Correlations of home and school environment variables with the educational performance of 392 seven- and ten-year-old students in Northern Ireland were studied in 1970. Home influences of parent behavior, home literacy, and educational ambition were more important predictors of intelligence and reading/math attainment than were school and…

This paper examines the lack of familiarity that teachers and administrators have with the communities in which low-income students live and stresses the need to create linkages between the school and the outside world to help at-risk students succeed academically. There is a serious flaw in most community-oriented approaches and many contemporary…

Reviews findings from James Coleman's report, "Public and Private High Schools," comparing public and private schools with respect to curriculum, student achievement and knowledge levels, dropout rates, minority group achievement, and students' postsecondary choices. Urges Catholic school principals to provide a school climate that…

Social scientists have adopted two different views on the influence of the community and home on academic achievement of lower-class and minority students. The first is the deficit perspective, or the failure-of-socialization hypothesis. The second is the difference perspective, or the cultural-discontinuity/failure-of-communication hypothesis.…