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School reform initiatives have been with us for over a decade. Reform has taken place within a social and intellectual context that has addressed education's contribution to society and the culture within which it resides and new discoveries regarding teaching and learning that change the nature of education. One goal of reform has been to take on different roles and responsibilities regarding global economic realities and new values of equity and excellence, as well as reform itself, in ways that would lead to a new and different national culture. Also, educational institutions have been asked to change their culture in light of new theories of teaching and learning and new instructional and administrative ways to organize. These endeavors have not always worked in concert with each other, producing significant conflicts that need resolution if this latest wave of reform is to have significant influence on the general and school cultures.

Student-oriented institutional research capacities of colleges and universities provide the means to gather, combine, and analyze a great deal of information about students' academic preparation for undergraduate and for graduate education, their academic and other experiences while pursuing their degrees, and their academic progress and development. Thus, these capacities represent an extremely valuable resource for leaders of colleges and universities as they seek to develop more effective policies, programs, and practices for improving academic outcomes for Latinos in higher education. This article offers a number of recommendations for using institutional research capacities for this purpose.

AbstractThis two‐part study applied an ecocultural perspective to socialization of daily and long‐term goals in low‐income Mexican‐American and European‐American families with children in third, fifth, and seventh grades. The first part of the study examined family members' participation and parents' socialization goals and guidance strategies for their children's daily household chores and homework activities. The second part of the study examined parents' long‐term aspirations and guidance strategies for their children's educational, vocational, and moral development. For daily activities, results showed that in Mexican‐American families both parents and siblings played important roles, whereas in European‐American families parents were the primary socialization agents. As predicted, in both groups parents' expertise influenced their guidance strategies. Finally, Mexican‐American and European‐American parents differed in their relative endorsement of gender, relational, and self‐reliance goals for household chores. For long‐term goals, parents in both groups held high educational, vocational, and moral aspirations for their children. However, some parents of seventh‐graders had lower educational and vocational aspirations than those of fifth‐ and third‐graders. Although expertise consistently influenced Mexican‐American parents' guidance strategies, the pattern for European‐American parents was mixed. The discussion highlights between‐ and within‐group differences in daily and long‐term socialization practices with an emphasis on resources and vulnerabilities in the families.