This article explores the dynamics of parenting while being in a homeless context. The mosaic of stressors involved in this homeless parenting process are explicated and discussed. In addition, resources and strategies that may support parenting are presented and discussed.

Philosophical assumptions about identity, being and belonging have, as is well known, historically been bound together, with their classical nexus being Plato's Socrates, who, because of this, figures as the first philosopher of the city. Especially during moments of crisis, as Socrates' life and death testify, the impulse, both philosophically…

Affecting more than 1 million youth, student homelessness is growing at an unprecedented rate in the United States. This is alarming because homeless students face significant barriers to their academic success and positive life outcomes. Unfortunately, despite the significant risks and challenges they face, homeless students often are overlooked…

Communities of Purpose are commonly known to enact their purposes through social movements, grassroots efforts, semi-formal groups, and through organizations in the voluntary sector. They carry out charitable missions and goals and are often committed to the pursuit of social welfare and social change. In this research, I explain why Communities…

Conducting intervention studies with homeless populations can be difficult, particularly in terms of retaining participants across multiple sessions and locating them for subsequent follow-up assessments. Homeless youth are even more challenging to engage due to substance use, mental health problems, wariness of authority figures, and frequent…

Parent involvement is frequently identified as a variable in student success. A gap in the literature regarding how African American parents create opportunities to engage with their children's education exist. One district's outreach to parents, and parents' responses to the outreach served as a case study for exploring how African American…

The school mobility rate in St. Louis Public Schools was 40% in 2011-2012, meaning that nearly half of students exited or entered a given school midway through the school year. This alarmingly high rate of churning across schools is accompanied by high neighborhood turnover, particularly within low-income, urban neighborhoods. This constant,…

Mobile students and absent students are important subsets of at-risk students in schools and districts nationwide. As such, student mobility and school absenteeism are two challenges in K-12 education with significant policy and equity implications. Although both issues are at the nexus of schooling and society and there is an apparent overlap in…

This qualitative study utilized a transcendental phenomenological approach in which eight female participants, considered to be coresearchers, were interviewed to explore their lived experiences in overcoming pervasive crises in their lives to achieve great academic success. All the women experienced one or more of the following crises in their…

This brief provides important information to service providers on the requirements under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (subsequently referred to in this brief as the McKinney-Vento Act), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The McKinney-Vento Act ensures educational rights and protections for homeless children and…

Attendance is vital to academic success but many children in Michigan are not making it to school. Based on recent estimates, Michigan has the sixth highest statewide chronic absenteeism rate in the country. Efforts to reduce school absences can be strengthened by understanding the characteristics of students most at risk. Race, income and…

This Research-to-Impact brief is the third in a series by Chapin Hall's Voices of Youth Count on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. It details the unique challenges faced by young people experiencing homelessness who are pregnant or parenting. The brief's findings suggest that many of the nearly 4.2 million adolescents and young…

There is currently a paucity of literature in the field of evaluation regarding the practice of reflection and reflexivity and a lack of available tools to guide this practice--yet using a reflexive model can enhance evaluation practice. This paper focuses on the methods and results of a reflexive inquiry that was conducted during a participatory…

Counterportraits from a qualitative study of family literacy at a homeless shelter illustrate the impact of institutionalized racism on parent narratives about neighborhoods, communities, and schools. Black parents privileged Whiteness through "minority majority storytelling" (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) to make sense of their lives in…

Only 37 percent of college students fit the stereotype of a recent high school graduate who attends a four-year institution directly after high school. In reality, the average college student is older, has more work and family obligations, and often attends part time. Unfortunately, financial aid, public benefit, and higher education policies…