Improving educational performance, including narrowing equity gaps, is frequently touted as a matter of improving the quality of teachers in the lowest performing, often disadvantaged, schools. However, the assumption that teaching is of poorer quality in disadvantaged schools is largely unsubstantiated. Using the Quality Teaching Model of…

The analogy of South Africa as an ailing "organism" afflicted by chronic socio-economic inequality is apt as it captures the nation's manifest endemic abrasions and frailties, especially as it relates to the lived experience of its most vulnerable citizens (the precariat). COVID-19 has accentuated the plight of the poor, yet political…

Although education is a right, it still remains a distant dream for many of India's children (Where knowledge is poor). It is clear that it is not enough to make laws; they need to be augmented by more efforts. Education should be accessible to all if democracy is to succeed. Many communities and groups like disadvantaged castes and women have…

This case study uncovers how controversial issues such as the recent influx of refugees and immigrants were being addressed in upper elementary classrooms on the United States (US) side of the US/Mexico border. Public school administrators and sixth-grade teachers from two school sites participated. Transborder pedagogy contextualized the findings…

The development of early childhood education (ECE) in Europe and beyond is inextricably linked with women's roles and power in society. Towards the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century in a context of urbanisation and industrialisation the need for some sort of public childcare became apparent in many countries. Whereas…

Presents a study of the popular documentation and communication centers in Brazil which have developed to preserve the history of the struggles of the lower classes and to act as popular information services that fill information needs not met by traditional libraries. Social, economic, and political issues in Brazil are outlined. (Contains 10…

Defines literacy needs of immigrants in Canada, using personal stories to illustrate the destructive effect literacy problems have on people perceived to lack literacy skills. Questions are raised about implications for Canadian society as a whole and about the effectiveness of its English-as-a-Second-Language programs. (LB)

Argues that special needs education in Britain has lost sight of the relationship between children's difficulties in school and wider patterns of socioeconomic disadvantage and inequality, and suggests that special needs education is incapable of addressing basic inequities in our education system and within society as a whole. (Author/CR)

Focuses on pedagogical relationships established in three different Australian primary schools designated as disadvantaged schools and located in ethnically diverse working-class areas. Contrasts the schools' pedagogical responses to children in poverty and analyses them in terms of their capacities to contribute to socially just outcomes from…

The Gulf Crisis that erupted in August, 1990 brought Jordan widespread economic devastation, increased poverty, the threat of hunger, health setbacks, and other hardships. Just as the country's economy was beginning to pull out of a lingering recession, Jordan was struck by the economic embargo against Iraq, the influx of over a million evacuees…

Explores the situations of the following immigrant groups in Canada: (1) Caribbean Blacks; (2) East Indians; and (3) Filipinos. The combined contributions of these groups to Canada's work force and Canada's economic, sociological, educational, multicultural, and spiritual development are incalculable, yet these minorities face discrimination and…

Compares attitudes toward the homeless in Japan and the United States through a survey of 268 Japanese and 254 U.S. adults and adolescents interviewed in public places. In Japan, homelessness is seldom discussed, and poverty, which may be as widespread as in the United States, is often not recognized. (SLD)

This book examines how early parenthood differs historically, cross-nationally (in Korea and Sweden), and by class, race, and age in the United States. Contributors discuss how consequential is early parenthood for the future social and economic well-being of parents and children, whether postponing childbearing beyond the teenage years would…

This publication represents the first report tailored to a non-specialist audience from an extensive case study in the Philippines, one of five country studies selected as the first project of the Urban Child Program of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) International Child Development center. The Philippines study focuses explicitly on…

This is a report sponsored by UNICEF on the effects of economic and political transition in Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, on young children and adolescents. The economic theories and changes in labor and markets which have characterized European transitions in the past few years have paid little attention to issues of poverty and child…