ABSTRACT
Research about the determinants of children’s school success has pointed to the importance of the family in children’s development and academic achievement for over 40 years. The Equality of Educational Opportunity report, more commonly known as the Coleman report (Coleman et al., 1966), and subsequent reanalysis of the Coleman data (Jencks et al., 1972), both found that family factors matter more than school characteristics in predicting the educational outcomes of economically disadvantaged children. Recent results for fifth graders from the national longitudinal NICHD Study of Early Care and Youth Development (Belsky et al., 2007) showed that parenting practices are more significant predictors of cognitive and socioemotional outcomes than a range of other factors, including participation in early care and education. Yet efforts to include family involvement in children’s learning and development at home and at school have always been, at best, on the distant margins of educational policy and reform efforts.
