Notes that parental involvement in schools often decreases at the middle school level because children do not want their parents at school and parents do not feel welcome. Provides guidelines to increase parental involvement by setting realistic goals, training parents in involvement duties, recruiting, staying flexible, understanding community…

The family strengths approach to parent involvement is based on core beliefs summed up by the concepts of communication, collaboration, and community. Communication involves relationships based on shared responsibility around common goals. Collaboration begins with teacher-parent dialogs around goals for children, later formalized in written…

This study examined the relation between teachers' report of family involvement in school and children's social and academic competencies during kindergarten, measuring families' attitudes toward schools and families' activities with schools. Findings suggest that teachers' reports of family attitudes are a more consistent predictor of outcomes…

Provides information on how teachers in the early childhood setting can encourage fathers to participate in their children's school experiences. Discusses models for fathers, the place of work in the traditional father role, and helping children with absent fathers. Suggests ways to teach positive parenting skills to fathers, including praising…

Reports on a study of "parent evenings," or parent-teacher consultations, examining the structure using audio-recordings. Identifies similarities with doctor-patient consultations. Argues that teachers do not maintain control of the conferences and that issues of power, identity, competence, and moral conflict are at stake. (CMK)

Summarizes John Wilson's account of authority in educational relationships by reconstructing his views on different types of authority. Explores the topic of parental authority arguing that parental authority differs from the authority of teachers. Comments on whether authoritative parental supervision is essential. Includes references. (CMK)

Examined the differential association of mothers' and of fathers' warm/supportive and hostile behavior with adolescents' school functioning and problem behavior, and considered both the direct and indirect processes whereby parents' behavior is related to those domains of adolescents' adjustment. Found that adolescents' self- representations…

Investigated the role of mothers' expectancies in shaping their child's perceived physical competence. Structural equation modeling revealed that mothers' perceptions of their child's physical competence predicted their child's own perceived physical competence 1 year later, independent of the child's previously demonstrated physical ability and…

To investigate the recommendation that children practice reading aloud at home, conversations of 3rd graders reading to their mothers were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded. Conversations between below-average readers and their mothers were marked by the frequent use of error corrections. College-educated mothers asked significantly more…

Explores the differences in attitudes of three groups of facilitators toward emergent literacy learning, in relation to child's age, child's sex, and type of early childhood education facilities in Korea. Identifies the discrepancies in attitudes toward emergent literacy learning. Notes a significant difference in writing, but not in reading…

Reports on research which looked at how parents' and early childhood teachers' attitudes toward work and child care influenced their relationships with each other. (PCB)

The article identifies behaviors and issues related to being a nonexceptional sibling of a brother or sister with mental retardation. The parent's role in helping a nonexceptional sibling cope is briefly considered. A two-day workshop and an instructional unit designed to support siblings are outlined and briefly described. (DB)

Discusses roles that parents and teachers can perform to facilitate children's interactions with computers. Highlights include: (1) designing computer environments, including learner control, learning activities, and relating computer experiences to other learning processes; (2) adult interactions with children; and (3) observation and feedback…

Analyzes the relationships between family day-care providers and the children in their care, based on questionnaire responses of the providers. Discusses ambiguities of distinguishing between feelings toward their own children and those children for whom they provide paid care. Explores effects of the context of care-giving and relations with…

Argues that mandatory busing, while resulting in cases of "White flight," has had positive consequences in the re-emergence of "choice" programs and magnet schools. Contends that choice programs can be expanded on intradistrict, metropolitan, and statewide levels. Suggests that Federal funding and private education should be…