This study examined how maternal chronic illnesses may affect children's academic achievement through parental involvement. A total of 189 mothers diagnosed with chronic illnesses, such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, asthma, myelodysplasic syndrome, and fibromyalgia, and with a child in middle school or high…

Home language experiences are important for children's development of language and literacy. However, the home language context is complex, especially for Spanish-speaking children in the United States. A child's use of Spanish or English likely ranges along a continuum, influenced by preferences of particular people involved, such as parents,…

This study examined the reading interest and emergent literacy skills of 31 children with Down syndrome (DS) ages 7 to 13. Parents completed questionnaires on their children's interest in reading, home literacy environments, and parental beliefs about reading. Children were then assessed on their cognitive and emergent literacy skills.…

Immigrants are a fast-growing segment of the United States population. Presently, some 39.9 million immigrants call America home (Passel & Cohn, 2012; U.S. Census Bureau, 2011b). Today, immigrants come from all over the world, but most new Americans originate in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. It is because of the mass migration of the…

The purpose of this body of work was to examine barriers that lead to high school non-completion for African-American males and to propose strategies to better support this group. Specifically, it examined how African-American male high school graduates vary from African-American male non-graduates. Across personal and environmental factors, this…

Research based on clinical samples suggests that poor-quality relationships with parents are associated with paranoid disorders; however, no research has investigated such relations within nonclinical populations. Undergraduate students (N = 179) completed self-reports of paranoid thinking, quality of relationships with mothers and fathers,…

Little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of training strategies for child care providers. The current study used an experimental intent-to-treat design to measure the impact of an established intervention, the on-site caregiver training component of the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC), on child development and child care…

This study examined 32 Hispanic parents' perceptions of education, especially, (a) parent's motivation for their children's career choice, (b) their perceptions of education, and (c) informal means of education at home. The data were collected using openended questions and were analyzed using content analysis. Findings in this study provide…

In this chapter, the authors illustrate on mathematical problem-solving activities within families how the functions and structures of their mathematics at home are dependent on values, and how interacting values during problem situations came to shape what counted as solutions. These values examples from family math illustrate the complex…

Most research on parental bookreading has focused on mothers reading to their children. This study examined bookreading practices among approximately 800 fathers and mothers in low-income families. We looked at differences and similarities between families where both parents read frequently compared to families where only mothers read frequently.…

Despite the proliferation of women in higher education and the workforce, they have yet to achieve parity with men in many of the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors and careers. The gap is even greater in the representation of women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This study examined pre-college intervention strategies…

This article illustrates the application of critical literacy (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Gutierrez, 2008; Morrell, 2007) pedagogies that draw from young people's funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) to actively nurture personally, authentically, and culturally caring relationships (Howard, 2002; Noddings, 1992;…

Firearms are a leading cause of mortality among adolescents, and the guns that adolescents use to harm themselves or others often come from their own homes. In this statewide, multilanguage, community-based survey of 5,704 coresiding pairs of adolescents and their parents, we asked about guns in the home and compared their responses. The…

This study determined if the vocabulary gap for English Language Learners (ELLs) and their peers could be bridged through providing home interventions with multiple exposures to words, definitions, model sentences and context. Ninety-one first grade students from a public school in Southern California with a 95% ELL population were researched. ELL…

This study explores developing conceptions of feminism among Latina adolescents, their prevalence of feminist endorsement, and whether home environment and well-being are related to feminist identity. One hundred and forty Latina girls (Grades 9 to 12, M age = 15) wrote personal narratives of their understanding of feminism and whether they…