Describes a technique for the first class session of a course in Race and Nationality that uses a staged confrontation between a White professor and a Black student over a racial joke. Shows how the technique, in combination with student field research projects, provides an important link between common student experiences and abstract issues in…

Recent research on science achievement among disadvantaged students in grades K-12 is reviewed. Findings on effects of race, SES, and several classroom factors are discussed. Patterns of preparation and science career choice are examined from the perspectives of students' gender, attitudes toward science, and counseling of minority students. (MCK)

In 1982, the College Board published a statistical report that included tables profiling the differences among racial and ethnic segments of test takers. The data behind those tables are explored and a fuller explanation of the differences in SAT scores is presented. (Author/MLW)

This book is intended as a resource and an indispensable companion to welcome educators into the community of social science research. While it is recognized that some methodological frameworks are incompatible with others, the overarching premise of the book is to indicate how a wide range of researchers choose a methodology and methods which are…

This book questions the educational suitability of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in the classroom. The author argues that the book teaches misguided lessons about race relations. "Huck Finn's 'Hidden' Lessons" challenges the more typical understanding of Huck Finn and guides readers through an analysis that demonstrates how racism functions…

The Council of the Great City Schools surveyed its member districts in the fall of 2004 to determine the characteristics of school boards and board members in U.S. urban schools. This was the first survey of its school boards and this report contains the results of that survey. Respondents were asked to provide information on a range of topics…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of environmental conditions of adult literacy and demographics prevalent during infancy and early childhood on mathematics and language arts literacy scores on eighth grade achievement tests. This study collected published scores for eighth grade math and language literacy from public schools…

Many children in urban communities struggle with reading and writing despite efforts to implement best instructional practices. This book will help classroom teachers, teacher educators, and undergraduate students bridge cultural gaps to help these children achieve in literacy. The reader will enrich cultural understandings as they learn about how…

Utilizing 1990 and 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress data regarding mathematics achievement, students' backgrounds, and mathematics teacher practices, this paper examines race and SES (socioeconomic status) related disparities in student performance, beliefs about mathematics, and classroom experiences. Although overall mathematics…

A study of randomly selected faculty at Tennessee's public community colleges concluded: 50.8 percent of respondents favor collective bargaining, sense of power is negatively correlated with attitudes toward collective bargaining, and five demographic variables (political opinion, religion, race, sex, organizational membership) are significantly…

Artificial cumulative folders were constructed for eight fourth grade boys and examined by teachers. Each folder contained varied information on previous misbehavior, race, and parents' educational attainment. Results showed that teachers were most influenced by comments concerning behavior when judging whether the student needed special…

The Belief Polarity Scale, an index of racial prejudice, was administered to 76 educators of mixed racial background before and after an interracial human relations workshop. Analysis of variance revealed that polarity scores discriminated by race and that change in polarity was a function of pretest dogmatism. (Author/BW)

Career plans, based on responses to the Association of American Medical Colleges' first annual graduation questionnaire concerning the racial/ethnic identity of 1978 U.S. medical graduates, are reported. The data show that the six racial/ethnic groups follow similar general trends, though group differences do appear. (MLW)

In this study of black graduate students no significant difference was found between the two groups on mean graduate grade point average, retention rate, or graduation rate. There was a positive correlation between undergraduate and graduate grade point averages for each group within each of four fields of study. (Author/LBH)