Leve, LeslieGarcia Isaza, Alejandra2022-10-262022-10-262022-10-26https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27769At each higher level of education, there are fewer and fewer students of color. The high school dropout rate is a contributing factor to educational and racial disparities in higher education. School engagement has been recognized as an important protective factor for high school completion. Timely family-school intervention programs that promote youth school engagement can hold promise in changing the landscape for students of color. Little is known about the composition of such interventions and how effective they are for families and students that belong to historically excluded groups. This dissertation aimed to identify which structural and relational components of a family-school intervention program were associated with positive school engagement for Latina/o middle school students and what type of family-school connections model best predicts their school engagement. Qualitative coding, exploratory factors analyses, and regression analyses were leveraged to fulfill the study’s aims. Findings suggested that homework involvement, structure at home, and school-based involvement practices were significantly associated with positive youth school engagement. There is no conclusive evidence regarding the best model for predicting youth school engagement, however, null findings could be explained by the need to improve measures assessing more nuanced family-school intervention components. Study limitations, future directions, recommendations, and implications are discussed.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Exploratory factor analysisFamily-school connectionsLatina/oModel testingParent involvementSecondary schoolElectronic Thesis or Dissertation