This paper explores linguistic life-histories from five participants in a larger interview study with U.S.-based adults. These five interviewees were middle-class White women from monolingual English-speaking families who pursued multilingual learning trajectories in young adulthood. Having previously attained proficiency in one language through…

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…

Chicago's magnet schools were one of the nation's earliest experiments in choice-driven school desegregation, originating among civil rights advocates and academic education experts in the 1960s and appearing at specific sites in Chicago's urban landscape during the 1970s. The specific concerns that motivated the creation of magnet schools during…

In addition to fostering bilingualism and biliteracy for all students, one of the main goals of Two-Way Immersion (TWI) programs is building positive cross-cultural relationships (). This can lead to TWI programs having ambitious goals for the kinds of bridges it can build between students, families, and communities, which is a challenge when the…

This paper examines forms of boundary work undertaken by parents in a regional Australian city to negotiate social processes around the school market amidst rising economic insecurity. It outlines structural changes, which have increased economic inequality in Australia and impacted on educational reform, and the specific challenges faced by…

This paper examines the links between language, social difference and political domination in the practices of parental school choice at the heart of a global city, Vancouver. Vancouver is a highly diverse city, especially in terms of language. Its inner city is replete with multiple languages whose exchange values are not equal. In this context,…

At a time when the public sector and state education (in the United Kingdom) is under threat from the encroaching marketisation policy and private finance initiatives, our research reveals white middle-class parents who in spite of having the financial opportunity to turn their backs on the state system are choosing to assert their commitment to…

This paper describes a research project that uses Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and cultural and social capital to penetrate how middle-class parents exercise influence and form positive relationships at the neighbourhood public school that serves various ethno-cultural groups of students. One group of white, economically privileged…

This article investigates how 15-year-old white and Turkish students in two Inner London comprehensive schools, one in a predominantly working-class area (Millroad School) and the other in a more middle-class environment (Darwin School), construct their identities. Drawing on mainly qualitative data from documentary sources, focus groups and…

This study was conducted to observe the effects of social class on the interaction of mothers and their 12-week-old infants. Data on the infants' cognitive and attentive behavior was also obtained. Each of 32 white and black infants from five different levels of social class was observed at home for two full hours of waking time. Observed infant…

A prospective study in the area of developmental psychopathology and depression was conducted to determine whether an additive pathological effect upon offspring existed when psychosocial disadvantage and maternal depression were combined. Differences in psychiatric epidemiology and psychological outcome were investigated in 27 children of latency…

Six hundred boys divided by age (6-8), race (black and white) and social class (middle and lower) were given tests for memory, intelligence, learning, and transfer. Findings indicated social class differences on learning and intelligence tests, with racial differences on intelligence, digit span, and paired-associate learning. (Author/MV)

Challenging conventional characterization of teenage girlhood as a wasteland of depression, low self-esteem, and passive victimhood, this book presents accounts of young girls showing how their voices are shaped and constrained by socioeconomic class. Based on a year-long study involving conversations with white adolescent girls from the working…

Social class and ethnic differences in the use of the three conceptual styles of cognitive performance (Relational, Descriptive, and Categorical) were examined in this study of 112 grade-school boys. The subjects were divided into four groups, black and white middle class, and black and white lower class. Two instruments were used to assess…

To determine the relationship between parental childrearing practices, sex-role preference, and intellectual functioning in young boys, 21 lower class and 21 middle class white fathers were observed at home interacting with their 4-year-old sons. The Binet, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and Brown's "It" Scale were subsequently…