| Citation: | King-Berg, Y. & Burke, M. A. (2005). Impact of Latino parentsÕ engagement in urban schools and community partnerships. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada. |
Annotation:
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the parent education component of the Graduation Really Achieves Dreams (GRAD) project. Project GRAD Los Angeles is an innovative early college outreach program that works with K-16 teachers, administrators, parents and community members to increase student achievement. Results indicated that training parents to be skilled teachers for their children contributed to students' success in school. In addition, this training for parents contributed to the academic and economic development of their communities. These data were collected from parents of students enrolled in grades K through 12 at 15 Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The total student population of the sample schools was over 20,000, and the majority of the students were Latino. Survey and focus group responses from parents, teachers, and students were analyzed to evaluate the GRAD project over a five year period using the Ecologies of Parental Engagement (EPE) framework and Epstein's (2001) six types of parent involvement. This study suggests that school programs can increase parents' social capital and counteract the problems associated with Latino parents living in economically depressed areas. These findings can be used in the design of programs and policies aimed at developing social capital. Future research should focus on tracking these students and parents in order to link these data with economic factors such as annual and lifetime earnings, unemployment rates, and crime statistics.
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