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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.
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Nancy Clark-Chiarelli from Education Development Center, Inc. describes an evaluation of two approaches to early literacy professional development—one with a traditional face-to-face mode of delivery and one with a technology-enhanced component.
This brief offers lessons and best practices from foundations across the country on grantmaking to school districts. It offers advice to foundations that are considering school district investments for the first time. It also offers a useful "check" to more experienced foundations that want to examine their thinking and approaches against the lessons and practices of other foundations.
Free. Available online only.
Richard Rothstein argues that narrowing the achievement gap requires substantial changes in social policy in addition to extensive school reform.
Harvard Family Research Project explains how it helps to ground evaluation in theories of the policy process.
$10.00 . 75 Pages.
Too often vital research in the early care and education field does not get used effectively for advocacy purposes. While researchers and advocates often share the same goals, they tend to operate on separate tracks. This brief explores how research and advocacy can be bridged for greater effect using strategic communications. By definition, strategic communications means a deliberate plan or tactics for using communications as a channel for achieving a certain result. Collaborative work in the state of New Jersey around the goal of achieving a comprehensive and quality early care and education system is used as a backdrop for learning about effective practice.
Free. Available online only.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This guide offers ideas and resources for implementing family support principles in child care, and an annotated bibliography of up-to-date publications and training materials that child care providers can use to improve their efforts to support families.
$4.50 . 27 Pages.
Public Library Association (PLA) president Felton Thomas Jr. writes about the importance of public libraries in engaging families, and how PLA and Harvard Family Research Project have begun a journey together to support libraries in this work.
Barbara Gebhard of Build describes the initiative's interactive evaluation approach.
Family-centered practices by professionals serving families and their young children with disabilities have become a cornerstone of personnel preparation programs in early childhood intervention (ECI) and early childhood education. Our research project sought to develop a measure to examine the family-centered beliefs, skills, work systems, and work practices of ECI and ECE graduate students.
Free. Available online only.
This study demonstrates that a wide variety of parent and child factors are linked to school readiness and that parenting education and support services promote family activities that relate to positive child outcomes.
Free. Available online only.
Sonia Gómez-Banrey, Director of Countdown to Kindergarten (CDtoK) for Boston Public Schools (BPS), and Katherine (Kacy) Hughes, Senior Project Manager for Early Childhood and Family Learning at Boston Children’s Museum, highlight key components of the collaboration between BPS and the Museum as part of the CDtoK program to help BPS families better prepare their children for kindergarten.
In this Leading the Field profile, Sandra Gutierrez, national director of the Latino family-focused Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors program, shares her vision of how families are fundamental to transforming the lives of our children and our communities. [Este artículo también está disponible en español como Padres de Familia como Agentes de Cambio.]
En este Perfil de Liderando el Ramo, Sandra Gutiérrez, la directora nacional del programa Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors, programa que está enfocado en la familia latina, comparte su visión de cómo las familias son fundamentales para transformar las vidas de nuestros hijos y de nuestras comunidades. [This article is also available in English as Parents as Agents of Change.]
Erin Harris from Harvard Family Research Project with Suzanne Muchin, CEO of Civitas, illustrate the design concept “information architecture” for displaying complex information clearly and simply.
These resources look at issues related to digital media and learning in early childhood and focus on such topics as children’s media use in the 21st century, family perspectives on children’s media use, and research-based guidance for practitioners and parents.
Three experts reflect on their work in engaging families in a digital learning environment. We asked them to address the question, How can institutions offer relevant and useful guidance to parents and families about scaffolding their children’s digital media use?
A collection of innovative family engagement practices with a link for you to share with us your family engagement story!
We are committed to keeping you up to date on family engagement news. The resources in this section highlight the latest tools and discussions from HFRP and review recent findings in the areas of family engagement policy, strategies, and research, along with family engagement and digital learning.
Find inspiration for your family engagement efforts from around the world.
Even with technological advances that allow parents to track their child’s academic progress remotely, and more transparency in student data (such as test scores and attendance rates), face-to-face interaction between parents and teachers is still the cornerstone of school family engagement efforts. These newly revised tip sheets provide key strategies for both parents and teachers to walk into conferences informed and prepared, in order to ensure the most successful outcomes. A tip sheet aimed at school principals also outlines how school administrators can support parents and teachers to that end. Now available in Spanish, this tool is a powerful resource for families and educators alike.