Until recently, fathers have been underexamined relative to mothers in research on parenting. Fathers in poverty, as well as stepfathers and nonresidential fathers, have been a particularly understudied group. This study explores Head Start fathers' involvement with their children. Fathers are defined to include stepfathers as well as…

Minnesota's Intervention for College Attendance Program (ICAP) is a program of competitive grants awarded to postsecondary institutions, professional organizations and community-based organizations. Funded programs focus on increasing the access and success of groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education by strengthening their…

The purpose of this review paper, "Adolescent Sexual Education: Designing Curriculum That Works", is to present some basic curriculum necessities for developing an in-school sexual education program that results in decreasing the number of teenagers initiating sex, thus reducing the number of teen pregnancies and cases of sexually transmitted…

This book shows how school improvement efforts are often undermined by the changing conditions around schools, as well as by some of the very policies and programs designed to help them make improvements. Hatch argues that schools cannot wait around for conditions to improve or for policymakers to figure out how to provide the "right" support.…

This article examines how educational leadership defines parental involvement and shapes the nature of home-school collaboration in schools in an Asian context. Results show three major types of principal leadership, or "habitus" of parental involvement: bureaucratic, utilitarian, and communitarian, which provide a more powerful…

This article describes the impact of a MAPS process on team member agreement on postsecondary expectations and goals for a middle school student with Autism Spectrum Disorders in a rural area. The results revealed similarities and differences in the beliefs and expectations of the participants on the transition team and that the MAPS approach…

Digital technology is providing a growing variety of methods for school leaders to connect with parents anywhere, anytime--a tactic mirroring how technology is used to engage students. Through Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and text messages sent in multiple languages, school staff members are giving parents instant updates, news, and information…

The impact of social dimensions (e.g., parental involvement) on second language literacy acquisition is not well studied in the field (August & Shanahan, 2008). Although quite a few studies report immigrant parents' belief and perspectives of their children's second language reading and writing, it remains unknown for school teachers…

This is the fourth in a series of six papers from the Center on Education Policy exploring issues related to students' motivation to learn. This paper examines findings from research about the impact of various family background and cultural factors on student motivation, as well as the role of parental beliefs, attitudes, and actions in fostering…

This purpose of this investigation is to explore the cultural challenges faced by Mexican immigrant students through the study of current literature. Four themes emerged as a result of the investigation: dominant pedagogy, educational skills, deficit model, and student identities. The themes are discussed and suggestions are made as to how these…

K-12 schools with large immigrant populations face a myriad of challenges, including low academic achievement and high dropout rates of Latino students. Parental involvement is a practical strategy in positively influencing student outcomes along the K-12 continuum. To this end, it is essential that immigrant impacted schools work together with…

Two major assumptions have dominated much of the discourse on Islamic schools in Pakistan since the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s and following the US attack on Afghanistan in October 2001. First, the Pakistani state-run education system is failing. Because of the poor quality of education at public schools, parents choose to send their…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there is a significant difference in postsecondary completion rates between students with Emotional Behavior Disorder (EBD) who were involved with their own postsecondary transition planning processes, whose parents were involved in the transition planning, and who received services or…

What steps can be taken to assure that 8th graders make a successful transition to 9th grade? More students fail ninth grade than any other grade level. When middle school students took part in high school transition programs with a variety of different articulation activities, fewer students were retained in ninth grade. Ideally, these transition…

In the current longitudinal study, we examined associations between Black and Latino youths' perceptions of the public's opinion of their racial/ethnic group (i.e., public regard) and changes in academic adjustment outcomes across middle school. We also tested combinations of racial/ethnic socialization and parent involvement in academic…