Family-School Relations during Adolescence: Linking Interdisciplinary Research and Practice

心理学家、社会学家、经济学家和教育科学家都证明了家庭参与儿童教育对儿童的学业和社会情感发展以及心理健康成果的好处。尽管有一致的证据证明建立富有成效的家校关系的好处，但仍有三个紧迫的问题。 首先，在以小学为对象的研究中，父母参与教育对学业成绩产生了积极影响。 青春期是一个自主性增强的时期，往往与父母参与教育的程度较低有关。然而，对初中和高中学生的研究表明，父母的参与不仅与学业成绩的提高保持联系，而且还表明青春期是父母参与的关键时期。 初步研究表明，虽然在小学期间使用的一些做法适用于初中和高中，初中和高中可能需要不同类型的参与，因为课程和学校选择的复杂性，初中和高中的跟踪往往是模糊的，教师人数增加。该领域需要确定适当的家长参与战略，以最大限度地提高针对家长参与教育的方案和政策的有效性。 其次，尽管各学科都有一致的证据表明父母参与教育的好处，但各学科之间以及研究人员、从业人员和政策制定者之间缺乏沟通。家长参与的操作定义和测量在不同学科之间差异很大。跨学科以及研究人员和实践者之间的交流可以拓宽我们的理论，改善研究和实践。第三，由于美国学校的人口越来越多样化，有必要关注人口因素如何影响父母参与教育。 为了解决这些问题，该项目将导致一个为期两天的跨学科会议，家长参与教育，将包括来自心理学，社会学，经济学和教育领域的研究人员，以及从业人员和政策制定者。本次会议的目标是扩大我们的父母参与的理论，包括发展适当的和有效的青少年父母参与策略，跨学科的研究成果，以磨练我们的研究问题，并设置一个研究议程，桥梁研究成果和有效的做法。 基于会议报告的研究、实践和政策议程将作为编辑卷和政策简报出版。 通过跨学科接触所产生的协同作用将产生新的研究问题和跨学科合作，这将改善研究，政策和实践，以帮助来自不同背景的学校和家庭建立富有成效的关系，以促进学术发展。明确关注种族和社会经济多样性将确保研究合作、研究结果和做法具有文化敏感性和适当性。这次会议和基于它的出版物将挑战研究人员和从业人员超越他们的学科利基和挑战假设，以有利于青少年的学术发展。

The benefits of family involvement in children's education for academic and socioemotional development and mental health outcomes have been documented by psychologists, sociologists, economists and education scientists. Despite consistent evidence documenting the benefits of establishing productive family-school relationships, there are three pressing issues. First, the positive influence of parental involvement in education on academic achievement has been established in research based on elementary schools. Adolescence, a time of increased autonomy, is often associated with lower levels of parental involvement in education. However, research on middle and high school students shows that parental involvement not only maintains its association with increased academic achievement but also shows that adolescence is a critical period for parental involvement. Preliminary research suggests that, although some practices used during elementary school are applicable to middle and high school, middle and high schools may require a different type of involvement because of the complexity of curricular and school choices, the often obscured nature of tracking in middle and high schools, and the increased number of teachers. The field needs to identify appropriate strategies of parental involvement to maximize the effectiveness of programs and policies targeting parental involvement in education. Second, despite consistent evidence across disciplines of the benefits of parental involvement in education, there is a lack of communication across the disciplines and among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Operational definitions and measurement of parental involvement vary widely across disciplines. Communication across disciplines and between researchers and practitioners can broaden our theories and improve research and practice. Third, because the American school population is becoming increasingly diverse, there is a need to focus on how demographic factors influence parental involvement in education. To address these issues, this project will result in a 2-day interdisciplinary conference on parental involvement in education that will include researchers from the fields of psychology, sociology, economics, and education, as well as practitioners and policy makers. The goals of this conference are to broaden our theories of parental involvement to include developmentally appropriate and effective parental involvement strategies for adolescents, to converge research findings across disciplines to hone our research questions and set a research agenda, and to bridge research findings and effective practices. Research, practice, and policy agendas based on conference presentations will be published as an edited volume and as policy briefs. The synergy created by reaching across disciplines will result in new research questions and interdisciplinary collaborations that will improve research, policies, and practices to help schools and families from diverse backgrounds build productive relationships to promote academic development. The explicit focus on ethnic and socioeconomic diversity will assure that research collaborations, findings and practices are culturally sensitive and appropriate. This conference and the publications based on it will challenge researchers and practitioners to think beyond their disciplinary niches and challenge assumptions to the benefit of adolescents' academic development.