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 Engagement as a Systemic, Sustained, and Integrated Strategy to Promote Student Achievement
This paper offers an expanded definition of family engagement based on research about children’s learning and the relationships among families, schools, and communities in support of such learning. The topics presented in this paper were originally introduced as commentaries in the August 2009, November 2009, and April 2010 issues of the F.I.N.E. Newsletter.
Current Issue - Scaling Impact
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange explores the promising practices and challenges associated with taking an enterprise to scale, along with the role that evaluation can and should play in that process. It is the second in our “hard-to-measure” series, which we inaugurated with our Spring 2007 issue on evaluating advocacy.
Free. 24 Pages.
Family Involvement News: April 2010
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up-to-date on what's new in family involvement. View our list of links to upcoming and current reports, articles, events, and funding opportunities in the family involvement field.
Family Engagement from Cradle to Career
Family engagement supports children’s learning and growth across the developmental continuum—from birth through young adulthood. Harvard Family Research Project’s Heidi Rosenberg and Elena Lopez discuss how effective family engagement strategies evolve over time to reflect children’s changing developmental needs.
Resource Guide for Family Engagement Across the Developmental Pathway
This bibliographic resource builds on the work presented in the Family Involvement Makes a Difference series to provide a selected listing of recent publications across the full developmental spectrum.
Free. Available online only.
Building a Cradle to Career Pathway in Cincinnati, Ohio
The Cincinnati, Ohio-based Strive initiative has taken a complementary learning approach to scaffolding children’s educational growth to ensure a comprehensive, cradle-to-career system of support that includes family and community engagement. Harvard Family Research Project spoke with Jeff Edmondson, executive director of Strive, as well as two of Strive’s partners in the community, Liz Blume of the Community Building Institute, and Rolanda Smith of Parents for Public Schools of Greater Cincinnati, to find out more about Strive’s philosophy, successes, and challenges.
Featured Teaching Case: Making a Decision About College: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
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 Making a Decision About College: Should I Stay or Should I Go?, which considers the ways in which schools can support students who have significant family obligations to make an appropriate choice about where to attend college.
Partnerships for Learning: Promising Practices in Integrating School and Out-of-School Time Program Supports
This new report from HFRP is aimed to help out-of-school time (OST) program leaders, decision-makers, and funders to understand and implement effective OST–school partnerships for learning.
Taking Leadership, Innovating Change: Profiles in Family, School, and Community Engagement
This new report from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group contains twelve examples of leading innovations in family engagement as an integral and effective strategy in systemic education reform.
Free. Available online only.
Reframing Family Involvement in Education: Supporting Families to Support Educational Equity
This research review, part of the Equity Matters research initiative at the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, argues that family involvement in education is a powerful but neglected tool to support children’s learning and development. Disadvantaged children are both more likely to benefit from increased family involvement and to come from families who face the greatest barriers to such involvement. To reframe public understanding of the benefits of family involvement in children’s education, this paper lays out a research-based definition and more equitable approach to family involvement and positions it as a key cross-cutting component of broader comprehensive or complementary learning systems.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria.The National Working Group’s recommendations provide a framework for the integration of family involvement into how potential recipients of i3 funds are assessed and selected, as well as how initiatives are evaluated.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from Harvard Family Research Project on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund
HFRP submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the i3 fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. The recommendation included an endorsement of the comments submitted by the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including HFRP’s Heather Weiss, and emphasized the need to direct development and validation grant funding toward promising family and community engagement initiatives, isolate and recognize the added value of parental involvement in interventions, and take a nuanced view of effect size when selecting innovations for funding.
Free. Available online only.
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.
Valuing Families as Partners
Elena Lopez explores the benefits of creating strong partnerships between early childhood programs and families.
Resource Guide for Family Engagement in Education at the High School Level
A sampling of research reports, best practices, and tools to guide you in conceptualizing and creating effective family engagement strategies for high school students.
Free. Available online only.
Parent-Teacher Conference Tip Sheets for Principals, Teachers, and Parents
Parent–teacher conferences are an important component of ongoing home–school communication and family involvement in children's education. This set of tip sheets—for principals, teachers, and parents—can help ensure that conferences achieve their maximum potential.
Free. Available online only.
Family Engagement: A Shared Responsibility
Harvard Family Research Project’s M. Elena Lopez, Heidi Rosenberg, and Helen Westmoreland discuss how families, schools, and communities can create a shared responsibility for children’s learning and academic success. The three dimensions of this approach include creating opportunities for family engagement, building co-constructed roles that outline families’ and schools’ responsibilities, and learning about effective ways to engage families in children’s learning.
Family Engagement Policy Resources
We've added a section to our website to inform stakeholders of our policy-related work in family engagement. This work seeks to promote the broader definition of family engagement that stresses shared responsibility and cross-context learning within a cradle-to-career approach to education. Visit our new policy page for more details, including our comments in the Federal Register regarding the U.S. Department of Education’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund competitive grants program.
Free. Available online only.
Featured Teaching Case: Suspension at Aurora Middle School
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.
Co-Constructing Family Engagement Roles in Federal Way, Washington
Through open communication and a mutual investment in solving a problem, one parent, school principal, and district-level family advocate helped bring about positive change in a Federal Way, Washington, middle school. Kelley O’Carroll and Angela Griffin write about the shared responsibility of co-constructing an effective solution and how this effort inspired a parent to advocate for the entire student body, not just her own child.
Family Involvement News: November 2009
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up-to-date on what's new in family involvement. View our list of links to upcoming and current reports, articles, events, and funding opportunities in the family involvement field.
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.
Free. Available online only.
Expanded Learning Opportunities — Pathways to Student Success
This paper highlights research on the promise of expanded learning approaches — including after-school, summer, extended day, and community networks—for education reform.
A User's Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning
A User's Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning was developed for advocates, evaluators, and funders who want guidance on how to evaluate advocacy and policy change efforts. This tool takes users through four basic steps that generate the core elements of an advocacy evaluation plan, including what will be measured and how.
Free. Available online only.
The Federal Role in Out-of-School Learning: After-School, Summer Learning, and Family Involvement as Critical Learning Supports (Voices in Urban Education, Summer 2009)
Our article in Voices for Urban Education makes a research-based case for the federal provision of out-of-school complementary learning supports.