This document consists of an overview and five papers examining the findings of a comparative analysis of literacy practices in urban and rural Australian communities. The study included case studies of 23 families in 6 communities and documentation of the literacy practices within the 9 schools attended by the children of those families.…

Data from the 1985-86 Peru Living Standards Survey were used to analyze the targeting of public education expenditures and the effects on enrollment of public school fees and reduced travel time to secondary schools. This chapter also focuses on strengths and weaknesses of using either an estimation-based measure of benefit or a…

Peer coaching develops from a leadership role on the part of educators of linguistically and culturally diverse (LCD) students, together with an interdisciplinary cooperation between bilingual/English as a Second Language (ESL) and mainstream staff. Peer coaching is a professional development method in which teachers share their expertise and…

This analysis of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA) and its implications for public financing of education and other children's services notes that voters want more and better education and related services, and at the same time want to pay less in taxes and balance budgets at every governmental level. The first section details recent…

This practicum was designed to reduce incidents of harassment among middle school students and increase their sensitivity toward harassment, through both the conflict resolution process of peer mediation and group exercises. To attain this goal the following procedures were developed: (1) a student self-assessment instrument and its pre- and…

The Chicago School Reform Act provided a rare opportunity for those who were involved in the development of the legislation to be primarily responsible for the initial implementation of the plan. The governance model of the Reform Act, which is the subject of this study, provided for an elected school counsel at each of 542 schools and maintained…

Ontario Rural Literacy is a special interest group of educators concerned with the particular needs of literacy programs in rural areas of Ontario. The group promotes awareness of literacy issues among the general public as well as providing support to member programs. The 12 members of the provincial steering committee represent all regions of…

The American dilemma, with regard to race, is posed as the question of how the nation can square its lofty ideals with the base realities of racial discrimination. This study, originally commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation in 1938, makes it clear that the struggle goes on in the hearts of all Americans. The root of the "Negro…

This study, originally commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation in 1938, makes it clear that the root of the "Negro problem" is the conflict between American moral valuations preserved in the American ideal and the valuations existing on specific planes of individual and group living. There is a jarring discrepancy between the professed…

This book for young readers explores ethnic conflict in the schools. Public schools in the United States are among some of the places where members of a country's different ethnic and racial groups are brought together and required to work together more closely. A racial group is a group of people who share certain physical traits and often share…

Opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual unions have based their arguments in part on the premise that children brought up by parents of the same sex face significant social and psychological disadvantages. Presenting a longitudinal study of 25 children raised in lesbian mother families, and a comparison group raised by single heterosexual…

Africentrism is a culturally grounded philosophical perspective that reflects the intellectual traditions of both African and African American culture. Africentrism is understood as an attempt to reclaim a sense of identity, community, and power in the face of Eurocentric cultural hegemony. Four orientations to Africentrism are observed: the…

Social cognitive theory suggests that individuals' beliefs about their efficacy in specific contexts, such as school, influence their motivation in those settings. The relationship between various sociocultural factors and the development of adolescents' perceived academic self-efficacy are investigated in this paper. Participants (N=202), drawn…

This book examines Polonia, the Polish ethnic community in America created by three giant waves of immigration between 1880 and 1990. The complicated history of this ethnic group is reflected in the lives of increasing numbers of Polish Americans, including recent immigrants brought by political and economic changes, as they achieve middle class…

The classroom environment that teachers provide for special needs students directly influences students' self-concept. To explore the scope of this relationship, students in homogeneous and heterogeneous classes, along with other environmental factors, were studied. Data was taken from special needs students in middle school, who either had been…