Engaging Families in a High-Mobility Context

• In Event: Responding to the Challenges of Disadvantaged Populations: Engaging Families to Promote School Success

Abstract

Objectives

This study examines whether student mobility – specifically, students changing schools between first and second grade – is reduced through Families and Schools Together (FAST), a randomized intervention designed to improve social relations among parents, children, and school personnel.

Perspectives

Researchers have noted strikingly high rates of student mobility, particularly early in elementary school (United States Government Accountability Office 1994; 2010). Student mobility is also higher in urban schools with predominantly minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged families. Evidence suggests that student mobility is more often problematic than beneficial, both for students and schools (Rumberger 2003), and that the harmful effects are stronger for poor and minority students (Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin 2004). Mobile students struggle to transition socially and academically, and schools and classrooms with high rates of student mobility face disruptions which place all their students at a disadvantage.

A good deal of student mobility is related to schooling and hence can be prevented by schools. For example, researchers have suggested that schools could reduce mobility by improving the social and academic climates of the school, boosting students’ sense of school membership, and developing more positive ties with families (Kerbow, Azcoitia, & Buell 2003; Rumberger 2003). We expect FAST to reduce student mobility by building better social relationships (social capital) among parents, school personnel, and students.

Data

About 3,000 families in fifty-two schools participated in the study over three years, beginning when their children were in first grade. These schools were predominantly Latino, and the majority of students qualified for free or reduced lunch, which fit the profile of high-mobility schools.


Methods

We performed an intent-to-treat analysis, using multilevel logistic regressions to model the probability of students leaving their school between the beginning of the study in 1st grade, when the intervention occurred, and 3rd grade. Multilevel modeling is necessary because the treatment is administered at the school level, but it is thought to affect the mobility of individual students. A variety of student- and school-level covariates are controlled to increase precision in our estimates of the effect of FAST on student mobility.

Results

Mobility rates in our sample were high (about 37%), as predicted by past research. Our evidence suggests that FAST reduced student mobility in these schools by 9% overall, and that its greatest effects were on students who were most likely to change schools, which in our sample were white and black students as well as those qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Interestingly, FAST increased mobility among students receiving special education services, possibly by building social networks which helped the parents of these children find schools with better resources.

Significance

This research validates the claim that student mobility is not outside the realm of school policy. Schools affect student mobility, and they can reduce it by building social capital among families and between families and schools. More work should examine how to reduce student mobility, and randomized field trials of school interventions are a promising avenue in this research.

Authors

• Jeremy Fiel, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Anna R. Haskins, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Ruth Lopez Turley, Rice University