The trend toward expanding the use of prisons and jails for drug and alcohol offenders, sex offenders, and mentally ill offenders is examined, as is the corresponding conversion of community corrections programs to a surveillance and control orientation. The differential impact of this trend on women, minorities, and the poor is explored. (SLD)

A peer counseling program in a 1,800-student inner-city high school (60 percent Latinos, 35 percent African Americans, and 5 percent others) appears successful when evaluated for the following: student knowledge acquisition; student evaluation of the program; students' impact on school and community through counseling sessions; and impact on the…

The problems of rural children are discussed. Rural children are threatened by many of the same social and health problems that urban children face, complicated by distance, which affects access to health care and other services. Recommendations are made to assure that rural children receive the services they need. (SLD)

Presents a scenario of telecommunications use in the future for a minority, single parent family in poverty in 2002. Categories of use are health information, education and training, shopping and finance, and entertainment. Infrastructure needed in the home and what this can mean for the individual are discussed. (SLD)

Using data from the 1986 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set, explores the relationships among current poverty, length of time in poverty, maternal parenting behavior, and children's mental health for 1,733 children of 1,344 mothers. Studies of children's poverty need to focus on family processes. (SLD)

Considers state and national policies directed toward the homeless. Problems with policies for immunization and vaccination requirements, transportation, parent participation, domestic violence, and home schooling are discussed. Alternative solutions that may be more conducive to the education of the homeless are offered. (SLD)

Evaluates a five-year university-school partnership/dropout prevention program involving Fordham University's Graduate Schools of Education and Social Services and five New York City public schools with substantial minority populations. Results show that absenteeism declined significantly, child care conditions improved modestly, self-esteem…

Influences of alternative policies that state governments and the federal government use to improve child-care centers and preschools are assessed based on a survey of 1,805 centers in 36 states. Center quality is generally higher in centers receiving greater subsidies. Implications of findings for policy in managed choice school settings are…

Summarizes the extent to which the literature has conceptualized poverty and self-sufficiency within the broader person-in-environment context. Findings from an ethnographic study of a multicultural community illustrate how residents redefine self-sufficiency in the context of the environment. Support is defined as a prerequisite for…

Using interview data from 42 working, lower- and underclass African-American female college students, this article challenges the primacy of the cultural argument that educational failure of African-American women is primarily the result of their adherence to oppositional cultural forms and a preindustrial sense of time that inhibits success in…

Argues that studies of socioeconomic stratification in Papua New Guinea have ignored or dismissed gender as a source of inequality. Educational opportunity is the key to wealth and political power. Data from censuses, fieldwork, and the literature show that rural women are the most disadvantaged group in Papua New Guinea. (SLD)

Noncollege-bound students (the "forgotten 42%") are more likely to be low-wage employees or unemployed. Minority-group employment outcomes are bleak, and poverty data, particularly for dropouts, are even more discouraging. Access to higher education has improved, despite higher tuition costs, but persistence toward degrees has not. (MLH)

An important civil-rights issue concerns educational enfranchisement. Wealthy parents can consider both public and private schools for their children, but poor parents must send their children to public schools nearest them, regardless of their quality. This paper describes New Jersey's takeover of urban Jersey City's public schools, explaining…

Surveyed 300 children and 300 teachers in Lagos, Nigeria to determine unmet needs for education. Reasons given for poor-quality education included poor teacher morale, poor parent cooperation, and poor child interest, the latter attributed to chronic malnutrition and illness. Suggestions were made for proper teacher training, adequate…

Critiquing Nina and Sol Horowitz's article advocating high-stakes tests, the author deplores deleterious effects of too-rigorous standards on poor students and recent immigrants. Without large-scale initiatives to affect their lives out of school, urban youngsters' prospects are dim. A National Research Council report offers testing guidelines.…