The question of why we need to think about how we research race demands a conceptualization of race that captures both its social construction and its temporal evolution. We need both an understanding of race and clarity about how we talk about it in our design and conduct of research, and in how we interpret and apply it in our findings. As a…

Amid growing controversy about the oft-cited "30-million-word gap," this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, Hart and Risley's (1995) claim that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than their middle-class counterparts during the early years…

The interaction between doctoral education and social class is under-researched, yet is perceived to play an important part in securing social mobility. Research that does exist tends to focus on issues of access or transition, rather than considering experiences during the doctorate. This article focuses on doctoral students' experiences of…

This study examines the relationships between school poverty status, family income status, and reasoning ability for the purpose of understanding the role of school poverty on reasoning skills. Cognitive ability scores of students attending mixed-poverty schools were compared to their counterparts attending institutions with low, high, and extreme…

We investigated cultural influences on young children's acquisition of social-cognitive concepts. A theory of mind (ToM) scale (Wellman & Liu, 2004) was given to 129 children (71 boys, 58 girls) ranging in age from 3 years 0 months to 7 years 10 months. The children were from three distinct cultural groups: (a) trash pickers…

Universities in the United States and elsewhere offer study abroad programs to meet requirements that graduates have cross-cultural competencies and an international perspective on their discipline. Study abroad courses and field experiences for preservice teachers address two major challenges specific to the teaching profession: (1) how to…

Scores on the Parental Attitudes Research Instrument and on Rotter's Internality-Externality Scale were compared for 28 lower class black mothers of high risk infants and 34 mothers of same-age infants from the general population of a Southern University town. (GO)

Scandinavian welfare states are developing a growing new middle class and a growing marginalized, poverty-threatened underclass, reproducing the societal duality caused by labor market structuring. Tightening labor markets, increased dependency on welfare benefits, and substantial decreases in public transfers have combined to create a growing…

This study is concerned with understanding the differences and similarities in the work orientations of poor people, welfare recipients and participants in federal work-training programs, as compared with the work orientations of middle-class families having steady employment. Data were gathered from more than 4,000 persons through work…

Examines the child-care needs and arrangements of working and nonworking-poor and working-class families relative to middle-class families. Suggests that child-care decisions of low-income parents appear to be very similar to those of high-income parents; what differs is access, including convenience, and the ability to afford adequate programs.…

Examined the quality of care provided to children from low-income families, using data from a nationally representative survey of child care centers and a five-site observational study of centers. Found that the quality of care in centers serving predominantly low-income families was better than centers serving middle-income families. (MDM)