Study of Social Organization of Schools.

This paper presents results from a study of the effects on,student development of open and traditional family and school environments. The theory is entertained that a match (or congruence) of family and school styles improves some student outcomes, while a mismatch (or incongruence) of environments results in improvement of different student outcomes. Using survey data from 4,079 white students in grades 6, 7, 9 and 12 in 16 secondary schools in Maryland, tests for interaction effects fail to reach accepted levels of ' significance consistently across grades for any outcome or within grades for multiple outcomes by any family environmental dimension. Instead of interpretable family-school interactions, there are important main effects. Particular family and school conditions have consistently significant, positive consequences throughordt adolescence for the seven student outcomes. At all grade level