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 Success Case Method: Finding Out What Works
Tezeta Tulloch from Harvard Family Research Project reviews Robert Brinkerhoff's, The Success Case Method: Find Out Quickly What's Working and What's Not.
Evaluation Strategies to Support Policymaking in Learning Technology
Geneva Haertel and Barbara Means of SRI International suggest ways evaluators and policymakers can work together to produce “usable knowledge” of technology’s effects on learning.
Transforming School Culture Through the Arts
J. Curtis Jones from the Partnership for Whole School Change in Boston describes a performing arts intervention that integrates program concepts into its evaluation.
New & Noteworthy
A list of organizations and initiatives related to the issue's theme of Reflecting on the Past and Future of Evaluation.
Reflecting on the Past and Future of Evaluation
This tenth-year-anniversary-issue of The Evaluation Exchange features reflections on some of the trends (both good and bad) that have occurred in the evaluation field over the past decade. Authors consider the “best of the worst”evaluator practices, changes in university-based evaluation training, and the development of evaluation as a discipline. In recognition of the need to look ahead, other articles introduce themes we will address in greater depth in the future, such as international evaluation, technology, evaluation of the arts, and diversity.
Free. 20 Pages.
Story Time: Mothers' Reading Practices in Japan and the U.S.
A comparison between American and Japanese mothers' home reading practices with their preschool children enriches our understanding of cross-cultural differences.
Free. Available online only.
Parents and Teachers Together: Creating Schools Our Children Deserve
This course provides an opportunity for students to reflect on and answer some of the following question: Why do parents and teachers both feel frustrated and powerless to meet the needs of today's students? In this class we will consider the power inequities inherent in schools today. In this class we will consider the power inequities inherent in schools today. We will focus not only on present problems in schools, but on reviewing innovative initiatives and models around the country that give a louder voice to teachers and parents on behalf of children.
Free. Available online only.
School-Family Relationship: Some Lessons From a Teacher Professional Development Program
Three studies explore how university–school research partnerships can provide teacher professional development to strengthen parent–teacher relations.
Free. Available online only.
Bridging Multiple Worlds: Building Pathways From Childhood to College
Students' pathways through school can be seen as moving through an academic pipeline to adulthood. The Bridging Multiple Worlds model focuses on how diverse youth, beginning in their middle childhood years, navigate across their worlds of families, peers, schools, and communities as they move along their pathways to college, careers, and family roles in adulthood.
Free. Available online only.
Taking a Closer Look: A Guide to Online Resources on Family Involvement
This comprehensive resource guide compiles a wealth of information about family involvement from over 100 national organizations. It contains Web links to recent (published in and after 2000) research, information, and tools.
Free. Available online only.
Transforming Schools Through Community Organizing: A Research Review
This paper reviews the literature on community organizing. It examines how community organizing differs from traditional parent involvement activities, outlines the characteristic strategies used to engage parents in organizing efforts, and describes the outcomes of these efforts.
Free. Available online only.
Making It Work: Low-Income Working Mothers' Involvement in Their Children's Education
Article in the American Educational Research Journal , Vol. 40 , No. 4, December 2003, pp. 879–901.
Using a mixed method analysis, this article looks at the relation between employment and family involvement in children's elementary education for low-income women, and finds that work is both obstacle to and opportunity for family involvement. This article may be downloaded only. It may not be copied or used for any purpose other than scholarship.
Free. Available online only.
Parent Involvement and Early Literacy
Parents’ involvement at school is related to children’s higher literacy, particularly for those from socially or economically disadvantaged families.
Free. Available online only.
Renewing Teacher–Parent Relations
This issue of the FINE Forum points to the possibilities of enriching parent-teacher and broader school-community relationships. We hope that you take away ideas for your own practice.
Free. Available online only.
Xavier de Souza Briggs on Community Building: Expanded Web Only Version
Xavier de Souza Briggs, founder of the Art and Science of Community Problem-Solving Project at Harvard University, discusses the limitations and possibilities of using evaluation to improve community building in an expanded web only version of the printed article.
New & Noteworthy
A list of new resources on the evaluation of community-building efforts, including reports, tools, and organizations of interest.
New & Noteworthy: Expanded Web Only Version
This web only version of the New & Noteworthy section features an expanded list of new resources on the evaluation of community-building efforts, including reports, tools, and organizations of interest.
From the Director's Desk
An introduction to the issue on Evaluating Community-Based Initiatives by HFRP's Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
Sustainability: Does Evaluation Have a Role?
Julia Coffman and Marielle Bohan-Baker of HFRP offer ideas for how evaluation can ensure that initiative stakeholders discuss sustainability before it is too late to be useful.
Using Geographic Data for Neighborhood Revitalization
Josh Kirschenbaum and Victor Rubin from PolicyLink discuss the uses of community mapping.
Hand in Hand—Evaluation and Organizational Development
Andrew Mott, Director of the Community Learning Project and former Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, on the importance of building on grassroots approaches to assessment and learning.
Facing the Challenge of Evaluating a Complex, Multi-Site Initiative
Beth Weitzman and Diana Silver from New York University’s Center for Health and Public Service Research share their experience integrating a comparison group design into a theory of change approach.
Community Youth as Evaluators
Christopher Wimer reflects on the role youth can play in evaluation.
A Conversation with Prudence Brown
Prudence Brown from the Program on Philanthropy and Community Change at the Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago, talks to HFRP about new approaches to community initiatives and the role of philanthropy in community change.