In this study we examined parent and teacher agreement at the item level of the newly revised Child Behavior Checklist/1??5 (CBCL/1??5) and Caregiver?Teacher Report Form/1??5 (CTRF/1??5) in 505 preschool children from low-income and predominantly African American families. Parents generally rated more children as having problem behaviors than did…

This article discusses the promise of parents as advocates on behalf of family support and high-quality care for infants and toddlers. The authors note that parents organize around specific issues or immediate problems. Parent action grows from the bottom up--from community advocacy to national issues. Effective public policy promotes parent…

Five suburban community colleges in a metropolitan area collaborated on a survey to parents of high school graduates of the class of 2002 who attended the colleges in fall 2002. The study was undertaken to learn more about parents' roles in their students' selection of community colleges, to give insights and information about this important…

Decades following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), issues regarding the effects of skin color, poverty, and racial differences in the availability of protective factors persist. For a multiethnic sample of mainly African American (56%), female (69%), and high-achieving (65%) youths, a dual-axis model of vulnerability is used to compare four…

The aim of the study was to acquire a deeper understanding of how small children learn an instrument in the presence of their parents. It is qualitative in nature and concerned six pre-school children (five years old) who were learning the violin together and where their parents were present at the lessons. All the children's homes were visited…

State statutes and court cases involving Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) are examined to determine legal definitions of father and mother. While traditional definitions are not disturbed overall by statutes and cases involving use of artificial insemination by donor among married couples, complications and disputes between parties involved…

Children who are adopted internationally are at risk for losing their ethnic heritage, and social workers in the field have a vital role to play in minimizing this risk. By applying social identity theory to the case of international adoptees' ethnic identity formation, it follows that a positive ethnic identity is best facilitated by exposure to…

Focus: HOPE provides valuable, practical occupational training in machinist or information technology (IT) occupations to young people who face barriers to the development of viable careers through postsecondary education and training because of low-income, basic skills deficiencies, incarceration, or parenting responsibilities. This report…

A critical question in school choice programs is whether relatively low-income urban parents have the ability to gather the information they need to make good choices for their children. Choice is expanding, particularly in American cities. Without good information, the benefits generated from expanding public school choice (via No Child Left…

Although an established alternative form of American education, the concept of home schooling is just beginning to surface in China. Few Chinese have knowledge of home schooling yet alone consider this form of education. However, graduate students studying in the field of education are aware of this unusual alternative to traditional schooling,…

This study examined how youths' gender is related to the educational expectations of urban, low-income African American youth, their parents, and their teachers. As predicted, African American boys (ages 9-16) reported lower expectations for future educational attainment than did their female counterparts. Parents and teachers also reported lower…

Pediatric primary care provides an enormous window of opportunity to offer families information and support on their child's social-emotional well-being and on their growth as a family in a nonstigmatizing environment. With new technology, such as the Internet, and advances in the scientific study of early childhood development, parents face an…

What happens to unruly kids? Apparently some of them grow up to become college professors. The author recently attended a workshop with a group of professors who admitted to being rather incorrigible, until they had a significant learning experience facilitated by middle and high school teachers who let them know that resistance was futile.…

This study draws on in-depth interview data to discuss the school choices and educational advocacy roles of 14 African-American mothers. The narratives of the study's participants, who have low-income or working-class status, show how race, class and gender factors influence their school choice-making and their value of education. The author…

The absence of fathers during World War II had differing effects on the development of identity in boys and girls. Articles and research of the era discussed boys' separation from their fathers but largely failed to address daughters' loss of paternal influence. Evidence suggests that for both boys and girls, the problem was not primarily the…