role families can play throughout the process.
Year-Round Learning: Linking School, Afterschool, and Summer Learning to Support Student Success
There is growing national discussion about the need to create a more expansive definition of learning to include all the ways that youth can access educational opportunities—not just through the traditional school model, but also through afterschool activities, time spent with the family, and increasingly, through interaction with digital media. This brief introduces and analyzes one approach to expanded learning that provides students—often in distressed areas—with access to quality learning environments across the year.
Participation Over Time: Keeping Youth Engaged from Middle School to High School
This article in Afterschool Matters discusses strategies used by OST programs with high rates of participation.
Using a Data Management Tool to Better Serve Middle School Youth Across a Variety of Settings
Elizabeth Devaney and Hillary Salmons from the Providence After School Alliance describe how a citywide data collection system helps track and improve after school services and strengthen linkages with community organizations, schools, and families.
African-American and Chinese-American Parent Involvement: The Importance of Race, Class, and Culture
African-American and Chinese-American parents use alternative forms of social capital to support their children's education.
Free. Available online only.
Family Support America: Supporting “Family Supportive” Evaluation
David Diehl of Family Support America outlines their top evaluation projects: compiling an online national database of family support programs and developing new ways to measure the effectiveness of family support programs.
Wearable Computers and Evaluation
Edward Dieterle, from Harvard University's Handheld Devices for Ubiquitous Learning Project, discusses the potential of using wireless handheld devices for evaluation.
New & Noteworthy
This section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the community-based initiatives.
Libraries Helping to Close the Opportunity Gap: Maryland Library Partnership
Through innovative and engaging family activities, the Maryland Library Partnership is playing a crucial community role by promoting learning anywhere, anytime and reaching out to parents to help them with their children’s learning, improve literacy, and close the vocabulary gap between low-income learners and their peers.
Racing to the Top: Maryland's Promising Practices in Family Engagement
Maryland is embedding a new family engagement definition statewide as a foundation of policy and infrastructure. Through comprehensive partnerships, the state brings to scale family engagement approaches and launches new initiatives.
Parent Involvement
Research studies show that the level of children's development (especially their cognitive and language development) depends more directly upon their family structure, socioeconomic status, home stimulation, and parental values rather than how much time they spend in a child care or preschool environment, good or poor, and whether their parents are involved or not. The goal of the course is to make the most effective use of ourselves as early childhood teachers in working together with parents to optimize the experiences of the children for whom we share responsibility.
Free. Available online only.
Coming of Age in the Information Age
Jacqueline Dugery of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change offers some innovative ways to build on organizational learning to engage in strategic communications campaigns.
Service is Everything: How Home Visiting Service Delivery Impacts Family Outcomes
Anne Duggan is Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Duggan reflects on what she has learned from nearly 20 years of evaluative research on home visiting—particularly looking at what factors influence service delivery and family outcomes—and how that research can be applied to practice.
How Can We Strengthen Family Support Research and Evaluation?
Carl Dunst, Co-Director of the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, urges getting beyond the question of “what works” toward a more detailed scrutiny of the relationship among family support principles, program practice, and family outcomes.
Challenges to Data Capacity for Outcome-Based Accountability
Nancy Dunton of the New York State Department of Social Services discusses the challenges to data capacity for outcome-based accountability.
Coming Full Circle: Drawing On Personal Experiences to Create a Vision for System-Wide Change
Mishaela Durán, Interim Executive Director of the National PTA, sets the stage for this special issue about the emerging leaders in our field by getting at the heart of why family and community and engagement is so important in education: giving students the opportunity to succeed.
Mindset Matters
Ann Dykman of MPR Associates illustrates that an organization's culture and mindset are important factors in the success of using evaluation for continuous improvement.