This study was designed to answer the following questions relative to social science fair projects: (1) To what extent were instructional media techniques utilized in the project display? (2) To what extent did teachers assist students with topic selection for the projects? (3) To what extent were the teachers and media specialists involved with…

The major purpose of this study was to determine whether male and female college students differ in their aspirations. A related purpose was to explore the relationship between college students' emotional relationships with their parents and their parents' aspirations for them and also to determine if they felt emotionally closer to one parent…

This study examined the relationship between parents' general beliefs about child development and parents' beliefs regarding their child's performing a hypothetical developmental task with ease or with difficulty. The relation of these beliefs to the children's development was also considered. These relationships were examined separately for…

To assess the impact of public library preschool activities on children's reading readiness skills, a criterion reference test of reading readiness development was administered to 106 children entering kindergarten. Questionnaires were given to both parents and children to determine their uses and views of the library in their town. Comparison of…

This paper examines rural high school students' educational and occupational expectations and their relationships to personal, educational, school, and family characteristics. Questionnaires were distributed to all 10th and 12th graders in four small rural high schools in diverse geographic regions of Ohio. Almost all of the 491 respondents were…

Relationships between parental overprotection and fifth-graders' self-concept and level of social and school functioning were examined by means of systematic observations of parent-child interactions in the home, parent and child self-reports, teacher and peer ratings, grades, and achievement scores. Subjects were 43 middle-to-upper-middle income…

This study identifies home environment factors that may contribute to children's academic achievement. The study involved observing and interviewing 59 families of a group of higher achieving and lower achieving fifth and sixth grade students of Puerto Rican descent residing in southeastern urban Pennsylvania. The following factors that may affect…

In this two-part paper, an attempt is made to examine the relationship between social contexts and effective schools and specifically to contribute to the development of a conceptual model for understanding how social contexts influence the operation of effective schools and student learning. In the first part, school effects research is drawn…

A study attempted to determine the validity of Jean Epstein's contention that "words about the importance of parent involvement are meaningless without financial and technical support." A survey questionnaire was mailed to 197 individuals (including all 50 state superintendents of education) and 38 individuals suggested by respondents.…

This paper examines opportunities and constraints related to the implementation of activities intended to realize the national education goal that "every parent in America will be a child's first teacher and devote time each day helping his or her preschool child learn; parents will have access to the training and support they need." The first…

The Migrant Education Region 1 of the Santa Clara County Office of Education organized a project to examine the conditions of 1454 migrant students in a sample of northern California schools. The project had two primary components: (1) the collection and analysis of information about migrant students, their family and school situations, and their…

Parents need to be involved in the academic lives and the literacy learning of their children. Literature is a natural way to involve parents in the process. Through a thematic unit on families, students learn about themselves and their families. Students read books with a family theme and work in literature circles on projects, papers, and…

Intended for teachers in Tasmania, this booklet discusses the role of parents and the home in language development as an integral and important part of a school's language program. The booklet suggests that schools need to determine the best way to communicate to parents: how important parents are to the early development of children's language;…

This report is based on evidence that despite the negative outcomes so often associated with early childbearing, not all teenage parents experience difficult lives. Given the heterogeneity of outcomes among teenage parents and their children, the issue addressed in the research is to identify the factors that explain variations in academic…

This study provides longitudinal observations of young children's behaviors while viewing television in their own homes, over a time when the children were actively involved in the process of language acquisition. A total of 16 children were observed for a period ranging from 6 to 8 months. At the beginning, their ages ranged from 6 and 1/2 to 29…