This issue of WIN (Welfare Information Network) Issue Notes focuses on helping low-income mothers with criminal records achieve self-sufficiency. Section 1 offers background. Section 2 answers these policy questions: why states might want to focus on serving low-income mothers with criminal records; how states can encourage employers to hire…

The Duke Endowment's Program for the Rural Carolinas is a 5-year effort to assist the revitalization of rural communities. Guiding principles of the program are that the rural Carolinas matter, this generation of workers matters, effective community development involves the entire community, solutions must be locally determined, healthy…

This paper discusses the disadvantaged state of women in South Africa, including statistics that illustrate effects of their lack of status on their health and well being. It then focuses on the role in South Africa of the community library and information services in empowering especially women. Barriers experienced in information delivery to…

This book, a collection of articles and papers, reviews techniques and tools that can be used to evaluate the poverty and distributional impact of economic policy choices. Following are its contents: "Evaluating the Poverty and Distributional Impact of Economic Policies: A Compendium of Existing Techniques" (Francois Bourguignon and Luiz A.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between motivation and academic success for community college freshmen orientation students. Moreover, the study compared the relationship among specific motivational factors of students classified as either academically prepared or underprepared, as determined by ACT/ASSET scores.…

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics are used to look at Michigan's progress in meeting the challenge of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) that teachers be "highly qualified." The data also allow the study of whether all students in Michigan have access to the highly qualified teachers required by the NCLB.…

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with block grants to states, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Consistent with TANF's philosophy and goals, Los Angeles Jobs-First GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence) emphasized job search…

A study focused on results from seven of the earliest state welfare reform initiatives with some form of welfare time limit. Four programs--Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, and Wisconsin--- included benefit-termination time limits triggering cancellation of a family's entire welfare grant. Arizona and Indiana imposed benefit-reduction time limits,…

This book reports on a collaborative research project to evaluate the conditions in Porta Farm, an informal settlement in Zimbabwe. Of particular interest to researchers was determining how children felt about their status, what they faced in their daily lives, where they came from, as well as what their future aspirations were and what…

Minority groups encounter barriers to participation in boating and fishing and may not have equal access to these activities. Racial and ethnic influences on outdoor recreation participation are viewed from four theoretical perspectives. For each perspective, practices are presented that would remove or lessen socioeconomic barriers that constrain…

A study sought to identify the existence of neighborhood effects on school achievement that are independent of social class and family background among students from poor, rural neighborhoods. Ethnographic material yielded a concept of rural West Virginia neighborhoods in which residents expect their encounters to be friendly, informal, almost…

The state Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funds state programs to help low-income, uninsured children overcome financial barriers to medical care. Previous research found that rural children were more likely to be uninsured than urban children. This report examines the implementation of CHIP and related outreach, enrollment, and…

Examines how the junior college is used by groups who formerly have not entered college--those from low-income families, especially disadvantaged minority group members, and the academically less successful of all strata and races. (Author/JM)

The number of employed Americans increased but so did the number of those without jobs, as recovery from the 1980 recession proved to be brief; the family income of high-wage workers exceeded the poverty level, even when unemployed. (Author/SSH)

An authority on child psychology and social change describes how he and associates at Yale put their theories to a test in New Haven's ghetto and brought a school back to life. Discusses project funding, problems encountered, how these problems were resolved, parent involvement, curriculum changes, and the federal government's role. (CT)