An interaction exists among cognitive processes, basic learning skills, and the cultural and social contexts in which they develop. Primary socialization experiences, those that children are exposed to in their personal, immediate lives, form a fundamental basis for cognitive development. In secondary socialization settings children acquire…

This paper attempts to identify key, recurring discourse activities and to develop hypotheses about ethnic or subgroup differences in discourse style that could lead to adverse educational outcomes. Data are drawn from ethnographic observation of 50 sharing time ("show and tell") sessions held in a first grade classroom. Different…

Six judges evaluated 20 randomly selected essays from a remedial writing program at the University of Houston to study racial differences in writing and the reasons for such differences. The judges, who were not informed of the race of the writers, examined the essays for the following writing features: free associations, redundancy (ineffective…

Despite the hopes of social scientists and civil rights activists that school desegregation would close the educational gap between blacks and whites, a full generation of effort has not resulted in parity between the achievement levels of black and white students. School desegregation alone is not the answer to ending achievement differences.…

Differentials in the use of preventive health care were investigated for a sample of 123 rural white, urban white, and urban black infants from data reported by their mothers. The data were compared on two measures of preventive care: immunization records and frequency of well checkups. Immunization scores were highest for urban white children,…

TO IDENTIFY THE LEARNING DIFFICULTIES OF DISADVANTAGED YOUTH AND TO DEVELOP POLICIES TO ADVANCE THEIR INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATORS MUST DETERMINE THE SOURCES AND CAUSES OF THIS RETARDATION. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CERTAIN IRREVERSIBLE BIOLOGICAL SOURCES OF RETARDATION, SUCH AS GENETIC DEFECT OR BRAIN DAMAGE, AND SOCIAL SOURCES WHICH STEM…

Based on the current definition for farm population (all persons living in rural territory on places which in the reporting year had, or normally would have had, sales of agricultural products of $1,000 or more), an average of 6,241,000 persons lived on farms in the United States in 1979, a drop of 2.8% from the 1978 figures. Whites constituted…

A study was conducted to explore the relationship of race and socioeconomic status to the learning of reading skills among ninth-grade black and white students in the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, city and county schools. Each student was given diagnostic reading tests by timed, untimed, and auditory administration. Socioeconomic status was measured by…

Compiled as part of a 4-volume comprehensive report of a Florida project designed to understand the rural poor and their information-seeking and information-utilization behavior patterns, Volume II served as a background document, describing the sample and providing basic information about the respondents. The sample population consisted of 840…

A research project combining ethnographic and experimental methods is currently underway to assess whether minority groups use language in ways that put their children at a disadvantage in school. The project, which focuses on social, cognitive, and educational consequences of different patterns of language function and use, has involved…

As part of the desegregation plan in the City of Detroit, teachers in recently desegregated schools participated in an inservice program to provide for equal instructional opportunity in the involved classrooms. Teacher-student interaction data were collected in each teacher's classroom using the Brophy-Good System. These data were transformed to…

Longitudinal data on the auditory forward and backward digit span (FDS and BDS) subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) were obtained at five age levels (between 6 and 13), in samples of white and black children. Factor analysis and analysis of variance of the data were conducted to test 5 hypotheses, related to Jensen's…

Educators can help students recognize the value of the motion picture as a social influence by exposing them to film stereotyping and the effect of this distortion on society. A historical study of the film image of the Negro will show him emerging from a humorous, fearful, "perverted" character in early films to "an unfortunate member of society"…

THE PRIMARY CRITERIA FOR JUDGING NEIGHBORHOOD YOUTH CORPS (NYC) PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS IN CINCINNATI, OHIO, DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA, EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS, AND ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, WERE COMMUNITY AND WORK ADJUSTMENTS. AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP COMPOSED OF 392 ENROLLEES WHOSE NYC EXPERIENCE WAS A LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR AND A CONTROL GROUP COMPOSED OF…

A total enumeration of elected and appointed officials, a 30% sample of business firms in each of 3 counties, and a 2% sample of the household residents (N=a total of 800 respondents living in a 3-county rural area of Alabama) were surveyed for purposes of comparing the attitudes of leaders and citizens toward public services and economic…