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.
Evaluating BEST Fit: A Program to Promote Child and Family Health After School
Jim Sass and Craig Blumenthal from LA's BEST describe how the BEST Fit initiative links with multiple organizations to support child and family health.
Evaluating Partners for Student Success
Jennifer Maltby from Boston After School & Beyond describes the evaluation design and goals of the Partners for Student Success initiative.
Parenting Behaviors and Adolescent OST Participation
Harvard Family Research Project discusses the connection between parents' behavior and adolescents' participation in out-of-school time activities.
Mayor's Time in Detroit: A Citywide System for After School
Linda Lee explains how foundations, local and state governments, schools, and other entities have formed a multimember collaboration to support the Mayor's Time after school initiative.
Measuring Change: Out-of-School Time Programs and School Culture
Holly Morehouse describes how out-of-school time programs connected to the school day transformed one district's school culture.
Community Service by and for Youth: Supporting OST Programs in Seattle
City Year staff member Erika Rasmussen describes how City Year Seattle/King County works with the local school district and with community organizations to offer high-quality OST programming.
An Emerging Assessment of College Preparation, Media, and Arts Programs
Karen Walking Eagle, Sebastian Castrechini, and Monica Mielke from Policy Studies Associates preview a new assessment of programs that connect youth with multiple out-of-school supports to promote future success.
The Peace Drum Project: Intergenerational Connections Through the Arts
Susan Porter, Project Director at Cooperative Artists Institute, describes how the Peace Drum Project makes connections with community members through the arts.
Efficacy Trials of Promising After School Programs: Supporting Experimental Studies Through a Research Consortium
Michael Vaden-Kiernan and Debra Hughes Jones from SEDL describe a U.S. Department of Education initiative to support rigorous research on the potential of after school programs to affect academic performance.
New & Noteworthy
The New & Noteworthy section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the issue's theme of Building and Evaluating Out-of-School Time Connections.
Linking School and After School: Strategies for Success
Julie Bott reviews the strategies she and her colleagues use to link the Gardner Extended Services School's after school program with the school day.
New & Noteworthy: Expanded Web Only Version
This web only version of the New & Noteworthy section features an expanded annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the issue's theme of Building and Evaluating Out-of-School Time Connections.
The C. S. Mott Statewide Afterschool Networks: Statewide Collaboration to Further After School Policies
An-Me Chung of the C. S. Mott Foundation describes the Statewide Afterschool Networks, and three Statewide Afterschool Network coordinators—Jennifer Becker Mouhcine from Illinois, Zelda Waymer from South Carolina, and Janet Frieling from Washington—discuss how their Networks support and promote systems of after school program quality.
Professional Development Revisited
In our last issue, we examined the evaluation of professional development in OST and other human service fields. Here, we highlight new resources that have come to our attention since the publication of that issue.
How Does Parenting Matter in Adolescence? Insights From Variable- and Person-Centered Approaches
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.
Youth Out-of-School Time Participation: Multiple Risks and Developmental Differences
This paper examines whether youth who are at risk, according to child-, family-, school-, and neighborhood-level factors, are less likely to participate in out-of-school time activities, and whether the predictors depend on youth's age or socioeconomic status. Findings reveal that child- and family-level risks are most consistently related to youth's OST participation. However, these relationships emerge only in early and late adolescence, when youth have more autonomy in their decisions about non-school time use. For certain types of activities, namely those that require fees and financial commitments, contextual risks are more strongly associated with OST participation for higher SES families than for lower SES families.
Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Family Involvement Research Into Practice (Presentation)
This presentation by HFRP staff was part of a conference entitled “Family–School Relations During Adolescence: Linking Interdisciplinary Research and Practice.” The conference was held July 20–21 and was hosted by the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University, sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The goal of the conference was to establish better links among research, practice, and policy related to family educational involvement during adolescence, particularly for families from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds.
Free. Available online only.
Demographic Differences in Patterns of Youth Out-of-School Time Activity Participation
This paper examines whether demographic differences exist in getting youth “in the door” of OST activities, as well as in the number of activities and the amount of time youth spend in activities. Results from two nationally representative datasets show that disadvantaged youth were less likely to participate in a variety of activities than their peers and that they participated in fewer activities.
Relations Between Parenting and Positive Youth Development
This paper examines the bidirectional relationship between (a) parental involvement in education and out-of-school time (OST) activities and (b) youth participation in OST activities. Using longitudinal data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, the paper examines the direction of the parent involvement-youth participation relationship and whether youth OST participation mediates the relationship between parental involvement and youth academic and social outcomes.
Learning from Small-Scale Experimental Evaluations of After School Programs
This Snapshot reviews small-scale experimental evaluations of after school programs, highlighting these studies' evaluation strategies and results.
Free. 8 Pages.
Family Involvement Makes a Difference in School Success
Family involvement helps children get ready to enter school, promotes their school success, and prepares youth for college. This Research Brief presents findings from HFRP's ongoing, in-depth review of research and evaluated programs that link family involvement in children's education to student outcomes.
Free. Available online only.
New Research on Family Involvement and Academic Achievement (Symposium)
This multiple paper symposium at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association followed up on our panel session in 2005. It featured four research studies that used nuanced definitions of family involvement and cutting-edge methodologies to address processes of family involvement and academic outcomes for disadvantaged children across the developmental continuum.
Free. Available online only.
Society for Research on Adolescence Annual Meeting
This symposium featured findings from several studies funded by the William T. Grant Foundation on youth participation in out-of-school time activities, including contextual predictors, youth engagement, program quality, duration of participation, and youth outcomes.
Free. Available online only.
Evaluating the Impact of Professional Development in Eight Steps
Joellen Killion from the National Staff Development Council outlines an eight-step process for measuring the impact of professional development.
New & Noteworthy
The New & Noteworthy section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the issue's theme of Professional Development.