The economic and cultural plight of American Indians began when the first White settlers landed on the shores of North America. For American Indians, the "discovery" of America was the beginning of cultural and physical destruction, marginalization, discrimination, and impoverishment. The resulting gap between American Indians and mainstream…

The concept of critical media literacy expands the notion of literacy to include different forms of mass communication and popular culture, as well as deepens the potential of literacy education to critically analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power. The authors argue that critical media literacy is crucial for…

Helen Ladd takes a comparative look at policies that the world's industrialized countries are using to assure a supply of high-quality teachers. Her survey puts U.S. educational policies and practices into international perspective. Ladd begins by examining teacher salaries--an obvious, but costly, policy tool. She finds, perhaps surprisingly,…

In this article, the author discusses AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination), a program that enrolls the students who are most frequently marginalized in rigorous classes to prepare them for postsecondary education. The best predictor of success or failure in postsecondary education is the intensity and quality of secondary school…

The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) provides information about factors that influence student academic performance and social development. This report describes the experiences of spring 1992 seniors, focusing on their school environments, course-taking and tested achievement, postsecondary plans and occupational goals, and…

A study determined the extent of gender stratification in Finnish vocational education and labor force, especially in the transition from school to work. It used follow-up data that Statistics Finland gathered in 1990 concerning the labor force status of the 1985 school leavers and the level of their educational qualifications 5 years later to…

Essay and multiple-choice scores from Advanced Placement (AP) examinations in American History, European History, English Language and Composition, and Biology were matched with freshman grades in a sample of 32 colleges. Multiple-choice scores from the American History and Biology examinations were superior to essays for predicting overall grade…

This paper examines the cultural differences that arise because of disability, ethnicity, and social status and their impact on assessment practices, programming, goal setting, and the special education processes established by legislation, especially in light of the over-representation of minorities in special education. Suggestions for resolving…

The relationships between examinee background characteristics and performance on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test were appraised by a structural equation modeling analysis. The initial characteristics of 3,145 examinees (i.e., sex, ethnicity, parental education, geographic region, and age) had modest relationships with their…

This study attempts to build on research that has already been conducted to explore some of the factors that differentiate learning environments that may influence the academic achievement of Asian-American students. Their learning environments, in terms of parent guidance, teacher support, class order, satisfaction, and teaching quality, were…

A study compared how parents and teachers in the United States, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and Poland ranked in order of importance a list of 8 skills categories for 4-year-olds to learn in preschool. The categories were language skills, motor/physical skills, pre-academic skills, self-assessment skills, self-expression skills, social skills with adults,…

This study asked preservice and inservice teachers about their views on the characteristics of an effective teacher and sought to discern whether the gender of the participants influenced the responses. In Fall and Spring semesters, 1993-1994, undergraduates (preservice) education students and graduate students (most were inservice teachers)…

This study compared characteristics of adults with visual impairments who were either successful or unsuccessful in retaining jobs in competitive employment settings. Data were obtained from a database of vocational rehabilitation (VR) client cases collected from 1978 to 1986. The final sample included three groups: (1) a noncompetitive group of…

In order to examine the gap between Asian American over-representation in higher education and their under-representation in leadership positions in United States society, this study examined leadership in a Japanese American college student organization, the "Tomo No Kai (Tomo)." In particular it examined the role of personal qualities,…

This paper discusses the primary education system in England as a whole and the operation of primary schools in Leicestershire in particular. It also contains questions and answers concerning English primary education. The paper describes the organization, funding, and administration of English primary schools, which provide the first 6 years of…