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Discovering Successful Pathways in Children’s Development

Mixed Methods in the Study of Childhood and Family Life

Discovering Successful Pathways in Children’s Development provides a new perspective on the study of childhood and family life. Successful development is enhanced when communities provide meaningful life pathways that children can seek out and engage.  Successful pathways include both a culturally valued direction for development and competence in skills that matter for a child’s subsequent success as a person as well as a student, parent, worker, or citizen. To understand successful pathways requires a mix of qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic methods—the state of the art for research practice among developmentalists, educators, and policymakers alike.

This volume includes new studies of minority and immigrant families, school achievement, culture, race and gender, poverty, identity, and experiments and interventions meant to improve family and child contexts. Discovering Successful Pathways in Children’s Development will be of enormous value to everyone interested in the issues of human development, education, and social welfare, and among professionals charged with the task of improving the lives of children in our communities.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Thomas S. Weisner
Part I. Pathways through Classrooms, Schools, and Neighborhoods
1. Using Mixed Methods to Explore Latino Children’s Literacy Development
Claude Goldenberg, Ronald Gallimore, and Leslie Reese
2. Working It Out: The Chronicle of a Mixed-Methods Analysis
Heather B. Weiss, Holly Kreider, Ellen Mayer, Rebecca Hencke, and Margaret A. Vaughan
3. Mixed Methods, More Justified Conclusions: The Case of the Abt Evaluation of the Comer Program in Detroit
Lois-ellin Datta
Part II. Ethnicity and the Development of Ethnic Identity in Childhood
4. The Ecology of Children’s Racial Coping: Family, School, and Community Influences
Deborah J. Johnson
5. Sites of Belonging: Acculturation, Discrimination, and Ethnic Identity among Children of Immigrants
Rubén G. Rumbaut
Commentary- Toward Varied and Complementary Methodologies in the Study of Ethnic Identity in Childhood
Diane Scott-Jones
Commentary- Ethnicity, Race, and Identity
William E. Cross, Jr.
Part III. Culture and Developmental Pathways
6. Taking Culture Seriously: Making the Social Survey Ethnographic
Tom Fricke
7. Combining Ethnography and GIS Technology to Examine Constructions of Developmental Opportunities in Contexts of Poverty and Disability
Debra Skinner, Stephen Matthews, and Linda Burton
Part IV. Using Mixed Methods in Social Experiments to Understand Impacts on Children’s Pathways
8. Bullets Don’t Got No Name: Consequences of Fear in the Ghetto
Jeffrey R. Kling, Jeffrey B. Liebman, and Lawrence F. Katz
9. Qualitative/Quantitative Synergies in a Random-Assignment Program Evaluation
Christina M. Gibson and Greg J. Duncan
Commentary- Mixed Methods in Studies of Social Experiments for Parents in Poverty
Aletha C. Huston
Commentary- Viewing Mixed Methods through an Implementation Research Lens: A Response to the New Hope and Moving to Opportunity Evaluations
Thomas Brock
Part V. Family Intervention Studies: Inclusion and "Multiple Worlds" in Research and Practice
10. Entering the Developmental Niche: Mixed Methods in an Intervention Program for Inner-City Children
Sara Harkness, Marcia Hughes, Beth Muller, and Charles M. Super
11. Including Latino Immigrant Families, Schools, and Community Programs as Research Partners on the Good Path of Life (El Buen Camino de la Vida)
Catherine R. Cooper, Jane Brown, Margarita Azmitia, and Gabriela Chavira
12. Civil Rights and Academic Development: Mixed Methods and the Task of Ensuring Educational Equality
Mica Pollock
Synthesis: A Reprise on Mixing Methods
Jennifer C. Greene
List of Contributors
Index

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