Between 2000 and 2007, the representation of blacks among high-quality Army recruits declined, while in the Navy, black representation remained stable; the representation of Hispanics among high-quality recruits in both the Army and Navy grew during this period. RAND researchers identified factors that explain these recruiting trends and found…

Latino males are more likely to drop out of high school and are more likely not to finish college. While the number of Latino males enrolled in colleges and universities has increased in the last 20 years, it has not kept pace with that of other ethnic groups. In addition, the gap between the number of male and female Hispanics on the nation's…

While women have always faced gender inequities in the general workplace, the academic world has traditionally prided itself on equality and transparency. Sadly, despite substantial gains in the number of doctorates awarded to women and in their employment in academic institutions, there is still much room for improvement in the academy. The…

Recently, there has been an interest in investigating who have historically served in the American military, particularly during periods of war. These studies report that men from lower socio-economic groups tend to be over represented in military service, especially after voluntary service replaced the draft during the 1970s. Much work remains to…

The political arena, where historically women in the United States have been under-represented, provides an important laboratory for examining leadership and gender via the candidacy of now Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, who in 2008 was the first woman to run competitively for the Democratic presidential nomination. This study sought to…

Young females have "arrived" in regard to graduating from high school and attending and graduating from college. More females are currently earning PhD's than their male counterparts. Female students have been encouraged and nurtured to become a confident, task-oriented, organized group of achievers who are applying to college in record numbers.…

African American children continue to be overrepresented in special education classrooms. Despite this overrepresentation, there is a noticeable void in the literature concerning the family perceptions of special education and the impact these perceptions may have on parents' level of involvement. Therefore, this article discusses (a) African…

Each year, the apportionment ballot is used to determine how many representatives each division and state, provincial, and territorial association will have on the Council of Representatives. The system is described in Article V, Sections 6 and 7, of the American Psychological Association (APA) "Bylaws". Briefly, all APA fellows, members, and…

A controversial theory much in the news lately claims that affirmative action is often unfair to the very students it is intended to help. Called the "mismatch" theory, it suggests that underrepresented minority students are more likely to leave science, math, and engineering when, because of affirmative action, they attend colleges for which they…

Minority representation among police personnel, relative to the communities they serve, has long been advanced as an explanatory factor for the prevalence of negative police--public interactions as well as police agency responsiveness to public concerns, particularly with regard to the use of force. But minority representation has rarely been…

Across the United States, civic leaders from all sectors are working avidly to identify education and workforce strategies that can bolster regional economic development. One notable success story is found in Louisville, Kentucky, where a broad coalition of local leaders identified powerful educational improvement strategies and then successfully…

In the fall of 2008, the authors contacted a representative sample of over 3,600 high schools in the U.S., both public and private, to determine whether or not physics was taught there. They received responses from over 99% of the schools. For the schools which indicated they were offering physics, they obtained contact information for the…

The Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2004 (IDEA) was reauthorized to include accountability targets to address disproportionality in special education categories. While socioeconomic disadvantaged students were not identified as a target subgroup by IDEA, the goal of closing the achievement gap for all students has been at the forefront in…

For years, scores on IQ tests and standardized achievement tests were the principal means for determining whether or not persons were gifted. Early literature often referred to them as fluent, flexible, original, and elaborate thinkers; as persons who were extremely curious, sensitive, attracted to aesthetic values; and as individuals who could…

The influence of institutional grant aid on the enrollment behavior of college students has been the focal point of several empirical studies during the past decade. Yet, the extent to which this multibillion dollar per year grant-allocation process influences the matriculation choices of students deciding between multiple institutions remains…