Data from a 1994 longitudinal survey showed that parents' availability for school participation varied widely, depending on income and vacation benefits. At Princeton University, Alan Kruger and Diane Whitman concluded that smaller classes have greater effects on minority students' progress and college entrance-exam enrollment than on whites. (MLH)

Because of the scarcity of knowledge about middle-class African American adolescents, the present study explored psychological and parental factors in relation to academic performance. The participants were 336 middle-class African American students and their biological mothers. The findings suggest that for African American middle-class…

In this article, the author argues that women reformers are an under-researched influence on the school curriculum of this time period, their efforts having been eclipsed by myriad historical studies of the male professional leader. She presents an insightful analysis that interrogates the work of the woman's movement and asks how women sought to…

We examined family and religiousspiritual antecedents and correlates of current and intended civic involvement in 76 middle class African American late adolescents (M = 18.43 years) who had been followed longitudinally for 3 years. Adolescents' spirituality/religiosity and mothers' current involvement influenced the overall ratings and more…

This article raises questions about current educational reform efforts now underway in a number of nations. Research from a number of countries is used to document some of the hidden differential effects of two connected strategies - neo-liberal inspired market proposals and neo-liberal, neo-conservative, and middle class managerial inspired…

This paper focuses upon relationships barely explored in the sociology of education either in the UK or elsewhere that lie between the practices and processes of formal education and the aetiology (the 'causations') and development of eating disorders, specifically, anorexia nervosa (AN) in young women and girls. In so doing, it also touches on…

This study investigates four- to six-year-old children's conceptions of learning, by applying the lexicometric method to their oral responses to questions about their learning of drawing, in an individual interview at school. Interviews were videotaped and fully transcribed. Subjects were 26 children from a middle-class background attending…

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…

Children's socialization environments reflect cultural models of parenting. In particular, Euro-American and Chinese families have been described as following different socialization scripts. The present study assesses parenting behaviors as well as parenting ethnotheories with respect to three-month-old babies in middle-class families in Los…

This case study addresses a middle class family's role in their son's literacy development through an investigation of the socio-cultural practices that support his literacy acquisition. Rogoff's socio-cultural framework, which proposes three planes of analysis for observation of human development, is used for the analysis. The literacy practices…

This article reports on case study research of seven- and eight-year-old children's discourse about reading. The case studies were selected to provide classrooms in contrasting neighbourhoods within a white "working class" town in the North of England. Mixed methods were employed, but primarily the case studies were ethnographic in…