The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), established by Congress in 1965, is a unique partnership of federal, state, and local government action attempting to provide every person living in the region with the health and skills needed to compete in everyday life and to attract new industry to the region, thus providing more jobs and a more…

Presented is a two-part study which represents a broadly based effort to assess the consequences of federal compensatory funds being targeted toward elementary students showing low achievement rather than only to those who were first low income and then low achieving. Part 1 deals with the technical issues of suitability, feasibility, and cost…

A study examined the ways a group of people experiencing poverty, poor housing, and stress assessed the impact of these factors on their health through participating in a course called "Health Issues in the Community." It involved people from a range of socioeconomically excluded areas and groups throughout Scotland in identifying and…

Expanded learning opportunities (ELOs), which include afterschool, summer learning, and extended day and extended year programs, can help states reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates. Effective elementary, middle, and high school ELOs support academic rigor, boost student engagement, and provide students with supportive relationships.…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has compelled states to design school accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this Federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents evidence on whether NCLB has influenced student…

Scholars have provided numerous critical analyses of the structural causes of poverty. Unfortunately, many teachers are still led to believe, via best selling books and mainstream discourse, that behaviors, neighborhoods, and families determine educational outcomes. This "culture of poverty" theory must be disproved; educators need to be…

Health literacy is important for all adults. Because lower health literacy is associated with lower educational attainment, many adult basic and literacy education programs increasingly provide health education to low-literate adults to improve their health literacy. Using data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), this study…

The adult education literature on disruptive behavior of adult learners was reviewed and a survey on disruptive behavior of adult learners was conducted with adult educators. The findings are synthesized in a conceptual framework for understanding the types and causes of disruptive behavior, which fall into the categories of inattention,…

This chapter provides an international perspective on the promotion of positive development and the prevention of risky behavior among youth. We discuss some of the specific challenges that youth face in low- and middle-income countries and identify six key evidence-based policies and programs that aim to promote positive youth development and…

Language and literacy skills are critical to success in school. For low-income preschoolers, increasing early literacy and math skills is vital to closing the achievement gap between them and their more advantaged peers. New research shows that an intentional curriculum and professional development and supports for teachers are important…

Four literacy experts lay out the evidence in this compelling book, based on the well-known Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development that inspired the landmark resource "Beginning Literacy with Language." Following a group of children living in low-income families from preschool through high school, the authors charted the students'…

Despite all the efforts deployed by the countries of the world and the vigorous mobilization of the international community, rural people are lagging far behind in education and are particularly hard hit by poverty and hunger. In developing countries, the slow progress towards universal education is largely due to the sluggish growth of school…

Critical career development tasks for adolescents include developing vocational expectations and a connection to the world of work. Given the sociopolitical barriers to the career development of poor Youth of Color, it is vital to identify contextual resources facilitative of their career development. The present study examines the impact of…

Research regarding the development of early academic skills among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students has been very limited to date. Using a nationally representative sample of AIAN, Hispanic, African American, and White children at school entry, the authors used latent growth models to estimate the associations among poverty, low…

Since the 1970s, the share of U.S. children growing up in single-parent families has doubled, a trend that has disproportionately affected disadvantaged families. Paul Amato and Rebecca Maynard argue that reversing that trend would reduce poverty in the short term and, perhaps more important, improve children's growth and development over the long…