This report summarizes key findings from the 2003 Massachusetts State Assessment of Adult Literacy (SAAL). Administered in Massachusetts in 2003 and early 2004, the assessment measures the prose, document, and quantitative literacy of Massachusetts's adults. The Massachusetts SAAL was conducted in conjunction with the National Assessment of Adult…

These Proceedings document an educational research forum held at Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) on December 6, 2006. Table of contents and 27 research studies of high school teaching are included. Studies include: (1) A Study of Teachers' Perceptions of High School Mathematics Instructional Methods (Caroline Adkisson); (2)…

This bulletin analyzes the relationships between violent victimization and violent offending across a 2-year period, using data for 5,003 juveniles age 11-17 years who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The bulletin looks at victimization and offending experiences in subgroups of juveniles classified by age,…

This publication describes "race-neutral" programs being implemented across the United States to work toward diversity in higher education without granting preferences based on race and ethnicity. Educational institutions will find that there are dozens of race-neutral options available and that the early results of these programs are…

This chapter describes a study adopting the findings from an investigation of the cognitive processing and knowledge requirements of individuals taking the Graduate Record Examination Quantitative (GRE-Q) Test. The study investigates subgroup differences such as major field of study, gender, and racial-ethnic backgrounds of students taking the…

The underachievement of a large and growing scale of African American children is nothing short of national crisis, according to Haycock (2001) in her research on closing the achievement gap. Haycock indicates that by the year 2010, Black and Hispanics will compromise approximately fifty percent of the school population. This is an alarming…

This paper describes basic facts regarding the black-white test score gap over the first four years of school. Black children enter school substantially behind their white counterparts in reading and math, but including a small number of covariates erases the gap. Over the first four years of school, however, blacks lose substantial ground…

What causes a student to participate in a survey? This paper looks at survey response across multiple surveys to understand who the hard-core survey responders and non-responders are. Students at a selective liberal arts college were administered four different surveys throughout the 2002-2003 academic year, and we use the number of surveys…

This monograph focuses on the literacy performance of U.S. adults in comparison to adults in other high-income countries, underscoring the fact that the overall U.S. performance is mediocre at best and that the U.S. is a world leader in the degree of inequality between the best and poorest performers. The monograph describes the National and the…

This issue of Graduate Focus provides a brief status report on ethnic diversity at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). It includes an overview of relevant institutional data and notes various issues, concerns, and current activities. In graduate programs, UCLA designates as underrepresented minorities domestic students of…

Affirmative action remains one of the most controversial of social policies in complex democracies. Altman and Promise (1995), in their article entitled "Affirmative Action: The Law of Unintended Consequences," focuses on the phenomenon that almost every action of government, no matter how well intentioned, has unexpected results. They suggest…

The publication of "The Bell Curve" by R. Herrnstein and C. Murray enraged many with its contention that black children are genetically less able to learn because of their race and its suggestions that some groups may be less worthy of the expenditure of attention and resources because of a reduced capacity for education. This collection…

The Community Justice Centres (CJCs) in New South Wales (Australia) are an addition to the justice system established and maintained by the state to deal with dispute and conflict in the community. The CJCs are designed to deal with disputes, such as those between members of a family or between neighbors, where there is a continuing relationship…

Attitudes toward pledging among college students were examined to determine if attitudes differed according to race or gender. Participants were surveyed at two locations including attendees from a Greek national convention and students enrolled at a large urban college campus. Results showed a significant main effect for race and gender but…

In 1996, law enforcement agencies in the United States made an estimated 2.9 million arrests of persons under the age of 18. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) figures, juveniles accounted for 19% of all arrests and 19% of all violent crime in 1996. The substantial growth in juvenile crime that began in the late 1980s peaked in…