This book examines the interactions of Mexican and Chinese immigrant students with other students from the same country (co-nationals) and their exchanges of information about experiences in U.S. schools. Research focused on 74 Chinese and 78 Mexican immigrant students, aged 11-17, in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area, who received…

Purpose: This study examined the professional and research needs of distance learning librarians in higher education in order to inform program development by the Association of College Libraries Distance Learning Section. Methodology: 270 members of the section completed a 23 item online questionnaire on distance learning librarians' work…

Examined social network characteristics of 218 college freshmen. Subjects were of European American descent or of ethnically and racially diverse backgrounds (African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American). The study associated social adjustment with family support characteristics for the racially and ethnically diverse students…

Investigates how poverty, perceived economic status, coping, and defense behaviors interrelate. Asks if social support moderates this relationship, using sample consisting of 150 Indian men. Finds that perceived economic status is dependent on physical environment and income. Concludes that poverty made coping and defense behaviors more difficult,…

This article extends the ideas of social support systems to giftedness and disadvantagement, and presents examples of two intervention programs for talented, economically disadvantaged children--the Epstein Fine Arts Fund, and SMART (Science and Mathematics Advocacy and Recruitment for Teaching), both in Chicago, Illinois. A research agenda is…

U.S. federal policies do not provide a universal social safety net of economic support for women during pregnancy or the immediate postpartum period but assume that employment and/or marriage will protect families from poverty. Yet even mothers with considerable human and marital capital may experience disruptions in employment, earnings, and…

This article reports findings from a study exploring the roles of peer influences in cultivating urban high school students' academic success in mathematics. While the literature describing family/school influences on the academic achievement of students of color is compelling, much of it suggests that urban students' peer groups do not support…

Whilst the economic agenda continues to dominate adult learning policy, evidence from national surveys indicates that vocational and other learning opportunities continue to be unevenly distributed according to social class. This article argues that the concept of social capital can usefully be employed to increase participation for adults who do…

To increase student engagement and enhance critical thinking and deep understanding, I supplemented weekly seminar meetings with focused Web-based discussions of issues in a "Race and Education" senior sociology seminar. These Web-based discussions were structured by specific questions and discussion roles. Before seminar, Staters posted on the…

In this article, the author discusses issues involving women in higher education related to the promotion and tenure process. Institutions of higher education have always had the freedom to decide who may teach, what may be taught, and how it will be taught. As a result, courts have been reluctant to become involved in academic matters. One…

Effective learning communities connect members so that they can share knowledge and experience. This article examines the process and outcomes of building learning communities to increase faculty and preservice teacher use of technology through PT[superscript 3] funding at three institutions: National-Louis University, the University of Houston,…

This article demonstrates how sociocultural theories can be used to support strategic structuring of professional development activities for preservice and practicing teachers on technology use and integration. Examples are drawn from the authors' experiences with teachers in two professional development schools that participated in a four-year…

Problem: After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, it became apparent that there was little recognition of the problems of child abuse and neglect, professionally, legally, or societally. There were no effective systems or laws in place to deal with these problems. Method: Beginning in 1995 the Children's Mental Health Alliance, in conjunction…

In developing countries like India, the onus of development lies mainly with the government, which faces the predicament of multiple demands and limited resources. This leads to a situation where even fundamental objectives such as basic literacy for all are not met. On the other hand, there exists a vibrant private sector, which has resources and…

This paper describes an evaluation of a web-based consultation space (a dynamic frequently asked questions environment--DFAQ) in which learners consult one another using questions, and in which both the flow of interaction and its artefacts become a resource available to a community of learners. The DFAQ is a special form of a…