Concepts and Models of Family
Involvement
By Harvard Family Research Project
May 2002
Index
Family involvement plays a key role in student achievement.
The 2001
Longitudinal Evaluation of School Change and Performance in
Title I Schools reported that active teacher outreach
to parents is as important as improved instructional practices
to achieve the goals of standards-based education initiatives.
This finding supports a long history of research linking parent
involvement to student academic performance. It also confirms
the need for more widespread teacher preparation in family
involvement.
Nearly four decades of work by committed educators and advocates
have led to multiple concepts and models to engage families
in children's education. Family involvement must be understood
as multi-faceted. This document identifies four conceptual
dimensions of family involvement and illustrates their implementation
through case studies or status reports. The case studies,
in particular, describe what it means to build the capacity
of schools and community-based organizations to engage families
as supporters and advocates of student achievement and positive
youth development.
Although the four concepts presented here differ in the emphases
on parents' acting individually or taking collective action,
the orientation toward conflict or cooperation, and the locus
of leadership in the school or community, the various conceptual
dimensions of family involvement are not mutually exclusive.
Rather, they are to be viewed as dynamic templates for families
and schools to carry out the forms of involvement that are
appropriate to a given situation.
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Parenting Practices
First, family involvement is often interpreted in terms of
parenting practices, namely, the beliefs, attitudes,
and actions of parents to support their children's learning
at home and in school. Guided by the premise that a parent
is a child's first teacher, programs equip parents with the
knowledge and skills to support their children's learning
and development. These programs offer parenting sessions on
variety of topics such as communicating with children, helping
them develop literacy skills, supervising their homework and
after-school activities, and gearing them for college preparation.
Featured in our case study is the program, Families and Schools Together. This
program is rooted in a set of core values and research-based theories of behavioral
change for individuals and families. The values consist of building on family
strengths and the role of schools and social service organizations in supporting
families. The research base for the program draws extensively from risk and
prevention, family support, and human development.
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School-Family Partnership
Second, stemming largely from the research of Joyce Epstein,
family involvement embodies the idea of a school-family
partnership. In this model, families, schools, and communities
have overlapping spheres of influence on student learning.
However, schools have a primary responsibility for outreach
to parents and communities. Epstein provides a framework of
six types of involvement to help educators develop partnerships:
parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home,
decision-making, and collaborating with the community. The
featured case study on the National Network of Schools describes
Epstein's strategy to promote more widespread family-school
partnerships.
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Democratic Participation
Third, family involvement can be taken to mean a form of
democratic participation in society's institutions. This viewpoint
assumes that families and communities are powerful social
change agents who can participate effectively in school reform.
In the context of persisting achievement gaps based on income
and ethnicity, education advocates mobilize parent and community
groups to transform low-performing schools. The process can
be both confrontational and collaborative. In this model,
education advocates emphasize the transfer of knowledge and
skills as well as motivational supports so that families and
communities can take collective action.
Education organizations implement their vision of democratic
participation in education in various ways. As our case studies
demonstrate, education organizations can focus on skill development,
as illustrated by the Right Question Project. This organization
equips individuals to become critical problem-solvers on a
wide range of individual and schoolwide issues.
Some organizations can focus on convening and dialogue to
strengthen the relationship among families, schools, and communities.
This strategy is illustrated in the case of the National Coalition
of Advocates for Students.
Other organizations can emphasize training leaders on standards
development, implementation, and accountability. Equipped
with school data and advocacy skills, parents and community
leaders press schools for improved performance. This type
of advocacy is exemplified in the case of the Prichard Committee
for Academic Excellence.
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School Choice
Fourth, family involvement relates to school choice, the
decision that parents make about the schools their children
will attend. School choice is based on a belief in the efficacy
of market principles: schools that demonstrate good student
performance are those that parents will choose for their children.
Poor performing schools must improve or else lose their customer
base and face closure. Various types of school choice models
exist, such as: choosing public schools within a district;
forming charter schools, which exist within the framework
of the public school system; and using vouchers to send children
to private schools. Another variant of school choice is the
decision parents make to have their children home schooled.
More information about the status of the various forms of
school choice can be found on the websites listed below.
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Additional Resources
More information about the organizations featured in the
case studies can be found on their websites, listed below.
Families
and Schools Together
Alliance
for Children and Families
The National Network
of Partnership Schools
The
Right Question Project
The National Coalition of Advocates for Students
The
Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
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About the Case Studies
In 1997 Harvard Family Research Project began a three-year effort to provide
technical assistance to national nonprofit organizations working on family-school
partnerships. Our work also included convening these organizations and documenting
the capacity building strategies of these organizations. The featured case studies,
completed in May 2000, are the result of this documentation. Each case study
describes the family-school partnership objectives of the organization, its
capacity building strategies, challenges, and accomplishments.
Substantial research has shown that family involvement in
the home and school makes an enormous difference in student
achievement and healthy development. Research also confirms
that when schools provide the information, encouragement,
and opportunities for partnership that parents seek, more
parental involvement occurs. However, this research base alone
is not sufficient to transform school practice or community
engagement on a widespread basis. Capacity building, the activities
that translate the research base into effective and sustainable
family and community involvement practice, needs to be part
of the architecture of change at the site level. The case
studies focus on capacity building across a range of organizational
functions, including outreach, leadership development, research
and program development, evaluation, and model expansion.
The case studies can be used in four ways:
- Learn about different models of family involvement and home-school partnership.
- Understand how research informs the organization of program practices in
a coherent way.
- Appreciate the complexity and interrelation of strategies to engage schools,
community organizations, and parent leaders in the work of family involvement.
- Gain insight into the processes of expansion, replication, and sustainability.
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