This report explores the factors and conditions that could help more students succeed at school despite challenging socio-economic backgrounds. It does this by studying resilient students and what sets them apart from their less successful peers. Understanding how educational systems can support disadvantaged students and help them "beat the…

This book is about teenage pregnancy among Latina teenagers in East Los Angeles (California). It focuses on teenage pregnancy and motherhood among economically disadvantaged Latinas aged 17 and under. The young mothers in this study were participants in a series of intervention efforts to prevent repeat pregnancy at a family planning clinic. This…

In 1997, the Institute for Children and Poverty of Homes for the Homeless joined with more than 58 organizations from 10 cities across the country to develop a national snapshot of family homelessness in the United States. Nearly 800 families were surveyed. This report presents the results of this research. The typical homeless family in the…

This book provides a national and state-by-state (including the District of Columbia) compilation of benchmarks of the educational, social, economic, and physical well-being of children in the United States. Ten indicators of children's well-being are taken from government sources: (1) percent low birth-weight babies; (2) infant mortality rate;…

A quarter of children under age 6 are poor. Poverty has a multiple and cumulative effect on children, regardless of race, family structure, or parental education level. As part of the Children's Defense Fund's Costs of Child Poverty Research Project, this report shows the effects of poverty on children. The Children's Defense Fund's stated mission…