The development and validation of a measure of adolescent future expectations associated with work, education, family, health, and church/community participation is presented. The 25-item measure was administered to a sample of 389 7th- to 12th-grade urban poor and working-class Chilean students. Results of an exploratory principal axis factor…

To examine working-class women's attitudes and perceptions about the Women's Movement, a study reviewed 14 collections of interviews with low-income women conducted in the 1970s. Interviews were collected from a variety of sources--academic studies, books written for the general reader, and a large-scale study commissioned by a publisher of…

Interviews with six women from working class backgrounds, who had succeeded in higher education, identified common issues in growing up gifted and talented in the working class, the dearth of role models and mentors, the loss of connection with family and friends, and a sense of impostership. (DB)

Examined the gendered experiences of 18 working-class participants in higher education through the analysis of interviews related to schooling, later learning, students' views of higher education, and attitudes toward being working class. Findings emphasize the construction of masculine and feminine identities and the mediating effects of gender…

Variation in the parts of ASL signs (i.e., phonological variation) has been explained largely by reference to the influence of the preceding and the following segments. This article examines three linguistic variables in ASL: the sign deaf; the location of a class of signs represented by the verb know; and signs produced with a 1 handshape. For…

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…

Background/Context: With the growth of the small-school movement, many urban districts have restructured large underperforming high schools into new, small high schools or schools-within-a-school designed to engage adolescents in rigorous and meaningful learning along with strong teacher-student relationships. In the case of this study, the…

Decades of government interventions, an improved infrastructure, and support for industrialization have not resolved problems of persistent poverty in central Appalachia. This paper investigates characteristics of poverty previously overlooked in development initiatives and poverty research. In particular, it demonstrates the role of gender in the…

Donald Secreast, author of two collections of stories about life in Appalachia, discusses how his experiences growing up in Lenoir, North Carolina; his parents' lives as factory workers; and his escape into academia influenced his writing. His work presents "place" as a far more complex and conflicted reality of Appalachia than do other…

This article draws on data collected through two focus groups and eight telephone interviews undertaken as part of an evaluation of a local Sure Start programme. Located in the context of New Labour's valorisation of parenting, and specifically mothering, the article explores the impact of Sure Start policy on discourses of motherhood in this…

During in-depth, individual interviews, seventeen battered women involved in the public child welfare system discussed the effects of domestic violence on their children, and their strategies for protecting and supporting them. Most mothers articulated the detrimental effects of domestic violence on their children and coherent strategies to…

Suggests an alternative approach to the variable rule method of accounting for linguistic variability. This alternative approach, which is sensitive to social context and the relevance of meaning, is used to support an analysis of "-ing/in'" variability in some North American industrial workers' speech. (SED)

The objectives of this investigation were: (1) to explain why some high school boys are strongly committed to a college education and others are not; (2) to consider and clarify important issues involved in the shaping of boys' educational goals; and (3) to assess the accuracy of data on goal determinants that is provided by boys' reports. Some…

Through a discourse of diversity, specialism, equality and choice, selective schooling is again on the UK education agenda. A previous selection policy operated between 1944 and 1964. The argument that some children are more suited to a vocational education and others to an academic one is evident now and then. This paper focuses on the…

Purpose: This article analyses how higher education institutions (HEIs) have responded to government policy to increase the participation rates of students from lower social classes through their admissions policies. Design/methodology/approach: The article uses documentary evidence and interviews with institutional policy makers to examine HEI…