Latinos make up 12.5 percent of the U.S. population. They are now the largest (and fastest-growing) racial or ethnic minority group in the United States, surpassing blacks, who make up 12.3 percent of the population. In higher education, however, Latino groups are underrepresented. According to the 2002 "Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac",…

There is little debate over Hispanics' need for viable organs. Although organ donor registries can potentially assist in alleviating this need, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has called on researchers to investigate methods to maximize such potential. This research effort answers the aforementioned call by surveying…

Increasing shifts in population proportions have led to an increasing demand on education institutions to recruit Hispanics. A random and stratified national sample was used to answer the following questions: (1) What are the psychographic typologies that are likely to identify Hispanic students by their desire to pursue or not to pursue graduate…

Recently, the author heard a white male talk show host on the radio discussing the "awful" plight of Latinas because their families don't expect them to achieve and don't have goals for their girls to go to do well in school and go to college. He believed that all Latino families wanted their girls to start families and be good mothers, aspiring…

The purpose of the present study was to review the stories of 13 academically successful Latino undergraduate students and explore the role that mentoring and sponsorship played in their lives. A qualitative analysis was conducted to examine the participants' stories using two main descriptors of mentoring and sponsorship. Analyses indicated that…

The year 2006 marks the 10th anniversary of the advent of the digital divide--a major societal challenge that, sadly, has been pushed aside and forgotten in recent years. According to "A Nation Online," the last major federal study on the subject published in 2004, Caucasian and Asian-American households were more likely to be online than…

Hispanics account for over one-fifth of newborns in the United States. Hispanic children, on average, achieve at lower levels from kindergarten forward than the non-Hispanic White majority and Asian Americans. Increasing the percentage of Hispanic children who enter kindergarten "ready" for school constitutes one of the nation's most…

Nearly all Hispanic adults born in the United States of immigrant parents report they are fluent in English. By contrast, only a small minority of their parents describe themselves as skilled English speakers. This finding of a dramatic increase in English-language ability from one generation of Hispanics to the next emerges from a new analysis of…

This study investigates the dialogic processes involved in how teachers talk about their students and what consequences their ways of talking (i.e., "narratives") may have for their guidance. We take a sociocultural perspective on learning as transformation of students' subjectivity. Teaching, as a process of guiding and facilitating learning,…

This article explores shame issues for Latino children who have been sexually abused and their families. Latino cultural concerns around shame that are associated with sexual abuse include: attributions for the abuse, fatalism, virginity, sexual taboos, predictions of a shameful future, revictimization, machismo, and fears of homosexuality for boy…

This article uses longitudinal data from approximately 2,000 low-income families participating in the national evaluation of the Comprehensive Child Development Program to examine the associations between preschool children's living arrangements and their cognitive achievement and emotional adjustment. The analysis distinguishes families in which…

Identifying an effective instructional intervention for English language learners experiencing reading problems is a difficult task given the vast individual differences in language proficiency, motivation, and school experience for these students. To address this issue, this study investigated the utility of brief experimental analysis as a means…

With the rapid demographic changes in the United States in general and in the state of Kansas in particular, educational institutions are challenged with a gigantic task: to educate a very diverse population with multifaceted linguistic and cultural backgrounds, needs, and challenges that is growing exponentially. To illustrate this demographic…

This paper documents changing patterns of concentrated poverty in nonmetro areas. Data from the Decennial U.S. Census Summary Files show that poverty rates--both overall and for children--declined more rapidly in nonmetro than metro counties in the 1990s. The 1990s also brought large reductions in the number of high-poverty nonmetro counties and…

This article analyzes a subset of data gathered during a survey of 155 school systems and communities across the nation. The data were obtained from a capability survey as part of the application for a Toyota Family Literacy Program (TFLP) grant. Educators and civic leaders in 38 states responded to questions about their five greatest challenges…