To date, knowledge of English in Latin America has reflected existing political and economic power structures. It has remained the preserve of the elite with access to private schooling, and as such it demarcates and divides social groups by reinforcing an unequal distribution of wealth, resources, and knowledge. However, the number of people…

In this article, the author compares the ways in which parent-child communication--a major indicator of parental involvement--influences children's educational achievement across 14 countries. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the author examines the extent to which social class differences in the effect of…

A teacher's sense of {instructional} efficacy has been considered a critical variable in student academic performance. Researchers Tschannen-Moran and Hoy Woolfolk (2001, p.783) defined teachers' {instructional} efficacy as a teacher's judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even…

Early definitions of cultural diversity focused primarily on race/ethnicity, with subsequent inclusion of age, gender, sexual orientation, class, religion, geography, and a combination of positionalities. More recently, social justice has resurfaced as a component of cultural diversity to explain experiences of people of color, women, and…

Using nationally representative data, this study analyzes the relative influence of social background and academic ability in determining the quality of the college attended. The results indicate that college quality, as measured by selectivity and affluence, is significantly related to social class, with this relationship mediated primarily by…

Most research on battered women concerns women of working class and middle class backgrounds. This study examined differences between poor and non-poor battered women and ways in which poverty mediates the experience of intimate violence. Subject data were obtained on 57 cases of battered women who killed their abusers between 1978 and 1984.…

A discussion of race and class interpretations of integration in terms of either a plurolistic or assimilationist perspective. (EH)

In this paper Puerto Rico's history as one of colonial oppression and a struggle for national self-definition is described. The divergent conceptions of patriotism, national liberation, and human freedom as voiced by leaders of the national elite and of the Puerto Rican working class are discussed in terms of traditional themes in the culture.…

This study was undertaken in a single school district to determine if variation in reading achievement levels was related to some social factors. The social factors analyzed included student IQ, student socioeconomic status (SES), teacher SES, school SES, and school classroom SES. Data was culled from the personal records of 1,522 students.…

The research data in this report were assembled as a basis for exploring the relationship between emotional distress or disturbance in both black and white adjudicated delinquents. The focus of inquiry was, for example, the relationship between emotional disturbance and being delinquent, the difference between black and white delinquents, and the…

The Echoic Response Inventory for Children (ERIC) is part of a test battery which includes the Expressive Vocabulary Inventory (EVI) and the Children's Auditory Discrimination Inventory (CADI), designed to assess language skills of disadvantaged children. These tests also seek to provide data that can help determine what changes in language…

Although universally acknowledged to be important, the relation between language and cognition is far from clear. While this paper also "sidesteps" this relation, it presumes that less elaborate language is linked to less differentiated cognitive activity. The study described here was aimed at collecting data on language usage for children (and…