Family–School Partnership Conference Presentations
Conferences Organized by Harvard Family Research Project
Family, School, and Community Connections Symposium: New Directions for
Research, Practice, and Evaluation
We teamed up with the National Center for Family and Community Connections
with Schools at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) to present
this 1-day Family, School, and Community Connections Symposium: New Directions
for Research, Practice, and Evaluation. It took place at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 2, 2004. This full-day
symposium was aimed at educators who are committed to helping students reach
their full potential by incorporating family and community connections with
schools. Read the agenda and access the speaker bios
and presentations.
Conference Presentations by Harvard Family Research Project
Family Involvement Interventions: Shining the Spotlight on Evaluation (Symposium)
This panel symposium, held at the annual meeting of the American Educational
Research Association (AERA) in Chicago on April 10, 2007, followed up on HFRP's
family involvement sessions at previous AERA meetings in 2005
and 2006. The 2007 symposium featured discussion regarding
the evaluation of family involvement interventions—including new lessons
about the effectiveness of these interventions and ways in which the current
family involvement intervention evidence base can inform policy and practice.
The symposium was organized by HFRP and chaired by HFRP director Heather Weiss.
Panelists included Pat Davenport (FAST), Chad Nye (University of Central Florida),
Dana Petersen (SRI), Margaret Caspe (HFRP), and James Rodriguez (San Diego State
University).
New Research on Family Involvement and Academic Achievement
(Symposium)
This multiple paper symposium, held on April 11, 2006, at the annual meeting
of the American Educational Research Association, followed up on our panel
session in 2005. It featured four research studies that used nuanced definitions
of family involvement and cutting-edge methodologies to address processes of
family involvement and academic outcomes for disadvantaged children across the
developmental continuum. The symposium was held in San Francisco and organized
by HFRP. Heather Weiss chaired the session, Kathleen Hoover-Dempsey served as
discussant, and presenters included Wendy Barnard, Suzanne Bouffard, Eric Dearing,
and Christine McWayne.
Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Family Involvement
Research Into Practice (Presentation)
This presentation by HFRP staff was part of a conference entitled “Family–School
Relations During Adolescence: Linking Interdisciplinary Research and Practice.”
The conference was held July 20–21 and was hosted by the Sanford Institute
of Public Policy at Duke University, sponsored by the American Psychological
Association. The goal of the conference was to establish better links among
research, practice, and policy related to family educational involvement during
adolescence, particularly for families from ethnically and socioeconomically
diverse backgrounds. View
slides and video from the conference.
Making the Case for Parental Involvement and Engagement:
Part I: Parental, Family, School, and Community Partnerships Make a Difference
(Workshop)
Engaging families in education holds tremendous potential for boosting children's
achievement, but also ranks among educators' greatest challenges. Staff at Harvard
Family Research Project paired up with staff at the Institute for Responsive
Education at Cambridge College to make the case for family involvement
to educators. Research and evaluation findings on the benefits, challenges,
and effective strategies in family involvement were reviewed and illustrated
with descriptions of established program models and exemplary practices from
local schools. This workshop was presented at the annual Massachusetts Title
I conference in Hyannis on May 11, 2005.
Research and Evaluation of Family Involvement in
Education: What Lies Ahead? (Panel Session)
This panel session on April 14, 2005, at the annual conference of the American
Educational Research Association in Montreal, examined the current knowledge
base and future directions for family involvement research and evaluation. Heather
Weiss, who chaired the session, identified priority areas for future research
and evaluation and criteria for selecting these areas. Panelists Kathleen Hoover-Dempsey,
William Jeynes, Joyce Epstein, and Anne Henderson discussed research and evaluation
on parent–child and parent–student–school relationships, home–school
communication and parental expectations, school-based partnership programs,
and community organizing, respectively. The audience was invited to give feedback,
add insights, and continue this initial dialogue into the future.
Understanding and Evaluating Family Engagement in Out-of-School Time (Workshop)
Engaging with families is one of the many strategies that out-of-school time
(OST) programs use to create quality, adult-supervised experiences for youth
during nonschool hours. This workshop introduced participants to the latest
research and evaluation findings on family involvement in OST programs, and
shared strategies for engaging with families, using two case studies to illustrate
these practices in context. This workshop was presented at the Plus Time New
Hampshire Annual Afterschool Conference in Bedford, New Hampshire, on October
26, 2004, and the Community Schools Forum in Chicago, Illinois, on March 11,
2005.
Evaluating Family Support: Thinking Critically, Thinking Internationally
(Keynote Address)
Evaluation plays a major role in shaping new directions for the field of family
support. In her keynote address at the Participatory Evaluation and Parent Engagement
Institute, sponsored by Family Support America and the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation, in Kansas City, Missouri, September 20–22, 2004, Heather Weiss,
Founder and Director of HFRP, described how evaluation can support learning,
continuous improvement, and innovation. She also emphasized that evaluation
has to support parents’ capacity to get and use data for community change.
The four components of a family support evaluation strategy that she outlined
were experimental studies to show program impact on families, utilization-focused
evaluation to support policy and practitioner decision making, action research
and empowerment evaluation, and performance standards based on solid research
and evaluation. Read her keynote address.
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