Since the days of the reform movements of the 1980s and 1990s, standardized testing has increased greatly in the public schools. The problem has become particularly acute in the wake of the testing mandated for accountability under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. States simply can not afford to jeopardize their federal funding. This article…

Universities in the United States and elsewhere offer study abroad programs to meet requirements that graduates have cross-cultural competencies and an international perspective on their discipline. Study abroad courses and field experiences for preservice teachers address two major challenges specific to the teaching profession: (1) how to…

Poverty is known to influence parenting values, parenting stress, psychological adjustment, and social support according to North American research. The purpose of this study was to determine whether poverty might work in similar ways in a collectivistic Latin culture. The participants were primary caregivers in two distinct communities in the…

The last half century has seen a dramatic expansion in access to primary, secondary, and higher education in many nations around the world. Educational expansion is desirable for a country's economy, beneficial for educated individuals themselves, and is also a strategy for greater social harmony. But has greater access to education reduced or…

A college acceptance letter has long been seen as the ticket to the middle class for students from low-income families. Simply getting into college these days is not enough. Where financially needy students enroll makes a difference--sometimes a big difference--in whether they will ever earn a bachelor's degree. This article discusses graduation…

Morehouse College, which has played a central role in shaping the nation's black middle class leadership, is valued as a producer of positive counterpoints to a society with negative images of black males. The academic program and current endowment goals of its new president are described. (MLW).

A critical task for public school teachers is to build and maintain productive relationships with their students, especially to facilitate learning. That task is particularly important in preparing new teachers for urban schools because cultural differences between the majority of urban teachers and their students can complicate and impair those…

This paper explores the ways in which working class mothers negotiate mothering and paid work. Drawing on interviews with 70 families with pre-school children, we examine how caring and working responsibilities are conceptualised and presented in mothers' narratives. Mothers showed a high degree of commitment to paid work and, in contrast to…

Australia has been one of the countries to most enthusiastically embrace the neo-liberal conditions conducive to the dismantling of equitably provided public schooling. The article argues that part of the explanation for the absence of any effective challenge to this trajectory lies in the contradictory nature of the Australian identity. The…

Even though enrollment in elementary schools and national literacy rates have increased greatly in India since its independence in 1949, the number of dropouts and illiterate individuals will also continue to increase unless the needs of the socially disadvantaged are identified and met. The majority of the dropouts and the illiterates belong to…

Dual-career analysis is misleading as a guide to actual developments in wives' employment and family economic patterns at different levels of the class system. Weaknesses can be examined through seven empirical propositions concerning the determinants of family employment patterns at various class levels. (1) Despite recent gains, married women in…

An examination was made of the antecedents to singlehood for black women, based upon questionnaire and interview data from a larger study of 56 black women who graduated from predominantly white colleges in a northeastern city between 1968 and 1970. During the past few decades, researchers have found that a high percentage of educated black women…

This study was conducted to observe the effects of social class on the interaction of mothers and their 12-week-old infants. Data on the infants' cognitive and attentive behavior was also obtained. Each of 32 white and black infants from five different levels of social class was observed at home for two full hours of waking time. Observed infant…

This article attempts to demonstrate that an individual's occupational goals become adjusted to the position he is in---blocked goals tend to become of less interest and available goals are of increased interest, which tends to decrease dissonance. The author's hypothesis is that middle class occupational status occupants over a period of time…

This paper questions the effects of middle-class student enrollment on the historical institutional mission of community colleges--offering access to higher education to groups who might otherwise not be able to attend college. Because higher education is viewed as a public good that also contributes to individual socioeconomic mobility, the…