Across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, the college aspirations of America's high school students continue to rise. Yet, in spite of their high aspirations, many students of color and many students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are underrepresented in the nation's postsecondary educational institutions. The under representation of…

This article presents questions regarding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) and its 2006 regulations. The author's answers to these questions are presented.

This article reports on how the Baltimore District tackles its high suspension rates. Driven by an increasing belief that zero-tolerance disciplinary policies are ineffective, more educators are embracing strategies that do not exclude misbehaving students from school for offenses such as insubordination, disrespect, cutting class, tardiness, and…

This essay explores the lingering afterthoughts of a meeting between two professional representatives from a "White" college, a middle school counselor, and a small group of Native American and Latina middle school adolescents. Ostensibly, the meeting occurred to discuss how one state college in the rural Midwest could enroll more…

Students of color are often underrepresented in gifted education programs. While many educators have sought to reverse or redress this issue, little has changed over the years. In this article, it is proposed that teachers, particularly those working with elementary students, must pursue cultural competence in order to recognize the strengths and…

For more than four decades, universities have used affirmative-action policies to increase the participation of U.S.-born women and members of minority groups in higher education, where traditionally they have been under-represented. Yet those policies, often applied in decisions about which students to admit and which faculty members to hire,…

This article examines how high school science and mathematics course-taking creates pathways toward future baccalaureate degree attainment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors in Florida 4-year universities using Burkam and Lee's (2003) course-taking categories developed using national student datasets. This study…

When asked to identify the greatest challenge he faces as the leader of the country's largest system of higher education, the author, a chancellor of California State University, states that the challenge is the urgent need to reach students from traditionally underserved populations--to prepare them and get them into college and then to make sure…

When women work in male-dominated organizations, do they form collaborative networks with other women or do they take on the practices of the male-dominated community they are a part of? In this paper, we explore how female staff and volunteer members participate within a male-dominated non-profit organization. We use communities of practice as a…

This paper argues that the increasing diversity of multicultural Australia is now troubling teacher education due to the under-representation of world English speaking (WES) student teachers of minority immigrant backgrounds. This is now a concern of national significance to education policy-makers and researchers. This paper summarises key…

The discursive practices of physical education reflect not only the expectations and constraints of discourses in the wider society, educational organizations and bureaucracies, but also the pervasive influences of working with and within sport. Within physical education, and specifically in the lives, work and careers of physical education…

Using the results of model gifted and talented projects in Ohio (32 during Fiscal Year 1992-93 and 31 during 1994-95), this report provides information to local education agencies to improve the identification of and delivery of services to students who are gifted. Alternative identification strategies such as using a multifactored assessment are…

This report was based on the responses of more than 1,000 school employees to a survey on the physical environment at their schools. Many of the responses revealed some startling building conditions, from students who have to wear coats and gloves in class to rats and mice entering classrooms through windows and cracks in walls. The report…

The purpose of this policy brief is to describe the usage and trends of discipline for students with disabilities in Indiana to help inform local and state policymaking. The brief begins with a review of national and Indiana studies, followed by data that illustrate (1) how general and special education students compare with respect to suspension…

"Residential Group Care Quarterly" is published four times a year by the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA). This issue of "Residential Group Care Quarterly" contains the following articles: (1) Whatever Happened to Sound Clinical Reasoning? (Elizabeth Kohlstaedt); (2) Minorities as Majority Disproportionality in Child…