A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Systemic Reform: Perspectives on Personalizing Education - September 1994

Recommendations for Further Research

These policy recommendations suggest a number of directions for further research in the area of family and community involvement. First, researchers always should look at the issue of family and community involvement within the whole school environment. That is, we will learn less by studying the involvement of parents in the school in isolation than we will by asking, "What are the goals and the trajectory of this school, and how does family and community involvement fit into this pattern?"

Second, researchers should examine all types of parent involvement at one time, not isolating one from another. For example, if a school develops a new home tutoring program, we should look at this program alongside other opportunities (or lack thereof) for families and community members to participate at the school site.

Third, researchers need to develop more complex theoretical models of the effects of parent involvement. Too often, we find ourselves searching for effects (did test scores go up with more participation of parents on the school council?) that we cannot reasonably expect to tie directly to the participation of families and community members. Given a more coherent theoretical model, we could make a more convincing case for the impact of family and parent communication on various aspects of the schooling process, which in turn might lead to certain student-level outcomes.

Finally, researchers have to provide examples of effective practice to the practitioners who go out of their way to open their schools and classrooms to us. Good models of how to involve families and communities in meaningful ways are not readily available to many teachers and administrators. Given the privilege of researchers' access, we should be prepared to return to practitioners concrete evidence of our findings.
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