Interviews with eight families showed that literacy materials and goals for using literacy differed between middle and working class families, with middle class families drawing on more resources to learn about the child's classroom. However, all families expressed value for literacy activities, challenging the myth that working-class families do…

The federal Hope Scholarship program, designed as a middle-class tax break, required substantial negotiation and diverse, often conflicting tactics to become policy. The story of the idea's creation and its journey to policy, based on interviews with over three dozen college officials, Clinton administration aides, lawmakers, and others is…

Examines the experiences of 89 academics who, in their choice of labor education and labor studies as a field, appear to be trying to maintain ties to the working class as a way to cope with alienation in the world of academia. Responses illustrate the role of social class in career choice and achievement. (SLD)

Results of a study in 20 middle-class households indicate that middle-class mothers, perceived as liberals who believe in integrated and inclusive education, still support segregated and stratified school structures that mainly benefit the middle class. The study illustrates how ideology allows parents to deal with these contradictions. (SLD)

Many white, middle-class teachers tend to dismiss their students' cultures and judge parental involvement by their own behavioral norms. Many nontraditional literary experiences occur as parents and children go about their daily lives. Teachers may also have limited views of parental competence, motivation, and home-school collaboration. Teachers…

Examined associations between early substitute care and White middle-class college students' psychosocial development and academic performance. No day care in infancy followed by full-time day care at ages two and four was best predictor of above-average high school academic achievement; part-time care throughout infancy and early childhood was…

Examines the struggle between dominant and minority groups in terms of the use of language. Traces the development of literacy as a means of social control in the United States and England. Argues that linking literacy with standard language creates an effective form of ideological hegemony. (FMW)

A study involving 38 male and 115 female undergraduates in a teacher preparation program at a midwestern state university examined the relation between self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs and achievement in reading and writing. Results indicate a generalized interrelationship between said beliefs and performance for reading and writing.…

Discusses cultural models, prototypical scripts that constitute the meaning of language as used by a particular group. Argues that the role of the second language teacher is to encourage students to focus on and develop beyond the cultural models of their home cultures and of the mainstream school culture. (FMW)

Reexamined relationship between sex-role differentiation and family socioeconomic status. Analyzed attitudinal and behavior data of high school seniors (N=5600) to determine validity of hypothesis that sex-role differentiation is more pronounced in lower socioeconomic status groups. Found sex-role differentiation greater among higher socioeconomic…

Compared gain scores of: (1) a group of middle-class children in day care whose parents augmented the day care curriculum at home; and (2) a group who received only the day care curriculum. The control group did not receive the curriculum. Groups exposed to the curriculum demonstrated greatest gains. (BB)

Critics, particularly the Reagan administration, have succeeded in focusing attention on institutions' spending habits, but economic and social conditions--not tuition inflation--are creating society's anxiety over college affordability. Four trends are at work: middle-income fears, college as gatekeeper, "portfolio-building" students,…

Considers Matthew Arnold's views on comparative education, the inadequacy of middle-class education in England, the need for a modern society characterized by "the intellectual maturity of man himself," the intellectual weakness and lack of "modernity" of his English contemporaries, and the role of state schools in effecting…

Using the Paternal Involvement in Childcare Index, examined father involvement in caregiving and the socialization of preschool-age children in 40 Thai and 24 American families. American fathers were more likely than Thai fathers to be involved in child care and the socialization of their children. (MDM)

This study compared literacy knowledge in preschoolers from low- and middle-class homes. Students and parents completed assessments and questionnaires about literacy activities. Results indicated that children from low-income homes were at a disadvantage in understanding written language. Literacy development also related to amount of early…