This paper reviews the literature on best practices to engage parents in order to equip them to support their children's higher education aspirations. Parents from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds, in common with other parents, report that they want "the best" for their children's future. Getting a good education is a part of…

This study examined the contributions of students' noncognitive characteristics toward explaining performance on the ACT® test, over and above traditional predictors such as high school grade point average (HSGPA), coursework taken, and school characteristics. The sample consisted of 6,440 high school seniors from 4,541 schools who took the ACT in…

Most high school reform efforts understandably focus on boosting the success of low-income students who are underachieving academically, but in every school district where students struggle, there are academically capable low-income and minority students who do graduate prepared for college. Yet each year, many of these students choose to attend…

Many African Americans are leaving high school prior to graduation and are entering college for the first time beyond the age of 30 years, a phenomenon that has an effect on school systems, the community, and society as a whole. The research problem addressed was the need to understand the experience of an increasing number of African Americans…

Research extols the benefits of parent involvement in college choice, but low-SES African American parents are unable to match efforts of wealthier parents. This qualitative study found that in their communities the high school diploma was the normative credential for upward mobility. To this end, parents used narratives of struggle to motivate…

Presents a study that focused on life course perspective to adolescent academic orientation and parental involvement in education. Reveals that students in college-preparatory track begin high school as the highest in orientation and involvement, but they also experience a decline over time. Includes references. (CMK)

Describes a cooperative program between the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and urban Marshall High School with the goals of influencing tenth graders to choose more challenging academic programs, and improving parent participation. Campus tours, career planning meetings, and a parent program were used, and university advisers were available to…

The relative influence of gender, coursework, affect, and other hypothesized determinants of mathematics achievement among high school seniors was examined, using data from the High School and Beyond (HSB) database. The HSB base-year survey used a multi-stage sampling scheme. Complete data on the variables of this study were available for 16,358…

A survey was conducted in Brownsville, Texas, to identify the educational and occupational aspirations and expectations of Hispanic females and to determine whether these expectations and aspirations differed from those of the dominant culture. Survey instruments were distributed to all senior females (N=853) in local high schools, requesting…

Examined how family and parenting variables influenced late adolescents' educational expectations. Surveys of parents and students when students were high school seniors and two years beyond high school indicated that socioeconomic status most strongly related to educational expectations. Adolescents' perceptions of parents' personal involvement…

Contributions of participants in a three-day invitational symposium for representatives of the 21 California high schools which were most successful in sending Black and Hispanic students to the University of California and the California State University are compiled in this document. The publication addresses two major goals of the California…

Project BACIS, a multi-site program in its first year of funding, provided instructional, resource, and supportive assistance to approximately 270 students of limited English proficiency in three New York City high schools. The project, which served recent immigrants from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Haiti, had as its primary stated goal "the…

This paper reports the results of a large-scale study on the school environment and its influence on the academic achievement, values, and aspirations of students. The study (1) identifies a number of dimensions of educational and social climates of high schools, (2) assesses the effects of these dimensions on the academic performance and college…

This project analyzes data from the parent component of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 to investigate changes in family educational involvement between students' 8th and 12th grades. Findings show that the patterns of parental involvement in adolescents' education change between the two grades. During high school, parents…

Research among ninth graders in Ankara, Turkey, compared individual and family characteristics of socioeconomically disadvantaged versus advantaged students; investigated the educational issues these students faced; and examined major educational and guidance problems of the disadvantaged. Results indicated that, compared to advantaged students,…