Parent involvement in Portuguese government-sponsored schools is examined, focusing on the relationships between schools and parents of low economic and social status. This study was conducted in spring 1987 by a study team of 18 members, who interviewed more than 257 parents and teachers in nine of the country's districts. A brief…

A guidance counselor and chair of an elementary school's special services team implemented a 10-week practicum intervention designed to improve the school attendance of 107 kindergarten through fifth grade students who were chronically absent. While 49 percent of the truant students lived in an inner-city housing project, 62 percent lived in…

A practicum was conducted to determine the effectiveness of parental reinforcement at home of the reading skills taught at school. Parents of first grade Chapter 1 students, participated for a 10-week period with the first week devoted to training parents to use the materials and the paired-reading concept. Scores on the reading assessment test…

A parent involvement policy to improve public relations in a high school is examined in this report. The policy goal was to attract at least one thousand parents, approximately one-half of the parent population, to the school each year for a positive nonathletic experience. Methodology to analyze policy effectiveness involved interviews with staff…

Poor students and parents in the East Harlem schools of New York City's Community District 4 should have the same opportunity to obtain the benefits of school choice available to the wealthy, who can afford private and parochial schools. Parental choice can provide the catalyst for educational reform by introducing a market mechanism to the public…

A survey of 3,246 adolescents was conducted during mathematics classes in order to explore the influence of congruent family and classroom decision-making environments on student achievement, and to examine the extent to which home environments influence adolescents' perceptions of ideal decision-making opportunities in school. Opportunities to…

This study analyzed the critical features of three delivery modes for Head Start services in order to: (1) compare the effects of different delivery modes on the immediate outcomes for children and parents; and (2) explore the pattern of effects both within and across modes to ascertain how the process works. The first mode represented the most…

A survey of recent studies on trends and allocations of resources in the American family structure, supplemented by empirical data on family dynamics, may be a step toward clarifying the issue of which processes of family life consistently contribute to children's performances in school. Whether family characteristics or family use of time and…

A survey on parents' attitudes about school effectiveness in the early childhood and elementary programs was conducted in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, City School District. All students in grades K4 through 5 were given surveys to take home; 3,328 surveys were returned. The survey measured parental attitudes toward six dimensions of school…

This monograph, one of a series presented at a conference on "What Do We Know about Teaching and Learning in Urban Schools?" reviews research findings and examines directions for further exploration of the relationship between home-school-community relations and student achievement. Research suggests that local schools view themselves as political…

This hearing provides information on major issues that parents and educators face in establishing a parent teacher relationship conducive to improving American education and discusses ways some communities are successfully dealing with those issues. Prepared statements testify to the effectiveness of established parent and community volunteer…

Children who require modification of curriculum and methods in the regular classroom have often been inappropriately labeled as handicapped, and placed in special education programs to maintain the status quo in the schools. A need exists to break this cycle by training present and future school psychologists in methods of case analysis and…

This paper explores various aspects of training preschool teachers in the Federal Republic of Germany to cooperate with parents in the education of their children. An initial discussion of teacher training programs in Germany focuses on the lack of a theoretical concept of socialization and social work as a basis for working with parents, and the…

This paper presents the design, underlying theory, and primary outcomes of the Multiple Model Preschool Program (MMPP), a three-year longitudinal early childhood intervention program which focused simultaneously on the three dimensions of parental involvement, home-school relations, and individualized education. In both homes and schools at three…

This information analysis paper reviews the literature on parent and family counseling, identified by a computer search of the ERIC data base from November 1966 through December 1979. An overview of parent and family counseling is followed by a presentation of basic issues, such as the counselor's role as a consultant to parents and teachers,…