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.
The Challenges of Evaluating State Family Support and Education Initiatives: An Evaluation Framework
This paper provided an evaluation framework to analyze four state initiatives that provide multi-generational family support and education programs. The paper documented preliminary findings and was presented at The Public Policy and Family Support amd Education Programs Colloquium in Annapolis, MD, April 26-28, 1989.
Hard copy out of stock.
New Strategies in Foundation Grantmaking for Children and Youth
This report examines trends in foundation grantmaking for children and youth among 19 foundations. The foundations include most of the largest and wealthiest and those whose grantmaking heavily focuses on children and youth. Survey results indicate that, because the problems of youth are interconnected and require comprehensive solutions, foundations are shifting their grantmaking strategies. Several are concentrating more resources on long-term, place-based community strategies designed to improve outcomes for children and youth.
$10.00 . 67 Pages.
Making Family and Community Connections
This workshop is part of the Concept to Classroom series of multimedia workshops for teacher professional development. In this workshop, Heather Weiss and Joyce Epstein provide expert insights on creating partnerships among schools, parents, and members of the local community.
Reinventing Evaluation to Build High-Performance Child and Family Interventions
This chapter provides examples of local and state efforts to build capacity of organizations to obtain and use data that will inform and continuously improve practice and policy. Chapter by Heather Weiss in Perspectives on Crime and Justice:1999-2000 Lecture Series.
Beyond the Parent-Teacher Conference: Diverse Patterns of Home-School Communication
Discussions about home-school communication generally focus on formal, scheduled school activities offered to all parents, such as parent-teacher conferences or back-to-school nights. In contrast, this paper examines a variety of alternative communication patterns that are important mechanisms for parents and teachers to gain information and make decisions about children.
Free. Available online only.
The Federal Role in Out-of-School Learning: After-School, Summer Learning, and Family Involvement as Critical Learning Supports
Four decades of research demonstrate that it is necessary to redefine learning—both where and when it takes place—if the country is to achieve the goal of educating all of its children. This report from Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) makes a research-based case for federal provision of out-of-school complementary learning supports, so that all students gain the skills necessary for success in the 21st century.
Why, When, and How to Use Evaluation: Experts Speak Out
This brief offers expert commentary on the implications of the first-year report of the national evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program for future evaluation and research. It includes a methodological critique of that study, written by Deborah Vandell.
Free. 8 Pages.
Strengthen What Happens Outside School to Improve What Happens Inside
This article by Harvard Family Research Project in the April 2009 issue of Phi Delta Kappan offers research-based recommendations for federal education legislation.
Free. Available online only.
Family Engagement as a Shared Responsibility in a Digital Learning Environment
HFRP director Heather B. Weiss examines how families and others involved with children and youth can ensure that children obtain the access, supports, and opportunities that they need to get the full benefits of digital media for learning.
Family Involvement Interventions: Shining the Spotlight on Evaluation (Symposium)
This panel symposium, held at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Chicago on April 10, 2007, followed up on HFRP's family involvement sessions at previous AERA meetings in 2005 and 2006. The 2007 symposium featured discussion regarding the evaluation of family involvement interventions
Understanding and Measuring Attendance in Out-of-School Time Programs
This brief reviews developmental research and out-of-school time program evaluations to examine three research-based indicators of attendance—intensity, duration, and breadth—offering different models for how attendance in out-of-school time programs can influence youth outcomes.
Free. Available online only.
Redefining Family Engagement in Education
Heather Weiss and Elena Lopez discuss the need to develop a broader definition of family engagement—one which focuses on the multiple contexts in which children grow and learn, from birth through adulthood—in this era of changing federal policy.
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.
From Periphery to Center: A New Vision for Family, School, and Community Partnerships
Written by Harvard Family Research Project's Heather Weiss and Naomi Stephen, this chapter presents a comprehensive, integrated family, school, and community partnership framework that can help level the playing field for disadvantaged children and ensure that they have access to the parental involvement and community engagement practices of their more advantaged peers in order to enhance their learning.
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.
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.
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 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 Family Support: Thinking Critically, Thinking Internationally (Keynote Address)
Evaluation plays a major role in shaping new directions for the field of family support. In her keynote address at the Participatory Evaluation and Parent Engagement Institute, sponsored by Family Support America and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, in Kansas City, Missouri, September 20–22, 2004, Heather Weiss, Founder and Director of HFRP, described how evaluation can support learning, continuous improvement, and innovation. The four components of a family support evaluation strategy that she outlined were experimental studies to show program impact on families, utilization-focused evaluation to support policy and practitioner decision making, action research and empowerment evaluation, and performance standards based on solid research and evaluation.
Free. Available online only.
American Youth Policy Forum
In this presentation, Engaging Adolescents in Out-of-School Time Programs: Learning What Works, Priscilla Little reported on the benefits of participation in out-of-school time activities, contextual predictors of youth participation in such activities, and strategies for improving recruitment and retention in out-of-school time programs. Remarks were presented at a session on engaging adolescents in out-of-school time programs at the American Youth Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., on October 7, 2005.
Free. Available online only.
Testimony by Heather Weiss at the Hearing on the "Education Begins at Home Act"
HFRP's Director and Founder Heather Weiss testified at the United States House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor's hearing on the "Education Begins at Home Act," on June 11, 2008.
Family-School Partnerships
The goal of the module is to prepare educators to engage parents and family members in children's school success. Students enrolled in the module will learn about the major theoretical approaches to family involvement (e.g., developmental, sociocultural, psychological, and political). They will understand the range of ways families and schools can work together as well as the dilemmas of practice. The module will give students an opportunity to problem solve and reflect on the issues regarding family-school partnerships and to assess the benefits of family involvement for students, families, and schools.
Free. Available online only.
Participation in Youth Programs: Enrollment, Attendance, and Engagement
This is a special issue of New Directions for Youth Development journal edited by Heather B. Weiss, Priscilla M. D. Little, and Suzanne Bouffard, Vol. 2005, No. 105, Spring 2005. This issue unpacks the construct of participation in out-of-school time programming, posing a three-part equation: participation = enrollment + attendance + engagement.
Strengthening Out-Of-School Time Nonprofits: The Role of Foundations in Building Organizational Capacity
Commissioned by the Wallace Foundation as part of a three-part series, this paper looks at the role that foundations can play in building out-of-school time (OST) nonprofits' organizational capacity. In it, we suggest seven possible approaches to strengthening OST organizations, including methods to ensure that providers become stronger partners with other groups and more adept advocates for their field.
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.