Motivational beliefs of children in grades 5 through 8 (ages 10 years, 9 months to 13 years, 7 months) were assessed in a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study. Children attended a nonsectarian, private school in which the method of evaluating academic performance changed over grades from an individualized, mastery-oriented approach to a…

Compares the cognitive development of four subcultural groups of boys (Black and White, and lower- and middle-class) in order to test Arthur Jensen's theory. Nine-hundred subjects were studied for four years, and memory, intelligence, learning and transfer measures were employed. (Author/RH)

The studies and policies of the U.S. Children's Bureau in the era of Progressive education benefited many children, but its emphasis on the middle-class family ideals and relative disinterest in poverty issues left a legacy with policy implications in today's climate of welfare reform. (SLD)

This study examined the joint association between mothers' and adolescents' ratings of parental behavioral control, and adolescents' and observers' ratings of mother-adolescent communication with adolescent problem behaviors. Findings demonstrate the utility of conceptually distinguishing between parenting and parent-adolescent relationships, and…

Examines fictional television representations of Black middle class success in "The Cosby Show" and nonfictional representations of Black urban poverty in a CBS news documentary. Suggests that these representations operate intertextually to produce an ideology which explains both by privileging individual attributes and middle class…

Subcultural differences in the types of stressors, coping strategies, and control beliefs reported by 32 10- to 14-year-old Egyptian Moslem girls from middle-class, country, and innercity backgrounds were investigated. Implications of findings for the study of stress and coping from a cross-cultural perspective are discussed. (SLD)

Schools' course structures and policies allow some families to garner the best educational resources. To treat all students fairly, schools must recognize privileged parents' racial/class motivations, infuse academic talk into informal networks, acknowledge "invisible" parents' aspirations, demolish communication barriers, and encourage…

Twenty socioeconomically middle-class mother/toddler dyads (half White and half African American) were video recorded during joint book-reading activities. Unlike an earlier study, most book-reading behaviors were similar between the two groups, although the White group used significantly more labeling than the African-American group. Results…

Observations in the infant room of a school-based daycare center for teen mothers revealed how "scripts" of White middle-class mothering were embraced or resisted by White teachers and (primarily) African-American student-mothers. Scripts of good mothering conflicted with similarly constructed scripts of the good student, emphasizing…

Examines the role of community colleges in the middle class's increased wages, the implementation of the School to Work Act, the impact of corporate partnerships, and the influence of global competition upon economic factors. Closes with a view of the central role that community colleges will play in the economic future of the country. Contains 18…

The English educational system is still being organized along social-class lines. Working classes have historically been "found out" in education--discovered to be inferior and less cultured and clever than middle classes. Findings from studies on higher education choice, secondary school transitions, and primary assessments underline…

The present study investigated the effects of situational (child situational emotions) and dispositional (child temperament) child variables on mothers' regulation of their own hostile (anger) and nonhostile (sadness and anxiety) emotions. Participants included 94 low and middle income mothers and their children (41 girls; 53 boys) aged 3 to 6…

We examined how mother-child emotional reminiscing is affected by culture, gender, and the valence of the event. Thirty-one Euro-American and 30 Chinese middle-class mothers and their 3-year-old children discussed 1 highly positive and 1 highly negative experience. Mothers and children in both cultures used a greater variety of negative emotion…

Market reform, financial decentralization, and economic globalization have greatly accentuated China's social and regional inequalities. Education is expected to address these inequalities in a context of rapid social change, including the rise of an urban middle class, changed status of women, resurgence of ethnic identities, growing rural to…

The ideal of the proper family mealtime, originally devised by the Victorian middle class, gained cultural hegemony in modern America, but with the partial exception of the 1950s, only a minority of American families could ever live by it.