Critical issues facing literacy educators working with women include honesty of their goals regarding empowerment; in what type of development should literacy play a role; elimination of the deficit or "rescue" perspective; literacy's contribution to the growth of community; and literacy as an instrument for the humanizing transformation…

The technique of phenomenography was applied to data from interviews with 20 workers having high school diplomas or less. Participation in organized adult education activities was found to be often other-determined, demonstrating that the concept of voluntary participation does not adequately address issues of power, authority, and control. (SK)

Task force convened by Harrah's Reno discovered students who work 15 hours or more weekly tend to earn lower grades, get involved in drugs, and drop out of school. Besides initiating voluntary work permit program providing positive work experiences for at-risk students, group devised mentor, chums, latchkey, self-esteem training, and parent…

Evaluates recent literature regarding schools' parental involvement efforts, chronicling programs describing diverse rationales and benefits for parent participation and presenting a taxonomy for classifying underlying reasons for low parent-school involvement. School-parent communications are the key to any intervention effort. Parent-involvement…

Offsets the depersonalization of the dropout challenge by taking readers backstage into the lives of students, the principal, and the culture of a North Carolina school addressing this challenge. At-risk students are progress oriented and need the security of structure and reliable adult behavior, the presence of caring adult leaders, and…

Staff at a Baton Rouge (Louisiana) elementary school devised an innovative program to introduce disadvantaged children to opportunities outside their ghetto neighborhood. The Discovery Expeditions plan attempted to address dropout prevention by increasing student awareness of resources and vocational opportunities in Baton Rouge and other areas,…

The article reviews efforts of the Campbell River, British Columbia, school district to integrate behavior-disordered secondary students into regular school programs served under the Rehabilitation Resource program. (DB)

While the Department of Education boasts lower of school dropout rates, graduation rates are also decreasing in some areas. Although the percentage of students graduating on time has remained unchanged, the percentage of noncompleters who eventually get a high school diploma (through a GED or alternative program) increases yearly. Inadequate…

Used the National Education Longitudinal Study database to examine student and school factors associated with dropping out in different grades. Results show that the mix of student risk factors changes between early and late dropouts. School factors can account for approximately two-thirds of the difference in mean school dropout rates, but do not…

Tested a model of a psychological process of college student dropout. Student surveys indicated that student satisfaction had a direct effect on cognitions about dropout, which, in turn, directly affected dropout behavior. The model provided a valid psychological explanation for college student dropout. (SM)

Discusses basis for Kentucky appellate court decision that state's no-pass, no-drive statute did not violate due-process and equal-protection clauses of the Kentucky and federal constitutions, but did violate the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, but nevertheless did not invalidate the statute. Explains why the decision is…

This paper addresses the issue of positionality in researching the researchers own culture and discusses its epistemological implications. Drawing on the researchers own field experience in which she entered teenage cultural space, this paper is an attempt at a self reflexive analysis of the relationships between the researcher and the…

Recent experimental evaluations have suggested little or no effect of batterer programs on reassault but are compromised by methodological and analytical issues. This study assesses program effect using propensity score analysis with a quasi-experimental sample in an attempt to address these issues. The sample consisted of 633 batterers and their…

Used longitudinal data from the National Survey of Children to examine factors explaining the higher school dropout and lower high school graduation rates in socioeconomically distressed communities. Results suggest that educational performance of peers is a key mechanism linking neighborhood disadvantage to youth educational attainment. Some of…

Kicked off the week of April 10, 2006 with a big plug on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," a new campaign spearheaded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is aiming to drum up public action to address what its organizers see as a crisis in America's public high schools. The Stand Up campaign comes as high schools have emerged as a focus of public-policy…