Using an ethnographic approach, three Parent Education Programs were studied to describe the social setting in which they took place and to document their impact upon parents. The programs were conceptualized as social service organizations designed to change the parental roles of participants. Each program was observed, interviews were conducted with program participants, and relevant documents were examined. Programs were found to vary along various formal organizational characteristics, and participants also differed in terms of their socioeconomic characteristics and motivation to participate. Three models of cultural change (cultural elaboration, cultural reinforcement, and cultural reorganization) were proposed to reflect the underlying rationales of the programs and the changes experienced by the families that participate in them. (Author/MP)