In this study, parents' reasons for school choice were explored at four inner-city school sites by means of a questionnaire distributed to parents by their children. The sample for this study consisted of the parents of over 2,300 students who attend the four schools studied. All are inner-city Catholic high schools located in four different…

Rarely when single-sex Catholic secondary schools convert to coed school organization is the potential loss of gender-specific benefits addressed. Since the movement to coeducation is seldom accompanied by the return of a "converted" school to single-sex status, the incalculable loss to the traditional gender diversity of school organization is…

Considers the differences between single-sex and coeducational schools and between all-boys' and all-girls' schools with respect to academic achievement and social/psychological environment. (DMM)

Study of five Catholic, four single-focus public, and four multifocus public magnet urban high schools show varying patterns of parental involvement and differing degrees of shared decision making among parents and teachers. Partnership was more evident in the Catholic schools and least apparent in the single-focus schools. (SLD)

Findings from a study that examined the relationship between school choice and parent involvement for different ethnic groups are presented in this paper. In conjunction with a major national study of Catholic high schools, parents were asked about their reasons for school choice, type of school involvement, motivations, barriers to participation,…

A study was conducted to determine the association among variables representing parent and school demographics, parents' opinions of the school, their reasons for choosing it, and their willingness to support the school in various ways, including the level of tuition they would pay. Data were collected from a stratified sample of 10 high schools…

The relationship between parent involvement and school choice was studied with 575 parents in urban Catholic, single-focus, and multiple-focus magnet schools. Religion, income, and ethnicity were important in understanding parents' reasons for school choice, and school type was a major factor in parent choice. (SLD)

The perceptions of students about caring teachers were studied in secondary Catholic and public magnet schools. Both types of schools were schools of choice, attended through student and family choice and not assignment by neighborhood. The sample for the study came from a national, federally funded project that studied the relationship between…

Schools of choice are fast becoming part of the national debate on educational reform. This study, part of a larger study of schools and families, examined how the work context of teachers and opportunities for parent involvement differ under different choice arrangements, and investigated aspects of the sociobureaucratic context of teachers' work…

This report contains accounts of the scale construction, reliability, and validity of an instrument used to collect parent survey data in a study of Catholic inner-city high schools. The survey was designed to ascertain parents' involvement in their children's schooling based on parental knowledge, reasons for school choice, expectations and…

Teacher empowerment and parent participation in school decision making have become dominant themes in the current debate over school restructuring. The literature suggests that as teachers become empowered, they may tend to view parents more as clients of education rather than as partners, thereby introducing a potential conflict into the social…

In this study, the degree of parent involvement--as measured by the amount of their participation in school-related activities, communication with teachers, and school decision-making--is examined for 1,070 parents whose at-risk children attend five innercity Catholic high schools. The variables of parents' education, religion, marital status, and…