Describes a method for teaching sociological concepts in introduction to sociology courses that utilizes clips from the television show "The Real World." Discusses the use of popular culture to teach sociology and the various topics and accompanying clips from the television program. Highlights the advantages and disadvantages of this technique.…

This article describes the development and validation of a biographical data (biodata) measure and situational judgment inventory (SJI) as useful predictors of broadly defined college student performance outcomes. These measures provided incremental validity when considered in combination with standardized college-entrance tests (i.e., SAT/ACT)…

Using a sample of 15,885 adolescents derived from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined (1) unique additive influences of race, family, and community and (2) various multiplicative influences among race, family, and community factors on adolescent distress. Community characteristics such as community poverty and…

Social constructivist theories of race suggest no two measures of race will capture the same information, but the degree of "error" this creates for quantitative research on inequality is unclear. Using unique data from the General Social Survey, I find observed and self-reported measures of race yield substantively different results when used to…

Recently, there has been an emergence of literature on the mechanisms through which parents transmit information, values, and perspectives about ethnicity and race to their children, commonly referred to as racial or ethnic socialization. This literature has sought to document the nature of such socialization, its antecedents in parents' and…

Race or ethnicity, demographic, and disability factors were investigated as predictors of vocational rehabilitation acceptance. Severity of disability was the strongest predictor, followed by education, a secondary disability, race or ethnicity, and age at the time of application; gender was not significant. Acceptance rates differed with specific…

This manuscript provides a critical and comprehensive review of research on race socialization within Black families. Race socialization is defined as specific verbal and non-verbal messages transmitted to younger generations for the development of values, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs regarding the meaning and significance of race and racial…

Discusses Wichita (Kansas) School District's constructed policy to "create an equal footing" for girls of all races, ethnicities, and social class to become cheerleaders. Finds the policies were not successful. Highlights importance of peer-group affiliation in adolescent girls' lives and how this marker of identity intersected with a…

Relationships between perceived life satisfaction and family structure were examined among 5,021 public high school adolescents using the self-report CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Adjusted multiple logistic regression analyses and multivariate models (via SUDAAN) constructed separately, revealed significant race by gender effects. Living…

Public Law 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, represents the most sweeping reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since it was enacted in 1965. The goal of the No Child Left Behind Act is to improve the academic achievement of "all" American students so that they "all" meet their own state's…

This article discusses the inequality in public education. The core issues of educational inequality are related to matters of race, social justice, democratic equality, and the diversity curriculum. Many of these issues are only marginally understood or accepted as legitimate by most teachers, teacher educators, and administrators (of any race)…

This study sought to determine whether differences in future outlook among students in a predominantly minority, rural North Carolina High School were impacted by 5 variables: quality of counseling, race, gender, grade level, and academic performance. We found that quality of counseling and self-reported grades were positively associated with…

While actual, "objective" experiences with crime in school are very important, so too are "subjective" experiences with crime including cognitive perceptions of the likelihood of experiencing school crime and the emotionally-based fear of school crime. Moreover, objective and subjective experiences with crime (and the…

The study of curriculum materials is of interest to social researchers seeking to understand the social constructions of reality. All texts embody a number of purposeful choices about how reality is to be represented, and these choices have consequences for what is "foregrounded, backgrounded, placed in the margins, distorted, short-cut,…

This article talks about the future of family involvement in schools in African-American communities. The future of family involvement in the schools rests with today's teachers and parents who will take what they learned from the past, establish the philosophical foundations to guide their interactions, incorporate child and family theory and…