New Issue Of “School Community Journal” Is Online

The latest issue of School Community has been published and is available online for free.

It includes:

Can We Talk? Using Community–Based Participatory Action Research to Build Family and School Partnerships with Families of Color – Denise Yull, Lisa V. Blitz, Tonia Thompson, and Carla Murray 

“It’s Like We’re One Big Family”: Marginalized Young People, Community, and the Implications for Urban Schooling – Kevin Gosine and Faisal Islam

Engaging Urban Parents of Early Adolescents in Parenting Interventions: Home Visits vs. Group Sessions – Nadine M. Finigan-Carr, Nikeea Copeland-Linder, Denise L. Haynie, and Tina L. Cheng 

School Performance in Elementary, Middle, and High School: A Comparison of Children Based on HIPPY Participation During the Preschool Years – Amber Brown and Joohi Lee

Great Expectations? Critical Discourse Analysis of Title I School–Family Compacts – Michael P. Evans and Rachel Radina

Where Are Their Voices? Examining Power and Privilege in a Family Literacy Text – Tracey Kumar

Supporting English and Spanish Literacy Through a Family Literacy Program – Stephanie Wessels 

Parental Mathematics Homework Involvement of Low-Income Families with Middle School Students – Robyn Hackford O’Sullivan, Yung-Chi Chen, and Marian C. Fish 

Study on Parental Involvement Preparation at a Preservice Institution in Mongolia – Batdulam Sukhbaatar 

Book Review of A Teacher’s Guide to Communicating With Parents Practical Strategies for Developing Successful Relationships – Fiona S. Baker

Book Review of When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools: Class, Race and the Challenge of Equity in Public Education – Eileen Gale Kugler

June Issue Of Harvard’s “Family Involvement Network of Educators” Available Online

The June issue of Harvard’s “Family Involvement Network of Educators” just came online.

Here’s how they describe it:

In this issue, M. Elena Lopez and Margaret Caspe take us on a deep dive into the research base for anywhere, anytime and challenge us to broaden our notion of family engagement and of learning beyond school. First, we join Cool Culture for a tour of New York City’s cultural institutions and learn how they are providing income-eligible families with opportunities for shared inquiry and discovery. Next, we go down to Maryland and hear from Nathan Driskell about how the Maryland Library Partnerships program is linking families to essential resources and supports to help them promote their children’s literacy. We then sit down with the research-practice partners Susan Leger Ferraro and Fran Hurley for an exciting Q & A about an innovative museum and play space, Imajine That. We end our adventure in our own backyard and join Meghan White in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In a short video clip, she discusses the importance of providing families with information about quality afterschool programming as they navigate the transition to kindergarten. Lastly, we are excited to share with you an article by Heidi Rosenberg, Shani Wilkes, and Erin Harris on what learning-centered family engagement looks like in out-of-school time programs.

New Issue Of Harvard Parent Involvement Newsletter

The Harvard Family Research Project has just published the latest issue of their parent involvement issue newsletter. Here’s how they describe it:

Happy New Year! In this issue of the FINE Newsletter, we discuss how innovative approaches and tools—including digital media—are helping to transform family engagement and better enable families, schools, and community-based organizations to share responsibility for student learning.

In this issue’s HFRP Commentary, we explore how families, schools, and community-based organizations are demonstrating their commitment to a shared responsibility model of family engagement. Among the approaches we spotlight are ways that educators are using digital media tools to connect with families and share information about student progress. These connections help parents play a meaningful role in supporting their child’s learning. In this issue’s Guest Commentary, GreatSchools founder and CEO Bill Jackson offers a vision for the future of family engagement in which parents demand more from both the educational system and themselves in order to help prepare their children for a complex, globally-connected workforce.

Sept. Newsletter From The Family Involvement Network of Educators

The Family Involvement Network of Educators from Harvard has just published their September issue.

It contains several articles, including this one:

Creating Conditions for Effective and Ongoing Family Engagement

In this Commentary, Harvard Family Research Project’s Senior Research Analyst, Heidi Rosenberg, looks at the ways in which schools, programs, and other community institutions can help facilitate continuous family engagement to help children succeed. Approaches include relationship-building strategies, kindergarten transition programs, and college readiness activities that reflect the developmental needs of adolescents.

Summer Issue Of “School Community Journal” Now Available Online

The summer issue of “School Community Journal” is now available online for free.

It includes many articles, including:

Six Years Later: Effect of Family Involvement Training on the Language Skills of Children From Migrant Families – Lisa St. Clair, Barbara Jackson, and Rose Zweiback

Family–School Connections in Rural Educational Settings: A Systematic Review of the Empirical Literature – Carrie A. Semke and Susan M. Sheridan

A Community Partnership to Facilitate Urban Elementary Students’ Access to the Outdoors – Maria M. Ferreira, David Grueber, and Sandra Yarema

“Preparing Teachers for Family Engagement”

Preparing Teachers for Family Engagement is the headline of the newest free email newsletter from the Family Involvement Network of Educators from Harvard.

Here’s a short excerpt of their description of what’s included:

Elise Trumbull, EdD, co-creator of the Bridging Cultures Project, discusses the challenges of communicating with families from different cultural backgrounds. She presents a framework to help teachers understand cultural patterns, as well as guidelines for cross-cultural parent–teacher conferences. We also feature two innovative methods for training teachers to communicate with families in Voices from the Field: Carol St. George, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Rochester, discusses an innovative method for parent–teacher collaboration in elementary school literacy learning, and we follow up with Maria Paredes from Creighton School District in Arizona, first profiled last fall, about her work preparing teachers to share student data with families through Academic Parent–Teacher Teams.

The Family Involvement Network Of Educators

FINE: The Family Involvement Network of Educators is a project of the Harvard Family Research Project and the Harvard Graduate School Of Education.

They publish a free online newsletter. Here’s their summary of the most recent issue:

“At this moment of political change, the FINE Newsletter focuses on family involvement and the policies that support it. We explore the changing definitions of family engagement in the 21st century and look at the growing role for family involvement in education policy.

Two articles unpack the possibilities for family involvement policy: One provides a historical account of the federal role in out-of-school learning, while the other offers practical policy recommendations to build strong family involvement systems. In addition, articles from federally funded Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs) shed light on how to build systems that improve family involvement policies and touch the lives of families, children, and educators in the field.

We also offer you a collection of accessible family involvement instruments for use in evaluating your own family involvement efforts, as well as a comprehensive listing of new resources, articles, news, opportunities, and events in the family involvement field.”

New Issue Of “The School Community Journal”

The School Community Journal, a free academic journal that’s available online, has just published its Spring/Summer 2009 issue (it’s a PDF download).

Two articles that look particularly intriguing are:

“Walking the Walk: Portraits in Leadership for Family Engagement in Urban Schools” by Susan Auerbach

“An Urban School District’s Parent Involvement: A Study of Teachers’ and Administrators’ Beliefs and Practices” by Natalie Conrad Barnyak and Tracy A. McNelly

You can review past issues at their site, too.