Hill Paper Wins Social Policy Best Article Award

Professor Nancy Hill's article, "Parent Involvement in Middle School: A Meta-analytic Assessment of the Strategies that Promote Achievement," was named the 2010 recipient of the Social Policy Best Article Award presented by the Society for Research in Adolescence. The award recognizes research on adolescence with implications for social policy.

As the lead researcher on the paper, Hill examined 50 studies with more than 50,000 students over a 26-year period looking at what kinds of parent involvement helped children's academic achievement.

"It is an honor to receive the 2010 Society for Research in Adolescence, Social Policy Best Article Award," Hill says. "In conducting this meta-analysis on parental involvement in education, our hope was that we would learn something that would be directly meaningful to parents and families, especially as parents tell us that maintaining involvement in education is harder during middle school. Receiving this award for the policy implications of our research affirms that we are on the right track for helping families and informing schools about the most effective and developmental appropriate ways for families to support their teens' educational goals."

Hill's research focuses on variations in parenting and family socialization practices across ethnic, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood contexts as well as demographic variations in the relations between family dynamics and children's school performance and other developmental outcomes. She is the cofounder of the Study Group on Race, Culture, and Ethnicity, an interdisciplinary group of scientists who develop theory and methodology for defining and understanding the cultural context within diverse families.

Hill will accept the award during the SRA Presidential Address and Awards Ceremony on Friday, March 12 in Philadelphia.