THE ABILITY OF AMERICANS TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY ACROSS SOCIAL CLASS LINES IS BASIC TO ANY EFFORTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. A STUDY OF THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF EDUCATION STUDENTS SOUGHT TO DETERMINE WHETHER THERE IS A TREND TOWARD A DISTRIBUTION WHICH MATCHES THAT OF THE POPULATION AT LARGE, AND WHETHER THE SUPPLY OF TEACHERS FROM LOWER SOCIAL…

This study investigated children's sex biased attitudes as a function of the sex, age, and race of the child as well as a geographical-SES factor. Two attitudes were measured on a 55-item questionnaire: Sex Pride (attributing positive characteristics to a child of the same sex) and Sex Prejudice (attributing negative characteristics to a child of…

Part one of this trilogy of policy briefs explains the challenge facing Texas in funding public education. This policy brief explains why a Texas-style personal income tax is the best way to meet the needs of Texas. Only a personal income tax can significantly reduce reliance on property taxes--cutting the school operations tax from $1.50 to…

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century control over their schools was central to the sense of a Catholic identity for English Catholics, and its defence was a priority of their bishops. The 1944 education act threatened the financial viability of these schools. Between 1942 and 1944 the divided and uncertain response of the Catholic…

Number sense development of 411 middle- and low-income kindergartners (mean age 5-8 years) was examined over 4 time points while controlling for gender, age, and reading skill. Although low-income children performed significantly worse than middle-income children at the end of kindergarten on all tasks, both groups progressed at about the same…

Popular culture today characterizes middle-class parents as being consumed with anxiety about their children. Drawing on more than 100 consumer reviews of baby monitors published on Epinions.com, the author examines how parents respond to that anxiety. Although Epinions.com reviewers are not representative of the population at large, they do…

Current proposals to assist middle-income groups with college costs and estimates of the burden to parents in different income groups are considered. Reasons for discontent by middle-income and upper-income groups regarding college costs are considered in relation to the following issues: the demographic squeeze, the temptation to choose high-cost…

As long as new programs based upon the compensatory model are advocated, and demands are made that the participants change to fit the programs, members of minority cultures will suffer. Suitable alternates to existing school admissions criteria would stop defining students in terms of deficiencies, instead focusing upon the positive aspects of…

The purposes of this report are to present the narrations of the slide-tape presentation "Cultural Differences in Industry," and a readers theater script "Understanding Cultural Differences," and to document and describe their development and possible use. These materials were designed as training tools for teaching cultural differences between…

This paper is concerned with conflicts which arise for students in the university setting as a result of having ethnic backgrounds different from the middle-class norm. There are a variety of ways in which an ethnic student can find himself in a classroom situation where behaviors which had evoked positive reinforcement in his subculture are now…

Leila Christenbury is well known as a writer and researcher in English Education: her classic book "Making the Journey," [ED437654] now in its third edition, has been a guide to countless middle and high school language arts teachers. In her new book, this veteran teacher and teacher educator reveals what did and---more surprisingly---did not…

This paper describes dominant discourses and practices which permeate English language learning and information and communication technologies (ICT). Through the adoption of a critical discourse analytic perspective, and drawing on New Literacy Studies research, it discusses how English language learning and ICT practices have come to take…

Pedagogical progress in the field of multicultural education moves at a snail's pace due to pre-service teachers' level of acceptance of multiculturalism and its tenets. Teacher candidates and seasoned teachers are simply unconscious and apathetic about matters of diversity. Pre-service teachers, primarily White and middle class, are mandated to…

In the June "Kappan," Marc Tucker summarized the "Tough Choices" report, the sequel to a report issued in 1990 by a predecessor group, which attributed the nation's low productivity growth in the 1970s and 1980s to inadequate American schools. The authors critiqued it and charged Tucker with trying to stampede policy makers into adopting reckless…

This study examined how parents influence sex differences in young children's physical risk taking behaviors. Eighty three- and four-year old, mostly middle class and Caucasian children climbed across a five-foot high catwalk and walked across a three-foot high beam under their mother or father's supervision. Based on average preschooler gross…