This report describes a project to develop more effective types of assessment in high school classes. The targeted population was high school students in two different middle-class communities in the northern suburbs of Chicago (Illinois). One site in a very stable, homogeneous community, predominantly white, contains 1,155 students. The other…

The central purpose of this book is to help leaders and professionals in government, education, business, philanthropies, and the media think about what needs to be done to ensure that minorities reach educational parity with the majority population as soon as possible. Chapter 1 discusses society's interest in the educational advancement of…

The educational edifice constructed largely by non-Indians to educate American Indians is described, and the responses of American Indians to that structure are explored. Indian movements to design and control the education of their own children are discussed. A review of contemporary research on Indian education covers the topical literature on…

To maximize the level of comfort that will facilitate an equal exchange of ideas instructors need to tailor their pedagogy to fit their audience. That means they must consider the extent to which their students have been exposed to computers. The University of Houston-Downtown (UHD) has a high percentage of "non-traditional" students.…

The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) and the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) were administered to 150 male and female college students from four ethnic groups (African American; Asian American; Hispanic American; White American) to assess the influence of gender and ethnic group membership upon ego and ethnic…

This literature review asserts that although findings indicate that children from a wide array of cultures and circumstances acquire similar mathematical understandings with little formal instruction, there is also substantial evidence that mathematical knowledge varies across social classes and cultural groups. The paper explores the literature…

This policy paper provides information about issues surrounding the education of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student populations, noting that preparing non-English speakers to survive in English-dominant schools and society is more complex than current policy debates would suggest. The paper stresses the need for teachers who can…

This book portrays what works in creating better educational opportunities and effective school reform for Hispanic Americans, offering a reflection on the bicultural experience of minority groups in U.S. schools and showing how and why educational reforms must seek to build upon rather than downplay the native culture and language of minority…

This collection of papers brings together scholarship on language, education, and society from all parts of the world, situating issues of minorities and bilingual education in broader perspectives of human rights, power, and the ecology of language. Part 1, "Language: Its Diversity, its Study, and Our Understandings of It," includes…

This book details a 3-year study in which lower-middle to middle class, white, black, and Latina middle school and high school girls were interviewed about their feelings concerning appearance, their eating habits, and dieting. The findings, based on what the girls reported, are explored and give insight into the influence of peers, family, and…

This book provides a summary of past and cutting-edge research on the acquisition of language by young children. It lends support to the behavioralist paradigm of language acquisition, namely, that maternal rewards and corrections should be integrated with perceptual, cognitive, and social learning conceptualizations in a skill-learning approach…

This report summarizes findings from three studies of college teachers' and students' attitudes toward and experiences with racial and ethnic diversity, which are based on surveys of faculty at leading U.S. research universities; a survey of faculty at Macalester College (Minnesota); and a case study of three interactive, multiracial/multiethnic…

This digest discusses the challenges facing first-generation students, and offers strategies for helping them to transfer to four-year institutions. A first-generation community college student attends a community college, and his or her parents have not obtained a college degree. Large waves of immigration have affected community colleges; many…

Multicultural perspectives on assessment challenge traditional perspectives by advancing an additional source of variation in test responses that is presumed to escape test developers and test users. Increasing and convergent evidence from multiple sources indicates the following types of ethnocentric errors in test development, administration,…

This digest describes ways in which professionals who work with students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds can create an educational climate that accepts and respects the language and culture of its students and empowers them to feel confident enough to risk getting involved in the learning process. Methods of creating such an…