Parent involvement is one of the factors to which student achievement is consistently and strongly linked in educational research, and is perceived by teachers as a core factor affecting student achievement. Therefore more and higher-quality engagement with students' families has the potential to make a positive difference in urban schools. However, a tendency among educators to focus on perceived family deficits, without a clear understanding of students' families' strengths, may limit urban schools' ability to develop effective family engagement programming. This study involved faculty and staff members at an urban K-8 school in systematically identifying strengths of the low-income Puerto Rican families whose children made up the vast majority of the student body, as a critical point of reference for working with families toward stronger student outcomes. The study was grounded in the principles of Action Research and utilized methods associated with Appreciative Inquiry to involve school faculty and staff members in carrying out, then collectively analyzing the results from, structured interviews with parents of low-income Puerto Rican students at the school. Along with establishing a family strengths inventory for use in ongoing planning for enhancement of family engagement programming at the school, the study included an assessment of the impact of the research process on the perceptions and intended actions of both participating faculty and staff members and those who elected not to participate. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of implications and recommendations related to theory, practice, policy, and research associated with the efforts of schools serving low-income Puerto Rican (and other) communities to strengthen their engagement with students' families.

Dissertation (Ph.D.) -- The Institute for Clinical Social Work, 1999. / A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Institute of Clinical Social Work in partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Puerto Rican adolescent ego identity development was studied within the frameworks of Erikson's psychosocial theory and Heller's conceptualization of familism. Ego identity was measured by the Revised Version of the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status-2, an instrument based on Erikson's theoretical formulations. The Heller's Familism Scale was utilized to measure familism. It was hypothesized that there is a relationship between familism and the four identity statuses: achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion. It was also hypothesized that familism, gender, age, parent's education and occupation, and number of years living in the United States mainland affect an individual's identity status. There were two sample groups; one living in Puerto Rico (n= 180), and one living in Florida (n= 107). Correlations and multiple regression analyses were utilized to test the hypotheses of this study. The regression analysis showed that the independent variables, age, parental level of education, familism, and, for the immigrant group, number of years living in the United States mainland help explain the variance in some of the statuses scores. Some of the variance in the achievement scores can be explained by the independent variables for immigrant male and female adolescents. The independent variables helped explain the variance in the moratorium scores of the male adolescents living in Puerto Rico, and both male and female immigrant adolescents. The variance in foreclosure scores could only be explained by the independent variables when the subjects were female immigrant adolescents. Finally, the independent variables helped explain the variance in the diffusion scores for the female subjects, regardless of sample group. An analysis of variance revealed a main effect for gender in achievement scores, and diffusion scores. ANOVA also revealed a Significant difference among the subject groups diffusion scores. ANOVA identified a significant interaction between gender and sample group for the foreclosure status. Furthermore, ANOVA revealed a significant difference between male and female foreclosure scores. Also, ANOVA revealed a significant difference between sample groups. Because the independent variables explain only a small percentage of the variance in the four ego identity status scores, caution should be exercised in arriving at conclusions about the relative importance of the independent variables on ego identity. / Ph. D.

No description available.