Por los Niños: Latine Caregivers' Reflections on Parenting in the Context of Immigration.

Immigrant families face unique challenges, most notably the active negotiation of two cultures not only at the individual level, but also in the context of family relationships. There is limited research exploring how immigrant caregivers of young children, in particular, experience this cultural negotiation in the context of parenting decisions and practices as these relate to their children's development and schooling. The current study sought to understand immigrant parenting from a phenomenological, emic ("inside-out") perspective (Hall et al.

Examination of Chinese immigrant parents' beliefs about children's social development through play: A mixed methods explanatory sequential study.

Currently, despite the rapid growth of the population of Chinese immigrant families and children in the United States, preschool-aged Chinese-heritage children are an underrepresented group in research. The overarching purpose of this project was to provide a deeper understanding of Head Start Chinese immigrant parents' beliefs about children's social-emotional development, the value of play during the preschool period, and the potential role of cultural orientation. The study followed the steps of a mixed methods explanatory sequential design.

"Talk to me": Parent-teacher background similarity, communication quality, and barriers to school-based engagement among ethnoculturally diverse Head Start families.

Objective: Primary caregivers (e.g., parents, grandparents, other family members) from low-income and ethnically minoritized families tend to face a host of barriers when participating in their children's school activities.

An Emic, Mixed Methods Approach to Defining and Measuring Positive Parenting Among Low-Income, Black Families.

Research Findings: This within-group exploratory sequential mixed methods investigation sought to identify how ethnically diverse, urban-residing, low-income Black families conceptualize positive parenting. During the item development phase 119 primary caregivers from Head Start programs participated in focus groups and interviews. These qualitative data were content analyzed using a three-stage iterative process that resulted in the development of a final set of 72 items for a paper-and-pencil measure.

Profiles of culturally salient positive parenting practices among urban-residing Black Head Start families.

Objectives: To better understand within-group variability in positive parenting practices among low-income Black families, the present study, grounded in a multidimensional comparative framework, examined (a) patterns of positive parenting practices among U.S.-born African American parents and Black Caribbean immigrant parents and (b) the extent to which these patterns related to parents' daily family social support, parents' social sensitivities, and children's social-emotional outcomes.

Ecocultural patterns of family engagement among low-income Latino families of preschool children.

For the 5 million low-income Latino children in the United States who are disproportionately impacted by the numerous risk factors associated with poverty, it is essential to identify proximal protective factors that mitigate these risks and bolster the academic and social skills that are foundational to a successful transition into formal schooling. Using ecocultural theory as a lens to guide this work, the present study: (a) described patterns of culture-contextualized family engagement among a low-income, Latino sample, and (b) examined relations between these patterns, family demographic factors, and children's language and social skills in preschool. Across Spanish and English language subsamples, we found evidence that there is heterogeneity in patterns of family engagement within and across language groups, such that different forms of family engagement defined the high engagement profiles in particular.

Validation of a culture-contextualized measure of family engagement in the early learning of low-income Latino children.

Given the increased numbers of Latino children entering the U.S. educational system, there is a need to develop culturally contextualized models to understand the ways Latino parents participate in and support their children's school experiences.

A call for scientifically-rigorous, community-based "actionable intelligence" to promote the academic achievement of African American boys: an introduction to Fantuzzo, LeBoeuf, Rouse, and Chen (2012) and commentaries.

This introduction briefly summarizes the featured article and commentaries making up this commissioned set of papers on the topic of the Black-White achievement gap and, more specifically, risk and protective factors for young African American boys' school success. Each paper highlights important considerations for advancing scholarship, practice, and policy aimed at promoting equity in education. A case is made that in order to advance scientific knowledge of this issue and its application, dialogue across disciplines, methodological traditions, and contexts is needed.

Methodological considerations in using complex survey data: an applied example with the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey.

Complex survey data are collected by means other than simple random samples. This creates two analytical issues: nonindependence and unequal selection probability. Failing to address these issues results in underestimated standard errors and biased parameter estimates.

Complex sample data recommendations and troubleshooting.

Complex survey data, as highlighted in this issue of Evaluation Review, provide a wealth of opportunities for answering methodological and/or applied research questions. However, the analytic issues of nonindependence and unequal selection probability must be addressed when analyzing this type of data. Thus, to ensure that research questions are accurately answered when using complex survey data, researchers must take extra precautions to ensure complex survey data are correctly analyzed.

A multidimensional, multilevel examination of mother and father involvement among culturally diverse Head Start families.

In this study we examined the relationships between family demographics and level of satisfaction with school contact as possible determinants of multiple dimensions of family involvement in early childhood education. Participants included 171 urban, Head Start parents (108 mothers and 63 fathers). Results revealed that for mothers, having less than a high school education was negatively associated with levels of home-school conferencing.

Employing community data to investigate social and structural dimensions of urban neighborhoods: an early childhood education example.

The present study sought to define neighborhood context by examining relationships among data from city-level administrative databases at the level of the census block group. The present neighborhood investigation included 1,801 block groups comprising a large, northeastern metropolitan area. Common factor analyses and multistage, hierarchical cluster analyses yielded two dimensions (i.

Preschool competency in context: an investigation of the unique contribution of child competencies to early academic success.

The present concurrent study combined developmental and ecological considerations to examine the unique contribution of multiple preschool competencies to an indicator of early academic success. Participants included 195 Head Start children from 32 classrooms representative of a large, urban Head Start program. Dimensional (variable-centered) analyses revealed 3 distinct classroom competency dimensions (i.