Studied the long-term benefits of preschool programs for young children living in poverty in the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study, which examined the lives of 123 African Americans randomly divided into a preschool treatment group and a no-preschool comparison group. Cost-benefit analyses of data on these students to age 27 show beneficial effects…

Review of welfare reform legislation and interviews with low-income single mothers indicate that they experience dramatic benefits from completing college degrees but have limited opportunities and support for doing so. They lack role models and experience severe dislocation, disidentification, and class anxiety. (Contains 41 references.) (SK)

Analysis of annual county-level migration estimates indicates that in recent decades, migrants to the rural South have persistently favored areas with specific attractions: urban access, high-tech jobs, and favorable climates. As migrants are younger and better educated than the overall population, such patterns exacerbate rural development…

Identifies the parenting practices that mediate relations between persistent, recent, and transitional poverty and the externalizing and internalizing behaviors of children four to five years old. Results reveal that lower-quality physical environment, maternal emotional unresponsiveness, and fewer stimulating experiences contribute significantly…

Describes a 4-year school-community health improvement project which addressed fragmentation and underutilization of services among at-risk students. Surveys of and focus groups with participants were used to develop a population profile, set health and safety priorities, and guide program planning. The project increased parental involvement in…

Reviews implementation and effects of three child support reforms in Wisconsin to determine the child support policies that yield the greatest benefit to dependent children. Expressing child support orders as a percentage of noncustodial parent's income increases amount of orders and payments. Withholding payment from noncustodial parents' income…

The American public has never admired its schools and those who work in them. Things may have looked better when only 30% of Americans graduated from high school and the rest dug ditches. Charter schools cannot dispel increasing child poverty. The public should admit that schools are performing well and concentrate on helping them educate kids for…

Two studies analyzed representations of minority groups in child development literature and college students' attitudes toward race, ethnicity, and poverty. Found that the professional literature often helped to reinforce the stereotype of minority youth as the cause of social problems and that college students exposed to multicultural issues were…

Describes a California elementary school serving Hispanic students that successfully involved parents, businesses, and community members in improving school safety, refurbishing the neighborhood, and purging the area of criminal activity. Police and Korean-American merchants have contributed to multicultural celebrations, and PTA participation is…

Draws on ethnographic research to examine the effect of unsuitable housing for the long-term capacity of children to break out of poverty. Presents case studies of three young children (4 to 9 years old) to clarify the connections between housing, parental behavior and the children's sense of identity, trust, autonomy, competence and general…

Explores the social foundations and contradictions of formal multilateralism in education since 1945. Discusses the emergence of UNESCO in the 1950s-60s as mediator between developing and donor nations, construction of an ideology linking educational and economic development, the rise of "basic needs" programming in the 1970s, and the…

Illustrates the importance of "passionate detachment" (passionate about being detached from one's position on a topic) when addressing advocacy in the classroom by describing "Introduction to Social Policy," a course on poverty. Explains that the course aims at developing an understanding of poverty, not just a list of proposed solutions. (CMK)

Uses a new data set to consider the relative effectiveness of secondary schools in England and Wales. Once socioeconomic factors are considered, there is no evidence that students in Wales, whether taught in English or Welsh, do worse than their counterparts in England. Implications are discussed. (Contains 50 references.) (MLH)

Examines population change in the High Plains of western Kansas in terms of an internal colonialism-dependency model. Identifies a wide range of colonial dependent characteristics, including long-term population decline, high median age, highly channelized migration flows, and continuing outmigration of the region's most educated inhabitants.…

Outlines findings from study funded by the National College for School Leadership that explored effective leadership in a group of secondary schools in challenging circumstances. Highlights the key characteristics and features of leadership approaches adopted, and argues that the heads in the study operated a shared or distributed model of…