Parent-teacher relationships are germane to child outcomes and are especially important when children experience social-behavioral difficulties. We used dyadic methods to assess levels and congruence in parent-teacher relationship joining (affective quality) and communication-to-other (communication behaviors). The study also examined whether…

School attendance is strongly associated with academic success and high school completion, but approximately one-in-seven students miss nearly one month of school each year. To address absenteeism, we partnered with four public school districts in the metro-Atlanta area and experimentally deployed email and text messages to inform parents about…

Universal school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have been shown to have a range of benefits for students. However, these programs tend to focus on students, not involving parents, which may limit their impact outside the school context. We conducted focus groups and interviews with 118 parents, 58 teachers, and 6 school…

Introduction: Early informal learning experiences are essential for sparking long-term interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In a prior study, we found more promising parent involvement outcomes when families of young children were provided with STEM family education events along with home STEM activity kits compared to…

Preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present with social-communication and play challenges and would benefit from interventions targeting these skills. One way to ensure this is by engaging parents in technological supports to learn about an intervention and increase home-school collaboration. Thus, a website could potentially address…

Although phonics knowledge and decoding skill are important for academic and life success, there is little research that examines the effects of home-based, family-implemented instruction on the development of these early literacy skills. The purpose of this multiple baseline across participants single case experimental design study was to…

Although school-based preventive parenting interventions have been found to promote children's social-emotional skill development and behavioral functioning, it is important to understand potential barriers to engagement in such programs to ensure that intervention access is equitable and likely to reach those who could most benefit. In the…

Children's early skills are strong predictors of later learning outcomes. Research aiming to disentangle the causal effects of early skills from unmeasured, stable characteristics related to learning throughout development demonstrates that unmeasured confounders explain a large portion of the effects of early skills previously identified. To…

Parental engagement in stimulating activities and support in both formal and informal learning environments are important for early childhood development. However, little is known about how parental mental health and beliefs about early childhood development shape such investments. We draw on a sample of young children and their primary caregiver…

Research on parental involvement has traditionally focused on social class differences in parenting behavior throughout early childhood and K-12 schooling. Yet there is mounting evidence that similar class divides persist as children exit high school and progress through young adulthood. This review examines parents' roles in young adults' lives,…

Educational researchers and school-based practitioners are increasingly infusing Motivational Interviewing (MI) into new and existing intervention protocols to provide support to students, parents, teachers, and school administrators. To date, however, the majority of the research in this area has focused on feasibility of implementation rather…

Depression is a major global health concern, especially among mothers of young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). While various risk and protective factors have been well-established, the role of fathers in potentially mitigating maternal depression remains understudied. This study aimed to investigate the association between…

Using expectancy-value theory, we explored whether parents' perceived expectancies, value, and costs relate to parent involvement in science and math activities. We also explored whether informal learning varied based on child gender and parent's report of having a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-related career. Specifically, we…

This study describes the development of a 12-item inventory of school supports for military-connected (MC) children. Participants were 444 students (grades 3 or 5) with an active-duty military parent (48% female; 57.3% White, 10.7% Black, 6.2% Native American, 5% Asian, 3.3% Pacific Islander, 17.5% bi/multiracial; 19% Latinx). Youth completed the…

This study examined the stress and coping patterns of middle school teachers. A final teacher sample of 102 and student sample of 1450 agreed to participate in the study. We conducted a latent profile analysis of the teachers' self-reported levels of stress and coping at the beginning of the school year and used the resulting profiles to predict…