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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Family Strengthening Interventions: Evidence-Based Practices
The purpose of this class is to provide professional skills that will help students to select, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of evidence-based family strengthening interventions. Students will increase their knowledge, skills, and expertise in the most up-to-date information on effective family strengthening interventions in their area of primary interest.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement in Early Childhood Education
This research brief synthesizes the latest research that demonstrates how family involvement contributes to young children's learning and development. The brief summarizes the latest evidence base on effective involvement—specifically, the research studies that link family involvement in early childhood to outcomes and programs that have been evaluated to show what works.
Free. 8 Pages.
Focus on Families! How to Build and Support Family-Centered Practices in After School
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.
Free. 48 Pages.
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.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement Storybook Corner
A unique source for information on using children's storybooks with family involvement themes to engage families in their children's education and encourage family–school–community partnerships, all while supporting literacy.
Free. Available online only.
Parental Involvement and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis
This meta-analysis of parent involvement research brings together the results of 77 recent studies. Jeynes shows that parent involvement has an overall positive effect on student achievement and that the largest effects are associated with parental expectations.
Free. Available online only.
Family Support Services Promote School Readiness
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.
Preparing Educators to Involve Families: From Theory to Practice
This book of research-based teaching cases and theoretical perspectives focuses on dilemmas in family-school-community relationships.
Society for the Study of Human Development Annual Meeting
This presentation, Supporting Children's Development in and out of the Classroom, examined parenting behaviors and their associations with one another and with children's outcomes in early and late adolescence.
Free. Available online only.
Open Letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times
Heather Weiss and M. Elena Lopez of Harvard Family Research Project sent the following letter in response to the Los Angeles Times article “Parents’ Involvement Not Key to Student Progress, Study Finds,” published on October 26, 2005.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement in the Education of Secondary-School-Age Students With Disabilities
This study shows how families of students with disabilities are involved in their children’s education both at home and school, and how characteristics of children and families are related to families’ level of participation.
Free. Available online only.
After School for Cindy: Family, School, and Community Roles in Out-of-School Time Teaching Case
Second grade teacher Nikki believes that participation in a formal after school program would help her student Cindy academically at school. However, Cindy's single working mother Marla prefers to keep Cindy with her in the afternoons after her numerous struggles with securing quality affordable care in the community. What are the roles of family, school, and community in promoting children's learning and development in out-of-school time?
Free. Available online only.
Understanding Family Involvement in the Preparation of Graduate Students: Measuring Family-Centered Beliefs, Skills, Systems, and Practices
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.
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.
Learning by Listening: A Longitudinal Study of Family Literacy
This study explores the reading concepts held by urban families and how home reading practices intersect with school literacy practices.
Free. Available online only.
Partnering With Parents and Communities: Are Preservice Teachers Adequately Prepared?
This study examines how the topic of school, parent, and school partnerships are incorporated into preservice teacher education. Preservice teacher comfort levels with parent involvement is documented.
Free. Available online only.
British Bangladeshi and Pakistani Families and Education Involvement: Barriers and Possibilities
This study explores the experiences of British Bangladeshi and Pakistani parents in their interactions with schools and their involvement in children’s education.
Free. Available online only.
Intermediary Organizations as Capacity Builders in Family Educational Involvement
Article in Urban Education, 40(1), 78–105.
In this article the authors argue that intermediary organizations play a crucial role in capacity building for family involvement, by providing alternatives to school-centered approaches to family involvement and engaging families with intensive support that schools seldom offer.
Making the Case for Parental Involvement and Engagement: Part I: Parental, Family, School, and Community Partnerships Make a Difference (Workshop)
Engaging families in education holds tremendous potential for boosting children's achievement, but also ranks among educators' greatest challenges. Staff at Harvard Family Research Project paired up with staff at the Institute for Responsive Education at Cambridge College to make the case for family involvement to educators. Research and evaluation findings on the benefits, challenges, and effective strategies in family involvement were reviewed and illustrated with descriptions of established program models and exemplary practices from local schools.
Free. Available online only.
Conjoint Behavioral Consultation: A Model to Facilitate Meaningful Partnerships for Families and Schools
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studied the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention model where parents, educators, and service providers work collaboratively to address children's developmental needs in a Head Start program.
Free. Available online only.
Research and Evaluation of Family Involvement in Education: What Lies Ahead? (Panel Session)
This panel session at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association in Montreal, examined the current knowledge base and future directions for family involvement research and evaluation. Heather Weiss identified priority areas for future research and evaluation and criteria for selecting these areas. Panelists Kathleen Hoover-Dempsey, William Jeynes, Joyce Epstein, and Anne Henderson discussed research and evaluation on parent–child and parent–student–school relationships, home–school communication and parental expectations, school-based partnership programs, and community organizing, respectively.
Free. Available online only.
Perceived Academic Support From Parents, Teachers, and Peers: Relation to Hong Kong Adolescents' Academic Behavior and Achievement
This study found that perceived academic support from teachers and parents contributes indirectly to the academic achievement of Hong Kong students.
Free. Available online only.