A major concern in engineering education involves ensuring that youth belonging to minoritized groups have equitable access to engineering career pathways. Related research often highlights the effect of student and school characteristics on engineering success but few studies have investigated the engineering-related assets that Black families…

The problem that was addressed through this study was the decline in home-to-school partnerships within a local, public, and ethnically diverse middle school (DMS) in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore parents' perspectives on the decline in home-to-school partnerships at a DMS. Using Epstein's six…

I investigate longitudinal preferences for schools revealed by families' applications to middle and high schools within a large urban school district's universal enrollment system. I find that preferences for schools' racial/ethnic composition are more stable than preferences for quality and proximity to home, even after concurrently controlling…

Legislation outlined in ESSA (2018) pushes schools to address the needs of the diverse populations within the school community as well creating a place for equitable family engagement. This study focuses on the family rather than the parent. Due to changes in family dynamics it is necessary to incorporate not just the parent but all members of a…

We investigated relations among African American parents' reports of ethnic-racial socialization received during their own childhood, their racial attitudes (i.e., perceptions of U.S. racial climate and valuing of intergroup contact), and their 12th-grade children's reports of parents' use of racial pride socialization and preparation for bias.…

This QuantCrit analysis considers Black fathers' influence on their sons' engagement and sense of belonging in urban intensive and emergent high schools. Canonical correlations show a significant relationship between Black fathers' paternal influence and their sons' engagement and sense of belonging in school. We discuss two QuantCrit…

In order to promote effective learning, individuals must feel fully appreciated within their own unique identities (i.e., ethnicities, language differences, socioeconomic status, gender, religions). Culturally competent educators employ practices that acknowledge and build on cultural diversity and that identify students themselves as resources…

This article presents the results of a randomized clinical trial evaluating the eight-session "Family Eats" web-based intervention promoting healthy home food environments for African American families. African American families (n = 126) with 8- to 12-year-old children completed online baseline questionnaires and were randomized into…

Recent images of President Obama's mother-in-law, Mrs. Marian Robinson, caring for her granddaughters in the White House are a powerful reminder of the prominence that grandmothers have had in African American communities. The significance of the grandmother figure can also be seen in award-winning literature for young adolescents such as in Rita…

Background: Research has demonstrated the importance of understanding the multiple factors that shape parents' relationships with schools, including the resources parents have at their disposal, their own educational histories, and the influence of school cultures and policies. Less is known, however, about how parents' engagement relates to their…

The current laws that mandate special education originated through the advocacy of families (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1990). Over the years, families have challenged the system to provide free and appropriate public educations for their children. We share, through qualitative measures, the experiences of one African American family and the…

Discrimination concerns and parental expectations were examined as mediators of the relations between gender and parenting practices among 796 African American mothers of 11- to 14-year-olds from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study. Mothers of sons had more concerns about racial discrimination impacting their adolescents' future,…

The theme for the 58th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Bridging Cultures Through Literacy. In the first section of the Yearbook, Parker Fawson's presidential address captures the unique nature of ALER and its role in his professional development, and then moved beyond to capture the changing…