Argues that the anticipation or reality of pregnancy and motherhood shape urban girls' participation in their senior year of high school. Interviews and analysis of students' classroom talk and writing show frequent references to motherhood as girls plan ambitiously for their futures and worry about their children. The media's discourses of…

The Bolsa Escola program in Brazil presents a clear break from the economic growth models and supply-side based strategies of the past. Founded on the assumption that the supplemental income generated by child labour outweighs the potential benefits of primary education, Bolsa Escola attempts to address the demand-side component of high dropout…

America is a nation of immigrants, many of whom came as part of families, who left their home countries for different reasons to settle here. In the late nineteenth century, immigrants came from Northern Europe and then from Southern Europe, but recent immigrants tend to come from Eastern Europe (mostly old Soviet Union countries), Hispanic, and…

Teaching is hard, no matter where someone teaches. But for teachers in schools beset by poverty who have to find ways to motivate, discipline, and (with any hope) educate students whose odds in life are stacked against them, teaching is extremely hard. It is not surprising, then, that any effort to place additional pressure on teachers, many of…

Social justice in education demands, at the very least, that all students should have access to the same quality of educational processes, even if their outcomes turn out to be unequal. Yet schools in the poorest neighbourhoods are consistently adjudged to provide a lower quality of education than those in more advantaged areas. Based on a…

This paper presents a comprehensive review of Richard Rothstein's book "Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap" (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2004). The insights offered in this book are timely in light of the No Child Left Behind legislation that puts the…

This study examines student perspectives on their deferral and withdrawal from arts courses at Monash University during 2000. The research highlights a commonly unacknowledged difference between students in first semester and in second semester: it suggests that temporary and even permanent withdrawal in the early part of the academic year is most…

Over the past decade activists, academics, and policymakers have devoted a great deal of attention to "environmental equity," or the notion that sources of potential environmental risk may be concentrated among racial and ethnic minorities and the poor. Despite these efforts, the existence and extent of environmental inequities is still…

There are nearly one billion adults who cannot read and write, according to UNESCO statistics. Most of these are people living in extreme poverty, almost two-thirds are women, and nearly one in five is a young person aged between 15 and 24. The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) believes that there are five compelling practical reasons for…

Poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) present a recipient country's program of intent for the utilization of World Bank loans and grants to alleviate debt under the bank's programs of action for poverty reduction in highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs). This article argues that structural transformation is a prerequisite for poverty…

The emotional trauma of recent events may never go away. A million people were uprooted by Hurricane Katrina, including an estimated 372,000 children of school age. Three weeks later, Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas-Louisiana coastline, forcing thousands more to evacuate. Acute symptoms of trauma range from confusion, nightmares, and…

A former teacher with a message on educating children from poor backgrounds is influencing school leaders anxious to close the achievement gap. Ruby K. Payne is in demand for keynote speeches and seminars at annual conferences like the one hosted by the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. A million copies…

This article documents the prevalence and national profile of American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, based on data from the American Community Survey/Census 2000 Supplementary Survey. In 2000 there were estimated to be nearly 53,000 AI/AN grandparent caregivers age 45 and older in the United…

This paper examines the changes in the quality of life of poor households in Hong Kong in the late 1990s by analyzing their levels of expenditure, income security and poverty before and after 1997. Though there have been significant increases in the levels of expenditure among CSSA recipients, the expenditure among these poorest households in Hong…

The aim of this article is to talk about the possibilities of work-related adult education programmes within the context of developing countries. The focus of the analysis is on poor populations, particularly those dwelling in rural and marginal urban areas. The background comprises the challenges for productive incorporation, social exclusion,…