This handbook provides advice to help parents, caregivers, and teachers arrive at personal answers to basic questions that affect children's achievement. The handbook is intended as a personal notebook in which are recorded reader responses to the home/school problems raised in the book "What Do We Say? What Do We Do?" The sections are:…

This KIDS COUNT report presents statistics highlighting challenges faced by newborns and their parents in major urban areas. Data came from birth certificates. Overall, children living in central cities are far more likely to experience six risks associated with negative child outcomes, and when those six factors are used collectively to determine…

The lives of many families involve contact with more than one language and culture on a daily basis. This book is aimed at the many parents and professionals who feel uncertain about the best way to go about helping children gain maximum benefit from the situation. Every family's situation is different, but there is much parents can do to make…

This study examined how parents' beliefs about skilled reading and shared book reading related to the ways they coached their children in learning to read in kindergarten through grade 2 and whether these beliefs and behaviors contributed to their children's reading skill. The focus of the study was on the ways parents responded to children's…

This book analyzes key cultural strengths of African American families, arguing that they provide a solid foundation upon which to develop the kind of public policies and self-help initiatives that will genuinely promote the interests of African Americans and diverse peoples nationwide. Nine chapters include (1) "Solutions Framework"…

Beginning with a brief history of homeschooling in America, this paper discusses literature describing today's population of homeschoolers. Although older, the binary typology offered by Van Galen (1987, 1991) to categorize the motivations of homeschoolers is still utilized in much of the homeschooling literature. Van Galen breaks homeschoolers…

Impoverished pregnant teenagers were distinguished from matched or random controls by an inability to cope; by identification of family, school, and peer relationships as self-devaluing experiences; by an attraction to deviant identity as a source of self-esteem; and by adoption of deviant behaviors. (Author/CP)

Examined contemporaneous and predictive relations between parenting styles, adolescents' attributions, and educational outcomes. Found that adolescents who perceived their parents as nonauthoritative were more likely than peers to attribute achievement outcomes to external causes or low ability. The higher the proportion of dysfunctional…

Demonstrates that socio-economic factors such as family background are important in determining student achievement, but are reinforced by factors such as teaching and learning resources. Presents a study of student achievement in mathematics and science related to parental education and occupation and to type of school. (LS)

Compares three critical transitions at the end of elementary school and during secondary education prior to and after educational reform in the Netherlands. Concludes that the educational reform efforts promoted more equal educational opportunities by increased student participation. (CFR)

Studies patterns of computer use based on data from the National Science Foundation's Longitudinal Study of American Youth in which 7th- and 10th-grade students were surveyed for five consecutive years. Highlights include parental backgrounds; socioeconomic status; parental attitudes; student attitudes; gender differences; computer ownership; and…

Investigated the effects of and relationship between the number of parenting transitions (divorce, remarriage) and adjustment in three samples of adolescent girls and boys not identified as being at risk for problems. Found qualified evidence of a negative linear relationship between the number of parenting transitions experienced and child…

Discusses a study of whether Chinese-American families in small businesses promote educational achievement by transmitting high aspirations to the next generation. Concludes that proprietors exert positive influence on their children's educational attainment. Suggests that small business participation has encouraged intergenerational educational…

Investigation of relations among children's perceptions of their parents, motivation, and school performance for 456 children in grades 3 through 6 suggests that perceived maternal support and involvement are associated with perceived competence, control understanding, and perceptions of autonomy, whereas paternal support is related to perceived…

Describes a year-long study in second and fourth grades examining how teachers' school-to-home communications influence parent perceptions about school and their effects on children's motivation. Results from 25 classrooms (15 controls) confirm the importance of school-to-home communications and the positive relationship between parents' comfort…