This article is a part of the "Why I Teach" series. The author has been immersed in the culture of Selma, Alabama for the past 15 months. The world knows Selma as a focal point of the Civil Rights Movement. Presidents and presidents-to-be have come here to commemorate the city's role in the struggle for equal voting rights. Despite the city's…

Differences in the proportions of students identified as having special educational needs (SENs) across ethnic groups have historically been of concern in the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the absence of student-level data has hindered investigation of the reasons for such disproportionality. The authors present an analysis of the…

Twenty-five years ago, the still-resonant report "A Nation at Risk" urged schools to add more time--an hour to the usual six hour day and 20-40 days to the typical 180-day ear--to ward off a "rising tide of mediocrity" in American education. Today, city, school, state, and national leaders are engaged in a renewed effort to do…

Few of today's teachers can remember an economic situation quite like the one individuals now face. To find analogies for the collapse of the housing bubble and the subsequent credit crisis, they have to search not their memories but their textbooks. "The Great Gatsby" and "The Grapes of Wrath" suddenly make more sense now. What will happen next?…

Purpose: This study examined past tense marking by African American English (AAE)-speaking children from low- and middle-income backgrounds to determine if poverty affects children's marking of past tense in ways that mirror the clinical condition of specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Participants were 15 AAE-speaking 6-year-olds from…

This article analyses the extent and persistence of child poverty in Portugal between 1995 and 2001. Data from the Portuguese component of the European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP) are used to estimate child poverty rates and children's flows in and out of poverty. The article focuses upon an analysis based on family income and on a set…

Purpose: Research shows that trust is significantly related to academic achievement. This study expands knowledge of this connection in two ways. First, because a stratified, random sample of elementary schools from an entire state was used, the results have considerable generalizability. Second, this study tested the relationship between trust…

This article reports the findings of a project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which explored the participation of children in out-of-school recreational activities. The experiences of children living in poverty were compared and contrasted with their more affluent peers. The aim of the project was to explore these out-of-school…

In this paper, we use the case of tequila to examine the potential for geographical indications (GIs) to contribute to socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. GIs are place-based names (e.g., Champagne, Roquefort) that convey the geographical origin, as well as the cultural and historical identity, of agricultural products. The GI for…

This article seeks to explore and understand the life situations of sibling caretakers in poor areas in Leon, Nicaragua. The every day lives for caretakers were studied through observations and interviews with children, informants and parents. The children themselves were satisfied and proud to be trusted as caretakers and felt useful in…

It is estimated that more than 12 million children in India under the age of 14 engage in paid labor at least part time, due mostly to economic reasons. Dominant discourses about childhood however conceptualize childhood labor not only as unethical but as exploitation. This article explored the tensions between Western notions of childhood…

Poverty, like other persistent social problems, has taken on new dimensions and scale due to globalization. This research examined 20 adolescents' explanatory frameworks for global poverty during their participation in an international studies program. International development theories were employed to analyze the range of their responses. The…

This article presents several questions, reflections and suggestions on pre-service and in-service teacher training that arose during the project "Curricular innovation and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa". While recognizing that the situation in the nine countries taking part in the project, and in many other countries in the southern…

This policy is the first manifestation of the state's effort to organize youth to volunteer in rural China where the help is most needed. It emphasizes key tasks that can be accomplished by the volunteers in terms of education and training for rural China, especially through science and education. The Promotion Action reflects the mission of the…

Using pooled cross-sectional data from the 1992 to 2005 March Current Population Survey (CPS), this study examines the relationship between minimum wage increases and the economic well-being of single mothers. Estimation results show that minimum wage increases were ineffective at reducing poverty among single mothers. Most working single mothers…