Parenting Matters

Parenting Matters
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309388570

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

School, Family, and Community Partnerships

School, Family, and Community Partnerships
Author: Joyce L. Epstein
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2018-07-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1483320014

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Handbook of School-Family Partnerships

Handbook of School-Family Partnerships
Author: Sandra L. Christenson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 738
Release: 2010-06-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 113589258X

Family-school partnerships are increasingly touted as a means of improving both student and school improvement. This recognition has led to an increase in policies and initiatives that offer the following benefits: improved communication between parents and educators; home and school goals that are mutually supportive and shared; better understanding of the complexities impinging on children’s development; and pooling of family and school resources to find and implement solutions to shared goals. This is the first comprehensive review of what is known about the effects of home-school partnerships on student and school achievement. It provides a brief history of home-school partnerships, presents evidence-based practices for working with families across developmental stages, and provides an agenda for future research and policy. Key features include: provides comprehensive, cross-disciplinary coverage of theoretical issues and research concerning family-school partnerships. describes those aspects of school-family partnerships that have been adequately researched and promotes their implementation as evidence-based interventions. charts cutting-edge research agendas & methods for exploring school-family partnerships. charts the implications such research has for training, policy and practice especially regarding educational disparities. This book is appropriate for researchers, instructors, and graduate students in the following areas: school counseling, school psychology, educational psychology, school leadership, special education, and school social work. It is also appropriate for the academic libraries serving these audiences.

Educating One and All

Educating One and All
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 1997-06-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309057892

In the movement toward standards-based education, an important question stands out: How will this reform affect the 10% of school-aged children who have disabilities and thus qualify for special education? In Educating One and All, an expert committee addresses how to reconcile common learning for all students with individualized education for "one"â€"the unique student. The book makes recommendations to states and communities that have adopted standards-based reform and that seek policies and practices to make reform consistent with the requirements of special education. The committee explores the ideas, implementation issues, and legislative initiatives behind the tradition of special education for people with disabilities. It investigates the policy and practice implications of the current reform movement toward high educational standards for all students. Educating One and All examines the curricula and expected outcomes of standards-based education and the educational experience of students with disabilitiesâ€"and identifies points of alignment between the two areas. The volume documents the diverse population of students with disabilities and their school experiences. Because approaches to assessment and accountability are key to standards-based reforms, the committee analyzes how assessment systems currently address students with disabilities, including testing accommodations. The book addresses legal and resource implications, as well as parental participation in children's education.

Families and Schools in a Pluralistic Society

Families and Schools in a Pluralistic Society
Author: Nancy Feyl Chavkin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 1993-02-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0791498840

Recent research identifies increased parent involvement in education as a promising method to bolster student achievement. Statistics show that while many traditional white, middle class families have found ways to be involved with their children's schooling, our nation now needs to find ways to include more minority parents in their children's education. Most educators and parents would agree that minority parent involvement in education is essential; the mechanics of developing sensitive, realistic, and workable home-school relationships are more elusive. It requires a concerted effort by all involved to understand more about the complex parent-school relationship and to develop specific plans to help families. This comprehensive volume features substantial material from the nation's most renowned research projects on parent involvement—Stanford University's Center for the Study of Families, Children and Youth, the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Research on Elementary and Middle Schools, the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, and the National Catholic Education Association. In addition to a section on research, the book includes a section on practice that presents research-tested strategies on working with minority parents (Asian, American Indian, Hispanic, African American, and other minority groups). The book concludes with a section on future challenges that educators must confront and appendices on promising national programs and helpful resource materials.

School Dropout and Completion

School Dropout and Completion
Author: Stephen Lamb
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2010-11-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9048197635

School dropout remains a persistent and critical issue in many school systems, so much so that it is sometimes referred to as a crisis. Populations across the globe have come to depend on success at school for establishing careers and gaining access to post-school qualifications. Yet large numbers of young people are excluded from the advantages that successful completion of school brings and as a result are subjected to consequences such as higher likelihood of unemployment, lower earnings, greater dependence on welfare and poorer physical health and well-being. Over recent decades, most western nations have stepped up their efforts to reduce drop out and raise school completion rates while maintaining high standards. How school systems have approached this, and how successful they are, varies. This book compares the various approaches by evaluating their impact on rates of dropout and completion. Case studies of national systems are used to highlight the different approaches including institutional arrangements and the various alternative secondary school programs and their outcomes. The evaluation is based on several key questions: What are the main approaches? How do they work? For whom do they work? And, how successful are they in promoting high rates of completion and equivalent outcomes for all? This book examines the nature of the dropout problem in advanced industrialized countries with the goal of developing a broader, international understanding that can feed into public policy to help improve completion rates worldwide.

Families, Schools, and the Adolescent

Families, Schools, and the Adolescent
Author: Nancy E. Hill
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-08-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780807749951

Families and schools share a desire for students to succeed but are often perplexed about how to collaborate and support this achievement, especially during the transition to middle and high school. This book will help educators and policymakers identify and implement the most effective strategies to help parents remain involved in their teens’ education. The research in this book looks at diverse families and adolescents from a wide range of backgrounds while considering cultural and socioeconomic contexts. Bringing together multidisciplinary perspectives—including prominent researchers from the fields of teacher education, psychology, and sociology —this authoritative book: Presents new research on family-school partnerships in the unique developmental period of adolescence. Outlines the challenges teachers experience in maintaining communication with families. Offers strategies that reflect academic socialization among African American, Asian American, Latino, and European American families as key factors that promote achievement. Describes how technology can bridge the gap between families and schools in a way that fits with the developmental needs of adolescents. Examines the roles of policymakers, communities, and school districts to highlight developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive policy solutions.