This project consisted of four parent workshops designed to examine and strengthen home-school communication for Banks Elementary School students, teachers, and parents. The goals of the workshops were to improve parent-teacher relations, increase parent usage of school resources, and increase parent student interaction in the home. Workshop topics included providing parents with information on state-mandated testing, literacy issues, reading strategies, and homework.

This study examined Chinese university students enrolled in a Sino-United States university and how they perceived learning processes, academic value, and cultural awareness at two distinct campuses. Comparing and contrasting student experiences at a foreign satellite campus in China (Wenzhou-Kean University) with the experiences of those same students at an American host campus (Kean University), I examined academic and cultural learning as well as the achievement of “global competence.” Through the prism of student learning, the nature and quality of student experiences at the two campuses informed my perceptions of the students’ understanding of culture and context. Moreover, I attempted to gain a greater understanding of the role of Chinese parents in the university decision-making process. This study was framed by human capital theory (Schultz,1961; Tan, 2014), situated cognition theory (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989), and experiential learning theory (Rogers, 1969). As the study investigated both Chinese students’ experiences and parental involvement within the university decision-making process, I deemed a mixed-methods design most appropriate. Data were collected by surveying 313 targeted persons, yielding 86 valid response surveys and 16 individual interviews. The results were instructive. At both campuses, a university infrastructure existed to maximize the cognitive and academic benefits of joining American and Chinese student cohorts, the goal of English language proficiency, and an awareness of global competence. However, while the Chinese satellite campus may have required a more rigorous academic curriculum, the American Kean campus provided high-quality meaningful learning opportunities to Chinese students. Indeed, while only a small percentage of the Chinese students were able to obtain long-term competency-based professional opportunities, those students who were able to build local connections premised on global competence were the most successful. The study highlighted the necessity of global competence as an explicit function of the academic experience, the need for domestic and international students to participate in the formal and informal ways in which the cultural context of language is learned, and the desire of Chinese parents to have a university education that is competitive in the global marketplace.

The incidence of overweight conditions among children and adolescents is a growing national concern. Although current literature suggests that parental health behaviors could influence health behaviors of children, studies have not explored the actual predictive relationships of parents' and their children's weight statuses and weight-related behaviors. In addition, current studies have not tested the influence of parental authority, family communication, or demographic characteristics on the relationships. This study first examines factors that contribute to overweight conditions among children and adolescents and the associated costs. Studies of interventions that target children's and adolescents' weight-related health are then reviewed and provide evidence that parental involvement contributes to intervention success. The theory of planned behavior, social cognitive theory, social action theory, and systems theory are discussed and support the notion that parental influences contribute to the development of children's weight-related health behaviors. To test the relationships, 151 young adults and their parents were recruited and completed a series of questionnaires to describe their weight statuses, dietary behaviors, and physical activity behaviors. In addition, the young adult participants completed questionnaires to further describe their parents' parental authorities and their family communication environments during childhood and adolescence. Comparisons of body mass index, average daily energy consumption, average weekly energy expenditure, and physical activity enjoyment of young adult participants and their parents were conducted with correlation analyses and paired-samples t-tests. Further, multiple regression analyses were used to explore the influence of parental authority and family communication, and demographic characteristics were also considered. The empirical results of the current study indicate that, overall, parents' weight statuses and dietary behaviors help predict weight statuses and dietary behaviors of their young adult children. Further, parental authority scales interact with the relationships. At high levels of authoritarian and permissive parental authorities, young adults tend to have weight statuses that are opposite to those of their parents; at high levels of authoritarian parenting, young adults also tend to follow opposite dietary consumption patterns. The findings in this study have implications for professional practice, parenting practices, and the design of intervention activities. Recommendations for future research are provided.

This dissertation includes three papers. Using two nationally representative datasets – Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K: 1998) and 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2010) – the first paper examines changes in disparities in school readiness by parental education from 1998 to 2010 in the United States. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition analysis is used for investigating if financial resources, in- and out-of-home environment and activities, parenting, and child care contributed to these disparities differently in 2010 compared to 1998. The second paper follows the achievement trajectories of these two cohorts of kindergarteners and studies how school readiness disparities by parental education changed in 2010 compared to 1998 when children progressed through third grade. Using hierarchical linear modeling with piecewise spline function, it also estimates the roles of family and school factors at kindergarten in predicting school achievement growth rates for these two cohorts and compares to examine if there is any change in these roles. Since the content and data collection procedures of the two ECLS-K cohort datasets are very similar, the second paper pools these two datasets and uses interaction terms to examine the changes, providing more precise estimation. The third paper pools the China Family Panel Study (CFPS) 2010 and 2014 and investigates disparities in vocabulary and math by parental education and the roles of parenting and home environment in explaining and accounting for these disparities in China. Besides the whole sample, analysis is also conducted for the subsamples of children in rural, urban, and migrant settings due to different economic and cultural factors in these settings.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine some of the factors affecting pupil-parent evaluation of a Florida high school system for white children in a conservative county. The problem will be handled in such manner that it is expected that a group of valid findings and conclusions will emerge. It is hoped that the findings and conclusions will be of such nature that they will prove helpful to administrators and officials in this school system, and systems in other conservative counties, in formulating future plans and policy. In addition, it is expected that data will emerge that will indicate to some extent the degree to which the parents and pupils agree with the findings and recommendations of the latest evaluation of their school by an Evaluating Committee representing the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. / Advisor: Virgil E. Strickland, Professor Directing Paper. / "June, 1953." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 81).

Teacher-parent partnerships in education are crucial when responding to the challenges of the 21st century. As teachers and parents work collaboratively to enhance children's development, the need for building productive alliances becomes essential. The link between these institutions takes on added significance as parents and teachers of students with disabilities work together as partners. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the ranking of selected values and beliefs about child development by parents and teachers of students with disabilities. The sample was comprised of 10 teachers considered out of field, teaching in exceptional education classrooms and 10 mothers whose children with disabilities were receiving services in special education classrooms. Participants were interviewed individually using a Q-sort rank and order task. The Q-sort involved a set of 15 cards, which were presented to the participants. Each card listed a characteristic(s) that could be ascribed to a child (e.g., responsible, obedient). Participants were asked to sort the cards into three groups of five cards according to the importance they ascribed to the characteristics. Data analysis was divided into two phases. First, the similarities and differences on participants' ranking were examined within and across groups. Means and standard deviations were calculated and used for comparison. Second, definitions ascribed by mothers and teachers to the top three and bottom three characteristics were transcribed and analyzed to compare their constructed meaning for each of these characteristics. Research findings yielded that mothers' and teachers' are in fact in agreement as to the characteristics that they value and believe to be the most arid least important to the development of a child. Results also described differences in the definition of selected constructs or characteristics responding to the role participants played in the lives of the children. Similarities and differences identified in this study may assist in the development of healthy parent-teacher partnerships and strengthen those that already exist.

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