The 25 selected papers contained in this volume reflect the current diversity of interests and research methods within the field of sociolinguistics. Titles include: "What is a Language?"; "The Unreality of Quantitative Figures"; "Addressee-Oriented Features in Spoken Discourse"; "Women's Speech, Women's…

Family and intergenerational literacy programs provide an opportunity to combine the agendas of adult basic skills improvement and literacy development in children. This overview of practice in family and intergenerational literacy programs identifies trends, issues, and concerns and offers recommendations. The first chapter presents background…

The English-only movement, which promotes a Constitutional Amendment that would make English the official language of the United States, represents a threat to the Constitutional rights of non-English speaking citizens. This nation's founders--faced with a linguistically and culturally diverse population--did not see a need to mention language…

Economic, educational, social, and housing patterns existing among the entire Hispanic population and among the different Hispanic heritage groups (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc.) in Wisconsin were examined using data from the 1980 Census of Population and Housing. Data showed that of the 63,000 Hispanics living in Wisconsin in 1980, 65% were…

The college careers of students who had participated in the Advanced Placement Program (AP) in secondary school were studied, based on extensive information on 4,814 students who participated in the Personal Qualities Project, a longitudinal study in nine colleges and universities. The project included information on 1,115 AP and 3,699 non-AP…

In 1985 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessed the literacy skills of America's young adults. The survey stressed the complexity and diversity of literary tasks in American society rather than using a simplistic single standard for literacy. NAEP convened panels of experts whose deliberations led to this definition of…

Americans generally lack foreign language competence, and their exposure to foreign languages in the United States is inadequate. Foreign language instruction is deficient in both quality and quantity, and although there are indications of improvement in both areas, it will be many years before the effects of improvements are clear. The…

The purpose of this project was to develop three mailing brochures that would describe the basic cultural differences that exist among the prominent bilingual groups in Eastern Pennsylvania. These brochures could be used to enhance the vocational education environment by providing the vocational instructor working with limited English speaking…

Students drop out of school for a wide variety of reasons. Programs to discourage dropping out must therefore accommodate the actual needs of individual students rather than aim at the assumed needs of the "typical dropout." This document reviews school policies and programs that could affect dropout tendencies positively. Among these…

This report focuses on effective urban schools in the context of desegregation. The introduction takes a retrospective and prospective look at desegregation in terms of: (1) progress since the last report; (2) the changing focus of equal educational opportunity; (3) an agenda for the 1980s; and (4) equity and choice. The second section provides…

Background information, units of study, and bibliographies that teachers can use to introduce students in grades 5-12 to a systematic study of worldwide human populations are provided. The first section discusses world population problems. The author stresses that developed nations must be concerned with rampant human population growth in the…

Two intermediate elementary schools in the Bay Shore District of Bay Shore, New York, were studied to assess the impact upon student achievement of a program in cooperative learning applied to mathematics, reading, and writing. The schools include the Gardiner Manor and South Country Schools; in the 1986-87 school year, 510 students attended the…

A collection of essays that explores the links among women and communicative power from a variety of perspectives, this monograph focuses on issue analysis and suggestions for future research. The articles and their authors are as follows (1) "Women and Communicative Power: Introduction" (Carol Ann Valentine); (2) "Genderlect,…

Analysis of data from the High School and Beyond panel study indicates that the willingness to consider single motherhood can be linked to the following: (1) nonconforming behavior; (2) educational opportunity costs; and (3) for whites and Hispanics, depression. This report examined 13,061 females from the 1980 sophomore cohort who responded to…

This paper studies the needs and strengths of rural schools with the intent of improving rural science education. It examines the history of rural schools, and posits a rural-to-urban continuum of characteristics, citing studies that indicate rural schools are more effective in some ways than urban schools. The paper looks at needs of rural/small…