"Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America," a report about the interrelationships among self-esteem, education, and career aspirations in adolescent girls and boys in today's society, received widespread attention on its release. The American Association of University Women asked the Academy for Educational Development to review the…

This anthology of creative works and essays paints a portrait of the rich and complex mixture of Latino cultures in the United States. The collection is broadly inclusive in terms of genre, discipline, and ethnicity and is intended for readers interested in any or all of the major aspects of Latino culture. The book is organized around six…

The cultural compatibility hypothesis suggests that black children attending an Afrocentric school (the culturally compatible condition) should have more positive outcomes, as indicated by ethnic identity, future expectations, and optimism, than black adolescents in a mainstream school (cultural incompatibility condition). Adolescents from an…

To make public education more democratic and to move toward greater social justice and inclusivity, it is necessary to respect diversity, and to examine difference and identity in the contexts of materiality and social class. Social theory must be built to integrate racism and sexism with class relations and illuminate how oppressive structures…

Racism is on the rise at colleges and universities around the country. This study was developed from a racial incident that culminated in physical violence at a medium-sized eastern university. This study used a naturalistic, qualitative approach to further understand the perceptions and feelings of white respondents in relation to racism.…

This autobiographical narrative explores the life and experiences as a parent (the white mother) of racially mixed children, identified by society and their family as black. The author's search is to understand her own whiteness, rather than to understand the blackness of her family. Her feminist perspective means that she examines race and gender…

The articles and excerpts in this collection illustrate the complexity of the melting pot concept. Multiculturalism has become a watchword in American life and education, but it may be that in trying to atone for past transgressions educators and others are simply going too far. These essays illustrate some of the problems of a multicultural…

This document includes: (1) a special report by the Office of the Chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education on the system's equity plan, "Excellence and Equity: A Plan for Building Community in Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education"; (2) an opinion piece titled, "The Problem of Black Students…

Papers from this year's conference reflect the Roundtable's theme of addressing cultural issues in an organizational context. Topics cover a wide range of institutional and organizational issues in corporate, educational, and treatment settings. Papers include: (1) "The New Corporate Language for Race Relations" (keynote) (Clayton P.…

This paper describes and presents the results of an exploratory study of six Vietnamese American students who attended an English-as-a-Second-Language class during their first year of study at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. The paper addresses the issue of the growing variety of cultures represented in today's college students by examining…

This study examines the racial attitudes of Black, White, and Hispanic students in a Boston middle school. Group and individual interviews were conducted with two Black (both female), two White (1 male, 1 female), and two Puerto Rican (1 male, 1 female), students who are enrolled in a new middle school with a multicultural curriculum where…

This book presents an integrated review of research on the issues related to children and ethnicity in pluralistic societies. It addresses such questions as: How do children respond to and deal with the differences among groups in both the observable characteristics and the less obvious values and norms? How do children come to understand the…

This presentation discusses basic cultural and educational values in the Afro-American community, setting these into the context of international African culture, both before and after the period of the European slave trade. Contending that blacks historically have been given "a second-hand education that was designed for other people," this…

Although researchers have investigated the development of racially-mixed persons of backgrounds other than black, little attention has been given to children of black and white parents. For children to view their mixed-racial background positively, the family must nurture both parts of the child's background by providing the child with both black…

This is the second report in a longitudinal study designed to examine experiences of black children adopted by white couples, black couples and single parents. Begun in 1970, the study plan is to follow a cohort of black children, adopted as infants or toddlers, through their childhood years until the age of 20. The present report, based on…