Background: Public schools in the United States are still segregated along cultural and racial lines 50 years after the 1954 Supreme Court's ruling. For example, Orfield and Lee, 2004; and Orfield, 2001) indicated that White student in the United States attended schools that were 80 percent White. Ethnic minority children (children of color),…

The Higher Education -- Students Speak II survey was developed by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC) and the Educational Policy Institute to identify the types and breadth of work-based learning activities that four-year college students experienced during high school, and to determine the correlation of these activities on…

This study examined the relationship of home and family, school behavior, peer relations, and self-concept with reading achievement among Head Start graduates. Participating in the study were 43 girls and 37 boys ranging in age from 8 to 17 at the time of the study. Two groups were selected. The first group, identified as resilient, had average…

This paper analyzes data from the 1989-90 and 1995-96 National Postsecondary Student Aid Studies to examine the awarding of institutional need-based versus non-need grants to undergraduate students. The study examines how the use of the different types of scholarships has changed in recent years; characteristics of students who receive the grants;…

Many dangers and challenges face inner-city minority children during their after-school hours. Youth development programs provide an alternative to spending this time unsupervised. We examined the relationship between children's experiences in selected urban Boys and Girls Clubs and child functioning. Because the sample (N = 296) consisted of…

This study explored individual differences in educational disadvantage-- deficits in formal and informal education in the school, home, and elsewhere--in the SAT test-taking population. Factor analysis identified six educational disadvantage factors--four concerning the students' schools and two the students' nativity and parenting--and one family…

Data from the Canadian Test of English for Scholars and Trainees (CanTEST) are compared to data from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) to establish CanTEST as a valid admissions tool for English-as-a-Second Language college applicants. Data are taken from four groups of examinees who took both tests. (eight references) (LR)

This article summarizes the scant existing research on the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on mothers and their babies during the peripartum period and describes a pilot research project within the Infant-Family Service (IFS) at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, an outpatient mental health service for inner-city families with…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new learning environments instrument designed to aid investigators and practitioners in measuring and researching the psychosocial learning environment in post-secondary distance education. Using a three-stage approach, the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) was…

This study assessed school climate for both interpersonal and intrapersonal character traits and examined the links between school climate and students' perceptions of safety at school. Sixty-four elementary and 159 secondary students completed questionnaires in the spring. Findings revealed that character traits were reliably assessed for both…

The failure to consider factors that make a key contribution to violence and its prevention may create serious problems of construct validity for school violence surveys. Further, few studies have assessed the relative importance of variables contributing to perceptions of safety by examining correlations between survey items and overall feelings…

Although scientific and technological developments are mathematics-based, many students continue to perform poorly in mathematics. This study investigated how students' mathematics self-concept (MSC) is related to their motivation to learn mathematics (SMOT) and gender differences in the two constructs. Out of 165,900 students in 256 secondary…

Standardized rating scales are the most often used part of the multidimensional assessment of children's behavior. However, low cross-informant correlations raise concerns about the reliability and validity of the resulting scores. This study examined whether the manner in which behavioral constructs are measured differs across informants, across…

The principles of psychology are an effective, yet underutilized resource within American schools. Teachers can take advantage of established interventions from the field of psychology and apply them to their classrooms in a realistic, straightforward manner, while still remaining in the role of the educator. A large part of cognitive-behavioral…

A large central government providing numerous public services has long been a hallmark of Swedish society, which is also well-known for its pursuit of equality. Yet in the 1990s, Sweden moved away from this tradition in education, introducing market-oriented reforms that decentralized authority over public schools and encouraged competition…