Analyzes the academic stock-story that portrays ethnic studies classes as limited in substantive content, noncomparative, and only useful if they meet specialized curriculum needs. Discusses how to structure a Chicano sociology class as response to the academic stock-story and addresses the advantage of a diversity requirement in universities.…

Examines data from University of California Berkeley minority alumni who considered themselves affirmative action students, investigating themes from alumni interviews that addressed their academic experiences, factors influencing success, and perceptions of affirmative action's impact. Respondents believed that affirmative action worked, and its…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the construct validity and reliability of the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18) in 1,115 low-income Latina mothers. Exploratory factor analyses conducted in half of the sample supported a one-factor solution, which was subsequently confirmed in the remainder of the sample using confirmatory factor…

This study links the social capital literature with research on student mobility to investigate low test score performance among Mexican origin youth. Specifically, it examines whether Mexican Americans learn less in school than non-Latino Whites, in part because they have limited social capital due to the fact that they are more mobile during…

Using the Career Key as a criterion measure, he validity of the Strong Interest Explorer was tested with a sample of Latino junior high school and senior high school students. A total of 85 Hispanic youth were administered the Strong Interest Explorer and the Career Key in counterbalanced order. Separate correlational analyses were conducted for…

The most recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools found that 74% of Americans believe that the achievement gap between white students and African American and Hispanic students is primarily due to factors unrelated to the quality of schooling that children receive. This assumption is supported by…

This study examines individual growth rates in phonological awareness and letter-word identification skills over an academic year for 150 Latino English-language learners. In October, February, and June of their kindergarten year, participants completed standardized measures of phonological awareness skills. Before the second and third…

From President Bush on down, the pressure is on to fix America's high schools. Despite a broad consensus that something is seriously wrong with the institution, deep fault lines remain about the remedies. Part of the reluctance to address high schools has been their complexity. The sheer size, departmental structure, mission creep, and other…

The authors' work aims to expand the vision of parent participation in school mathematics, in particular the role of mothers from diverse ethnocultural and low socioeconomic groups. The experience of some mothers has led them to believe that their role is limited and that their ability to voice their opinions and concerns is hampered by the…

While a graduate student at Stanford University, Veronica Mendoza, the author, conducted research on six Latino students from a troubled high school in San Jose, California. The school, located in a crime- and poverty-riddled neighborhood, is predominately Latino. Some of the students may go on to community college, at best, after graduation.…

Communicating with students in today's high school science classroom is challenging for teachers because the majority of them speak only English. Many of their students, however, do not speak English as their primary language. This creates an instructional barrier across the content areas, and especially in science where much of the learning is…

From the perspective of two practitioners who have been influenced by work in the area of critical pedagogy and critical theory, this article examines bilingual education, education reform, and the achievement gap in relation to Latino English Language Learners. The authors integrate personal experiences as they examine underlying assumptions of…

A special sample from the 1990-1995 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used to examine differences in the patterns and determinants of residential mobility between high-poverty and lower-poverty neighborhoods among Latinos, blacks and Anglos. Householders of Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban origin are significantly less likely than…

Increasing numbers of low-income children are receiving regular nonparental care, yet knowledge is limited regarding whether child care settings meet the needs of low-income children and their parents. Using a sample of low-income, predominantly African-American and Hispanic children and families from low-income neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago,…

This study examines whether the effects of single-mother families (SMFs) on adolescent problem behavior are buffered by supportive mothering and the involvement of nonresident fathers and whether the effectiveness of these two buffers varies by ethnicity. Based on the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the authors find…